Lean Blog Audio: Practical Lean Thinking, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement

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Following up on my blog post about GE CEO Larry Culp's AME keynote speech, I wanted to share some of the discussion from his "fireside chat, absent the fire" (as Larry called it) with Katie Anderson (as we discussed in our podcast episode).

Blog post

It was a real treat to hear Larry Culp, the CEO of General Electric and CEO of GE Aerospace, speak at the AME 2022 annual conference in Dallas. He recently reached the four-year mark of his tenure as GE's first-ever outsider CEO (read the 4-year update that Larry posted on LinkedIn).

Below are some highlights and quotes from his 15-minute remarks, along with some of my commentary and thoughts.

Blog post 

A culture of learning makes the difference, not "low inventory"

Last year, I wrote a post that criticized those, including the Wall St Journal, who claimed that Toyota was "abandoning" the Toyota Production System or that strategically adding some inventory meant they were moving away from "Just in Time" approaches:

Toyota leaders, including my friend Jamie Bonini, were quoted in this new article by HBS professor Willy Shih in HBR:

What Really Makes Toyota's Production System Resilient

Did TPS hurt Toyota during the pandemic?

NO

Blog post - https://leanblog.org/audio321

Elon Musk tweeted this yesterday: "Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn't."

Blog post: http://www.leanblog.org/audio320

Contact me to talk about psychological safety - measure, learn, improve

“Simply put, we cannot get to zero harm without psychological safety.”

I wrote that as part of this page on the Value Capture website:

I've come to understand that psychological safety is a precondition for “implementing #Lean” or however you might say. Toyota seems to strive for (if not have) a relatively high level of psychological safety.

Episode #319 -- read the blog post that contains video of the webinar

A contractor unplugged my WiFi router.

Or was there more to it than that? Instead of blaming somebody else, what mistakes did I make that led to the Q&A section of my webinar being knocked offline?

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In this episode, Mark Graban breaks down a rare moment in mainstream business journalism: a Wall Street Journal article that actually does a respectable job explaining Lean. Using GE and CEO Larry Culp as a case study, Mark explores why the story stands out—and what it reveals about leadership, culture, and the real work of continuous improvement.

Mark walks through examples highlighted in the article, from simple but powerful flow redesign at a GE factory to Culp’s hands-on participation in kaizen events. He reflects on the WSJ’s surprising accuracy in describing Lean as a culture—not just inventory reduction—and discusses why focusing only on “just-in-time” often distorts Toyota’s system.

You’ll hear commentary on:

• Why “rewiring” GE mattered more than the later corporate breakup

• How tracing a steel blade’s 3-mile journey exposed deep operational waste

• Why Lean is as much about psychology and management as tools and layouts

• The importance of CEOs modeling improvement—not just sponsoring it

• How standard work, kaizen, and even DEI efforts connect through the same principles

This episode is for anyone interested in understanding Lean beyond the clichés—and seeing what happens when journalism, leadership, and operational excellence (for once) all line up.

If you’ve ever wished major business media would reflect how Lean actually works, this conversation might feel refreshingly close.

See some of that poor WSJ track record, including recent pandemic supply chain articles.

You're normally better off reading about Lean from the source.

Blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/audio317

Oh, how I enjoyed this article a month ago when it was sent to me. It's from 2003, but it was new to me:

Blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/audio316

I received a question from a healthcare leader who had read about the “idea card” format and method that Joe Swartz and I shared in our Healthcare Kaizen books.

She's asking about the “Kaizen” style and approach to continuous improvement.

I'll share some of my reply along with some relevant excerpts from the book.

Blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/audio315

I'm really excited to be hosting and moderating this webinar next week, the second in our new Value Capture Webinar series.

The title is "Applications of Lean Leadership Methods in Home-Based Care."