The blog post

What if a book could become an interactive coach instead of a static reference?

In this episode, Mark Graban shares a behind-the-scenes look at his experiment turning the award-winning book Lean Hospitals into an AI-powered chat assistant embedded directly on his website. What started as a Friday afternoon curiosity quickly evolved into a working WordPress plugin, a subscription model, and a new way to deliver improvement knowledge on demand.

Mark walks through how non-developers can use AI tools to write functional software, what he learned comparing different AI coding assistants, and why the real breakthrough isn’t the technology — it’s the ability to access proven Lean thinking at the moment of need.

He also explores the broader implications for leaders and organizations: Could AI assistants trained on your own standards and practices reinforce daily management, support problem solving at the gemba, and scale coaching without more training sessions?

This episode is both a practical case study in rapid experimentation and a thoughtful discussion about the future of learning, leadership, and continuous improvement in the age of AI.

Key themes include:

• Turning expertise into on-demand guidance

• Using AI to prototype software without coding experience

• Subscription models for knowledge delivery

• Point-of-use support for leaders and frontline teams

• Why technology alone won’t create a Lean culture — but can reinforce the right behaviors

If you care about scaling improvement capability, preserving organizational knowledge, or simply experimenting with new ways to learn, this episode offers a candid look at what works, what broke, and what might come next.

The blog post

In this episode, I explore the 1987 NUMMI Management Practices Executive Summary — a confidential General Motors report that documented why the joint venture between GM and Toyota was succeeding so dramatically.

What’s striking is how clearly GM’s own study team understood the real drivers of NUMMI’s performance. It wasn’t tools. It wasn’t discipline. It wasn’t copying Toyota’s production techniques.

It was leadership.

The report describes a management system built on mutual trust and respect, problem-solving at the source, quality built into the process, and supervisors acting as coaches rather than enforcers. Nearly 40 years ago, GM documented that NUMMI’s success came from management philosophy — not Lean tools.

And yet, insight proved easier than action.

In this episode, I walk through the document’s key sections, including NUMMI’s basic principles and five major management strategies, and reflect on why translating those lessons into broader cultural change proved so difficult.

If you’re interested in Lean leadership, psychological safety, or the origins of what we now call continuous improvement, this historical document offers powerful — and still relevant — lessons.

The blog post

In this audio version of the post, Mark Graban reflects on a rare kind of CEO message—one that treats safety not as a compliance checkbox or slogan, but as a core leadership responsibility and a living example of Respect for People.

Drawing from the 2025 annual report and CEO letter from GE Aerospace and its leader Larry Culp, Mark explores what it means when safety truly comes first in SQDC—and how that ordering signals what leaders value most, especially under pressure.

This episode looks at how safety is embedded into systems, structure, incentives, and daily management through GE’s FLIGHT DECK operating system, rather than being isolated in a department or reduced to culture talk. You’ll hear why safe systems surface problems, why speaking up must be protected (not just encouraged), and why safety is one of the strongest leading indicators of psychological safety and continuous improvement.

For leaders working to build trust, learning, and real operational excellence, this is a practical example of what “Respect for People” looks like in action.

In this episode, Mark Graban reads and reflects on his LeanBlog.org post, “When a CEO Talks About the Work: Larry Culp, GE Aerospace, and Real Lean Leadership.”

The post examines a rare example of a Fortune 50 CEO—Larry Culp of GE Aerospace—describing operational excellence not through slogans or dashboards, but through safety, trust, and small frontline improvements that compound into real results.

This episode explores:

• What it looks like when a CEO truly understands the work

• Why Respect for People shows up in system design, not values statements

• How safety, trust, and daily improvement drive performance

• Why Lean leadership is about behavior, not buzzwords

A practical and concrete example of Lean leadership in action—told through the words, stories, and operational details that CEOs rarely share this openly.

The blog post

Many improvement efforts stall not because of poor strategy or missing Lean tools, but because people don’t feel safe speaking up.

In this Lean Blog Audio episode, Mark Graban explains why psychological safety is a foundational requirement for continuous improvement. Drawing from his book The Mistakes That Make Us and decades of experience in healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries, Mark explores how fear, blame, and leader reactions silence learning — and how different leadership behaviors make improvement possible.

The episode also previews themes from Mark’s upcoming workshop at Shingo Connect 2026, including what psychological safety is (and is not), how it supports accountability rather than lowering standards, and why learning from mistakes depends on creating environments where people can speak honestly without fear.

The blog post

When Ford and UAW leaders traveled to Japan in 1981, they expected to find better machines, tighter processes, and technical secrets. What they found instead was something far more powerful: a management system built on listening, trust, and respect for people.

In this Lean Blog Audio episode, Mark Graban revisits the 1981 Ford–UAW study trip to Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda through the reflections of Don Ephlin, one of the UAW’s most thoughtful leaders. The visitors didn’t discover better workers or superior discipline — they discovered a system that expected people to think, speak up, and improve the work.

From the meaning of the andon cord to the lessons that later shaped NUMMI, this episode explores why Lean was never really about tools — and why respect, listening, and psychological safety remain the foundation of sustainable improvement today.

The Blog Post

Twenty years after Toyota Culture was published, Jeffrey Liker’s lessons still expose why so many Lean efforts stall — and why Toyota’s thinking continues to matter in 2026.

In this episode, Mark revisits a three-part podcast series recorded in 2008 with Professor Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way and Toyota Culture. Together, they explored what most organizations miss when they try to “implement Lean”: culture is not an add-on. It is the system.

This reflection connects Liker’s insights to today’s leadership challenges — high turnover, pressure for speed, tool-driven transformations, and the temptation to replace leadership with dashboards and templates.

Key themes include:

• Why Lean fails when it’s treated as a toolbox instead of a management system

• The “people value stream” and why development and retention are leadership work

• Servant leadership, the manager-as-teacher role, and the idea of “no power” at senior levels

• Why stability, trust, and psychological safety are prerequisites for continuous improvement

• How turnover, silence, and disengagement are system problems — not people problems

The conclusion is clear: technology has changed, but the hard work has not. Sustainable improvement still depends on leaders willing to invest in people, create stability, and build systems that allow problems to surface and learning to occur.

If you’re serious about improvement in 2026, this episode is a reminder that Lean is still a leadership test — not a tools deployment.

The blog post

How should organizations think about using AI in Kaizen and continuous improvement? In this AudioBlog, Mark Graban argues that there are no clear answers yet—and that uncertainty is exactly why AI should be approached through small, disciplined PDSA cycles rather than big bets or hype-driven rollouts.

Instead of treating AI as an expert or decision-maker, Mark frames it as a thought partner—a tool that can support brainstorming, reflection, coaching feedback, and clearer documentation. Used this way, AI becomes another input into the learning process, not a replacement for judgment, gemba observation, or human relationships.

The episode emphasizes what AI can’t do—build trust, observe real work, or validate improvement—and why those limitations reinforce the need for small tests of change. When AI is used with curiosity, restraint, and real-world validation, it can support learning without undermining the purpose of Kaizen itself.

The takeaway: treat AI like any other countermeasure. Start small. Learn quickly. Keep humans firmly in charge of thinking and improvement.