Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders

Description

Welcome to the Leanpub Launch video for Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders: Make It Safe to Speak Up, So Improvement Can Actually Happen (Lean Practice Guide) https://leanpub.com/lean-practice-psychological-safety by Mark Graban! 00:00 Introduction to Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders 00:20 Publishing a work-in-progress book on Leanpub 00:45 How this book builds on The Mistakes That Make Us 01:15 Why psychological safety matters in lean organizations 01:50 Psychological safety is not “soft” 02:15 Russia, Ukraine & the danger of hiding problems 02:50 Why organizations without visible problems are in trouble 03:20 “Shoot the messenger” cultures in business 03:50 Larry Culp, GE Aerospace & rewarding bad news 04:40 The hard business case for psychological safety 05:15 Lean tools fail when people fear speaking up 05:45 National cultures & psychological safety research 06:20 Amy Edmondson, Google & The Four Stages of Psychological Safety 06:50 Toyota, Japan & creating a speak-up culture 07:30 Writing and publishing before the title is finalized 07:50 Book title strategy: SEO vs intrigue 08:10 Possible title: The Silence Tax 08:45 Possible title: The Cord That Wasn’t Pulled 09:20 How subtitles clarify conceptual book titles 10:00 Using reader feedback and LinkedIn surveys on titles 10:30 Reaching hard-nosed managers through economic framing 11:20 Why conceptual titles performed better in surveys 11:50 Publishing in progress and updating Leanpub books 12:20 Final thoughts and invitation to readers About the Book Your organization has probably invested real money in problem-solving training. A3 thinking. Root cause analysis. PDSA cycles. Maybe even kata coaching. And the training was probably pretty good. So why aren't more problems getting solved? Here's what I keep seeing: the training works fine in the classroom. People learn the methods. They practice on case studies. Then they go back to the floor, or the clinic, or the office -- and the problems don't surface. Not because people can't solve them. Because people don't feel safe raising them. At one competing automaker's assembly plant, an andon cord got pulled about twice a week. At Toyota, that same cord gets pulled thousands of times a week. Same tool. Same cord. Completely different results -- because of a completely different culture around what happens when someone pulls it. That gap between "we have the tool" and "people actually use it" is what this book is about. The missing precondition Psychological safety isn't a soft concept you bolt onto a Lean program. It's the reason the program works or doesn't. If people don't believe it's safe to say "I made a mistake" or "this process isn't working" or "I think we're wrong about this," then your problem-solving capability is sitting idle. You've built an engine and cut the fuel line. This book connects psychological safety directly to continuous improvement -- not as a parallel initiative, not as an HR program, but as the precondition that makes everything else possible. What's in the book The first three chapters are about what's actually happening in your organization right now. The andon cord that never gets pulled. The suggestion box that collects dust. The gemba walk where everyone says "things are going well" and the leader accepts it. The employee who got fired for a mistake -- and then the next employee made the same one, because nobody fixed the process. If your problem-solving training is underperforming, these chapters will probably tell you why. The middle of the book gets specific about leadership behavior. Not philosophy. Behavior. What do you say in a daily huddle when someone admits a mistake? What question do you ask on a gemba walk instead of "how's it going?" What does it actually look like to reward candor instead of just tolerating it? I walk through modeling, encouraging, and rewarding the behaviors that build psychological safety -- with examples from Toyota, healthcare, GE Aerospace, and smaller organizations where one leader changed the conversation. The final chapters connect psychological safety back to Lean systems, handle the "nice vs. kind" distinction that trips up well-meaning leaders, and give you a way to measure progress. The last chapter is short: pick one team, pick one meeting, change one behavior this week. Why buy it now This is a Leanpub in-progress book. Chapters 1-6 are available now. You'll get each new chapter as it's completed, and the final book when it's done. If you've read The Mistakes That Make Us, this is the practical companion -- less storytelling, more "what do I do on Tuesday." If you haven't read it, this book stands on its own. I've spent years thinking about why Lean transformations stall. The answer keeps coming back to the same place: people stay quiet because staying quiet is rational. They've learned it's not safe, or they've learned it doesn't matter. Both are fixable. But only if leaders change what they do, not just what they say they believe. That's what this book is for. -- Mark Graban About the Author Mark Graban is an internationally recognized consultant, author, professional speaker, and podcaster. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus. For his full bio, visit www.MarkGraban.com. Mark's newest book is Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders: Make It Safe to Speak Up, So Improvement Can Actually Happen, available now on Leanpub while in progress. His previous book (2023) is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, recipient of the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award. He is also the author of Lean Hospitals and co-author of Healthcare Kaizen, both recipients of the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award. He is the editor of the anthology Practicing Lean, published through Leanpub, and published Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More in 2018, originally on Leanpub. Thank you for watching, please like and leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you! Please Subscribe and Follow! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leanpub X: https://x.com/leanpub Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leanpub Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leanpub Create Your Own Leanpub Book! 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