Mark Graban | How I Tested the Smallest Change
Mark Graban - Lean Management Expert, Author & Consultant
In this episode, Mark explains the idea of the “smallest test of change,” a principle rooted in lean thinking that can be applied far beyond manufacturing.
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Summary
In this episode, I’m joined by Mark Graban, he’s an expert in Lean Leadership, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement.
Mark and I discuss the idea of the “smallest test of change,” a principle rooted in lean thinking that can be applied far beyond manufacturing. Speaking of manufacturing, we sort of geek out on what we’ve learned from being around Toyota and seeing how they work in practice, not just in theory.
We also dive into why organizations reward people for sounding certain, how leaders unintentionally punish experimentation, and why psychological safety is essential if you expect people to admit what they don’t know.
Mark shares how he’s applying these ideas to his own work by testing a new book through iterative publishing.
If you want to learn more about creating a culture where people feel safe to speak up and use smaller tests to drive meaningful change, this episode is for you.
Takeaways
Start with the smallest test of change - something quick, inexpensive, and focused on learning.
Separate knowledge from assumptions by asking, “How do we know this is true?” before acting with certainty.
Psychological safety is essential for experimentation because people must feel safe admitting mistakes, asking for help, and challenging ideas.
Leaders shape culture through their reactions. Saying failure is acceptable means little if people are punished when a test does not work.
Even experienced practitioners can overbuild. Mark’s AI coaching experiment reinforced the need to test demand and usefulness before adding more features.
Guest Links
Website: https://www.markgraban.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgraban/
Transcript
David J Bland (00:01.176)
Welcome to the podcast, Mark.
Mark Graban (00:03.052)
Hey David, it's great to be here.
David J Bland (00:05.122)
I'm so excited to have you. I think we first met. my gosh. It was probably like two thousand ten or eleven in San Francisco at one of those really, really early lean startup events. And I was like, this guy knows what he's talking about. I should pay attention to him. And fast forward many, many years later, you know, I'm sure our thinking has evolved and I'd love to cover that today. But I was just thrilled that you would make time to hang out with us and our listeners.
Mark Graban (00:15.128)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Graban (00:26.127)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Graban (00:29.774)
Well well, yeah, it's great to be here. no thinking should evolve and hopefully I still sound like I make sense.
David J Bland (00:38.914)
Yeah, I think I you know, I I was thinking way back to the early lean startup movement and and just the people that were drawn to that, you know. And before I knew it, I was like up at one of the conferences giving one of those really stressful auto forward slide talks. I think you did maybe one of those as well, yeah. Yeah.
Mark Graban (00:58.7)
I would the the ignite format where yes, every fifteen seconds the slide so you better not cough or clear your throat 'cause you there's no catching up, right?
David J Bland (01:09.57)
Yeah, and I it I think that was still relatively early on in my speaking career. I had given talks other places, but I had never done that format. And I have to say that format in front of a thousand or so people i is not my favorite.
Mark Graban (01:24.334)
I've managed to avoid doing that format again.
David J Bland (01:28.558)
Yeah, but I remember I think I still have pictures of all us in the front row. from yeah, it must have been twenty eleven or twenty twelve. And and I I just remember hearing you talk about at the time you were testing, you know, healthcare and such. And maybe you could just give us a little bit about, you know, where your focus is before we jump into all of your, you know, philosophies on testing.
Mark Graban (01:37.593)
Yeah.
Mark Graban (01:53.516)
Yeah, I I've done a lot of work as a consultant in healthcare for twenty years now, but that's been based upon I mean, like, you know, the roots my my origin story with any of this goes back to lean manufacturing or, you know, I think I I made a meme once of, you know, the the the the old gray, black and white image of some fighter and it's like, you know, cranky of like, you know, there I was involved with lean before there was any startup in it.
So lean manufacturing is my roots. I mean, I started in the auto industry as an industrial engineer. So to me, lean meant, you know, TPS or the Toyota production system. And some of the lessons that I was able to bring into healthcare, you know, Toyota mentors of mine, you know, I've never worked directly, I I've never been a Toyota employee, but in my consulting world, I've gotten to work with a lot of former Toyota people who are are so generous and sharing.
What they've learned. And one of the most useful phrases right up the alley for for you in this podcast, the the phrase, the small test of change. So like when somebody's got like we tend to to value and love big grand ideas, and the Toyota people have a way of not trying to knock you down, but it's a helpful discipline to say what's the smallest test of change that we could do? Small, cheap, quick.
Because you know, it's f it's focused on on learning. So that's one of the things, one of the reasons I gravitated to the lean startup movement and what Eric Reese and and when I got exposed to the work of Steve Blank. And I'm like, yeah, this this is lean. This this it's lean in the in that thought process of scientific problem solving, experimental problem solving. And then you know, I think the philosophical layer is kind of getting
over ourselves and getting past the idea of saying, I know the answer, as opposed to let's learn what the answer really is by testing a change, testing a hypothesis, and you know, figuring it out instead of knowing and having the quote unquote solution up front. Like the other word that the Toyota people use in in they they're they're hesitant to say solution. They'll use the word countermeasure.
Mark Graban (04:21.443)
Which sounds as highfalutin as a hypothesis in some circles. But but you know, the idea of a you know, a solution sounds so definite, right? Like you know, as opposed to a countermeasure is something we go and test and we learn and we continue those cycles. So the build, measure, learn cycle, I learned it as the PDCA cycle or the PDSA cycle, plan, do, study, adjust. Like that's such a helpful discipline, I think, regardless of
Where we're working, what industry, big companies, small companies, what have you.
David J Bland (04:54.242)
I love that. Let's chat Toyota maybe for a little bit because I we've both had the pleasure of I think being around them and being influenced by them. And I I you know, I I remember it was early on, I think, in the lean startup movement when I we were at some kind of happy hour south of market in San Francisco, and someone younger, it was a younger crowd coming to the to the event, and they said they were like, When did you get in the lean? Like like it was like just the way they said it, I felt like
What? Wait, what kind of lean are you talking about? But it was just it was such a bizarre moment for me because I was like, wait, are you talking lean manufacturing? You're talking lean startup, like lean six sigma, which is a whole other thing, which I personally don't even subscribe to. But it it's you know, and and so when I was working with Toyota, you know, and and we met some of my teams, they they spoke up on the on the stage at early early conference and I've worked with with them since then. You know
Mark Graban (05:26.516)
Yeah.
Mark Graban (05:36.439)
Mm-hmm.
David J Bland (05:49.422)
So it was so interesting because you think about how great they are at lean manufacturing, although they don't call it lean, of course. but applying that to business, it is a different context. I I mean, have you seen that at companies where it's like, we get this, but now we're trying to apply it to maybe a new i business idea or product idea or service idea. And that's context switch. Have you seen folks, you know, grapple with that?
Mark Graban (06:18.327)
I think one of the biggest challenges is people's preconceptions about manufacturing. So it's easier for me to connect the dots between the environment of manufacturing and the environment of a hospital. Because if I'm working with a hospital, odds are I'm the only one in the room who's spent significant time in both settings. So people's preconceptions of manufacturing.
You know, the people think of it as, you know, if we were to play word association, you know, old, dirty, dangerous, outdated. It's what my grandpa did. you know, we're you know, mental models of, you know, think of like Homer Fred Flintstone, Homer Simpson, and Peter Griffin, you know, like basically all worked in like some form of manufacturing adjacent.
world like this is not a world that that people generally admire like it's just looked down upon a little bit and you know people think well what what what could we learn from manufacturing well we can learn a lot you know and I think when you view things in terms of processes and systems and mindsets and behaviors and cultures and
Yeah, I mean the these things are are incredibly transferable. But you know, I think people in healthcare, look, and I I I love people in healthcare, but you know, say, well, health healthcare is different. I'm like, well, sure. Yeah. know, hospital, you know, people say this to me with all seriousness, they'll look at me and say, the two things that I that I hear are, Well, Mark, you know, patients are not cars.
And and part of my reaction, I usually don't say this is like, I'd like to think I look a little smarter than that. I know patients aren't cars. And the corollary is, you know, the hospital is not a factory. Are you tired of it yet? I mean, but it's part of that's maybe a defense mechanism, and part of it is, you know, maybe, you know, a sense of professional.
David J Bland (08:12.929)
Yeah.
Mark Graban (08:36.769)
superiority for lack of a nicer way of saying it. But, you know, so I mean I'm I I'm I'm empathetic to that. But you know, you know, so well we're it's it's not about copying tools. Some tools translate really well from one setting to another, but like we're a lean application in the operating room is not going to put the operating room table on a very slowly moving conveyor belt.
Which is not going to copy that tool. And you know, if somebody did propose that, they'd get thrown out of the hospital real quickly because they're copying the tool instead of helping people adapt the thinking and the mindsets. And I think that's what the lean startup movement has generally done, you know, really well, is taking the thought processes and the mindsets and you know some of these cultural factors that that are really transferable. And
You know, the you know, I usually get to work with people in healthcare who are at least open to testing the idea if they don't fully believe yet that these ideas are transferable.
David J Bland (09:45.056)
I think I yeah, I wanna dig into that a little bit. I mean, I I don't necessarily often work with hospitals and in healthcare, but I I dabble in it. And things like checklists, you know, like checklists from even military or aviation, applying that same rigor to you know, preparing for a surgery or something. I th there are things you can learn from other industries for sure.
And but I think you you're touching on something here with the principles, maybe not so much the tools, but maybe like the principles of you know having a hypothesis, being willing to test it, gather evidence, get insights from that. I mean, coming back to scientific method even. I do think what I see people struggle with sometimes is they'll they might be very, very comfortable doing that, let's say in a manufacturing setting. Because I I do work with some manufacturing companies. But when we say,
Mark Graban (10:29.337)
Mm-hmm.
David J Bland (10:40.905)
Should we be manufacturing that thing at all? How would we test that? It it it is a bit of a shock to apply those principles on something that maybe they're not used to questioning.
Mark Graban (10:43.863)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Mark Graban (10:55.531)
Yeah, and I'd be curious again, like you know, like the knowing trap.
Are different business functions or people with different educational backgrounds taught to find to to know the answer? Are we rewarded for knowing the answer? Are we punished for struggling to figure it out? And and and most figuring out most problem solving is a struggle if we're gonna be honest about it. but yeah, I mean, you know, there there's I think there I'm like, I'm not a psychologist and
You know, I I I I'm not the only one who makes the joke about being a recovering engineer, but you know, I think engineering school was all about calculating the answer. And like the real world is way messier than that. So learning to work through the ambiguity, the messiness of iterative problem solving, it's okay to iterate. You don't have to develop the perfect countermeasure or product or solution right away.
I th I think some of that is maybe a little self-imposed. But then there are the organizational dynamics, you know, that I'm I'm a little bit more experienced with, or or thinking about, you know, how do leaders react? How does the organization react when somebody says, I don't know, or when someone says, let's go test that, or when someone says, We tested it and it didn't work out the way.
We predict it that either gets rewarded or it gets punished. And you know, it's it's it's not hard to figure out that punishing those things really, you know, stifles improvement, it stifles innovation, it it stifles the organization. So there's there's a lot of managerial habits. you know, we crave certainty, we reward, you know, people for for being you know.
Mark Graban (12:57.153)
Sounding really confident, like what's the expression of, you know, somebody's sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but never in doubt. You know, organizations tend to respond. They call that executive presence, I think in some circles. so a lot of this is imposed on us by organizations where people learn very quickly, well, if I get punished for saying I don't know, I'm gonna pretend to know.
And if I get punished for trying something that doesn't work, I'm either gonna learn to place really really safe bets. You know, somebody I've worked with along the way, you know, has taught me if you if you know the outcome of an experiment in advance, it's not an experiment. And you know, people will either get really cautious or people will start fudging the results. And like if you say failure is not an option, well then hell, I'm gonna.
make everything look like a success, even if it's really a failure. And that that's a problem, that's a problem in a lot of organizations. And you know, I'm even reminded, you know, of a mentor of mine in healthcare. You know, he talked about when when he was working in his training, you know, he would carry this guidebook in his pocket. And he got chastised, you know, because the the idea was well you're a doctor. You should have everything memorized.
Like, well, that sounds dumb as an outsider. Like, how could you possibly memorize everything? And yeah, I actually I even once had a doctor like leave the room in the middle of my patient encounter with them, and they came back in and literally apologized and said, I had to go look something up. And I made a point of saying, Well, that's okay, and thank you. And I'd rather you take a minute to look it up than guess and and maybe be wrong. But you know, I think we've all had managers or executives that
that punish the uncertainty or punish the admission of not knowing or having to figure it out.
David J Bland (14:54.635)
Yeah, there's so much to unpack there. I think what I'm hearing you say is, yeah, I I might be able to apply these techniques and tools and this thinking in a very confined, structured situation where I'm not punished for getting it wrong. And then you kind of take me out of that and say, Hey, should we be working on this at all? How would we know? And it's like, wait, wait, I I don't I I it so it comes out in different ways. Even with the lean startup movement, you know, it
It's starting to seep in early on of you have to come up with your assumptions. Okay. Well, I don't want to get that wrong, or I have to prioritize them. I want to get it right the first time. I said, You're not going to get it right the first time. There's no way of knowing all the assumptions in this work and being able to prioritize it exactly right. It's going to be a little wrong, and that's okay. We're going to go find out and come back. And that's to your to your statement about iteration. People are if you're not rewarded for that, the behaviors become, I have to get that map right.
Mark Graban (15:43.607)
Right.
David J Bland (15:52.587)
And when I design my experiment, I'm gonna set the success criteria so low that I can just hop over that, or I can make it look like a success no matter what. Or maybe I make it a really, really long running experiment so that you know maybe it'll never finish and we'll move on. The priorities will change before it's done. Like I watched all these behaviors creep in and I think it surprised me early on because I thought, no, wait, this is a new way of working, and we're gonna resolve all of this. But it's really not that, not that simple.
Mark Graban (16:07.597)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Graban (16:22.807)
No, and and again, like going back to roots in the Toyota production system. You know, I hear mentors in in in in my head reminding me the difference between knowledge and an assumption. And yeah, I mean, we it would be better to have knowledge than assumptions. But if you if you're making an assumption, it's better to state it and then think, well, how would we test that assumption? That's lean startup language. That's that's that's your
language and that's it's rooted in you know the the industrial base and that's why I think it is very legitimate to call this you know this to call it lean startup because of because of those mindsets. you know it's not lean in terms of you know not having enough for the the all the problems with the word lean. That's maybe that's a conversation for another day. But the point I was gonna make is you know the Toyota people would ask basically, you know, if you say you know something, how do you know that to be true?
David J Bland (17:20.709)
No worries, I'll make a note.
Mark Graban (17:37.742)
Not in a dickish way, but like in a constructive, like, let's explore that. You say green is going to be the hot new color for cars next year. How do you know that to be true? It might be a prediction. It might be, you know, I mean, who knows? But yeah. It's good to separate. And and I agree with you, David. there are times where our assumption is a placeholder.
It's better to acknowledge that than to pretend like it's certainty and knowledge.
David J Bland (18:12.196)
Yeah, I agree. And it's that question of how do you know or what evidence do you have? I think this is why I end up changing a lot of my tools over the years was I just want to get to the root of that question of how do you know? It's like I'm certain. Well, why are you certain? I just know. Well, no, that doesn't work. So what what is the evidence behind you being certain? And I've heard everything from we just did this really deep research last week and we have relevant information to
Mark Graban (18:29.625)
Well, yeah.
David J Bland (18:41.104)
my nephew thought it was a good idea. And this was a VP of a very successful Silicon Valley company. And I thought, we're making a hundred million dollar bet on what your nephew would like to see. And that sounds absurd when I say it out loud, but the a lot of that stuff is happening inside companies until we surface it. And I think when it comes to when you said I don't know, that's one of my favorite things to go into a company and ask leadership teams, like, when's the last time you said I don't know in front of your your team, in front of your people?
And you'll see this really different reaction. Some people will say, I just said that yesterday at a meeting and it was fine. And others will say, I will never say that. And I was like, okay. So this is where I'm just trying to do a temperature, you know, check here on who I'm who I'm working with. And there are folks who have been rewarded for being right there through school, through early career, through late career. And it's really a shock to their system to say, yeah, just say I don't know in front of your peers.
Mark Graban (19:21.63)
yeah.
Mark Graban (19:37.528)
I I heard somebody once say basically, I can't say I don't know because my employees will lose respect for me. Like, that's an assumption we could check too, right? I mean, you do you know that? How do you I mean like people know you're not perfect. You're not exactly bursting the bubble of infallibility. But I mean, I think it's interesting. Sometimes people you know, maybe it's a founder privilege or C-suite privilege of, you know, the
They'll they'll they'll preach that, well, we want the organization to be data driven and lean and and then they don't they don't practice the same things themselves. They get to go run on a hunch. They get to just make decisions because, it's just I know, my experience, my gut. I mean I I I mean, I guess if you're placing a big enough bet and you're wrong, you might get fired, but the higher up you are, you know, the it's not it's not gonna ruin your career.
I might just push you into a nice cushy retirement earlier than you wanted. But you know, sometimes, you know, executives don't always have to practice what they preach, I guess. But if these are good ideas, they should be good ideas for CEOs, right?
David J Bland (20:46.346)
Yeah, something I learned, I think, early on I I've been I don't know. I I've been crazy enough, you guess you could say, to to lead transformation work in the past. And you know what I noticed was you know, you bring it you get you brought into the board and C suite and they're like, hey, we want to do this thing and we want we want to be more lean and all all that. Okay, yeah. And what you notice in the org, if you think of your org hierarchy
At the bottom, these behaviors start changing at the team level because we're doing training and coaching and we're working through all this. And then there comes this point in the journey pretty early on where they say, Hey, yeah, I'm working differently, but why's my boss still treating me the same way? And then you go up a middle manager. He's Look, hey, here's how you differ, here's how you interact with him differently, here's how you practice this. And I'll be like
Mark Graban (21:25.91)
Uh-huh.
David J Bland (21:33.153)
Hey, I'm working with my teams differently, but the execs are still treating me the same way, you know? So it's really interesting when people approach like transformation work, which I've seen anyway, and they start at sort of this bottom level, like, we just gotta get the teams working and fix them and all that, which is a whole other probably podcast as well. it it it's really interesting to see this kind of light bulb go off and say, but yeah, other people aren't treating me differently.
what's in this for me or are they along this journey? And and so I don't I think you're right in the sense of sometimes we see these transformation efforts happen inside healthcare, inside other, you know, industries, and the behavior is all focused on the teams changing and maybe middle management. But then you see a lot of the same behavior at the exec level. And usually, from my experience, that's gonna plateau and and and start declining because we don't have it
Mark Graban (22:14.605)
Mm-hmm.
David J Bland (22:27.776)
Like this nice vertical slice through the org that is behaving differently.
Mark Graban (22:33.239)
Yeah, it's how am I being treated and what am I seeing, what behaviors am I seeing leaders modeling or or not modeling? you know, with when there's a gap between what leaders say and what leaders do, that certainly causes a lot of consternation and conflict. they they say they want us to be innovative, but then they punish the things that we do to try to be innovative. They want us to be innovative at a 100% success rate.
David J Bland (23:03.816)
Agreed, agreed. And I just think I mean, not to make the whole podcast about Toyota, but they're such an amazing company to work with. And it it's just so refreshing to see this idea of what will help you figure it out. And I think I don't know. I we had the pleasure of meeting John Shook. It might have been actually one of one of the you I think you met him, you've known him as well. Yeah, and and and all these stories of people trying to copy what Toyota did, but not understanding the why.
Mark Graban (23:23.928)
yeah. I've known John a long time, yeah.
Mark Graban (23:32.811)
Mm-hmm.
David J Bland (23:33.246)
and then yelling at their employees or reprimanding them because they stopped the line or didn't have the answers. I mean none of that is gonna stick when they don't understand the why behind why Toyota operates the way it does.
Mark Graban (23:41.144)
Yeah.
Mark Graban (23:49.92)
Yeah, and the why and and it's not even so much why do we use the tool, but the b the behaviors and you know the I think uns mostly unspoken recognition within Toyota that psychological safety is the foundation for anything. And psychological safety meaning just quite simply, do I feel safe to speak up without being punished? So pulling an andon cord in a Toyota plant.
You know, as a classic example. People feel safe to do that because they know it's safe. They've been taught it's your job to pull the cord, which flags and signals a problem. I'm I'm being a bit pedantic. It doesn't automatically and always stop the line. Like the LinkedIn memes are directionally correct when they say any worker can stop the entire factory. okay, my pedantic instincts kick in. a well, it could be a button.
David J Bland (24:45.396)
And it's a button, not a cord now, apparently.
Mark Graban (24:48.707)
But anyway, like you know, the and on is you know, I can speak up and flag a problem or share a concern or admit a mistake or ask for help. And within seconds, somebody shows up basically asking what's going on, what can I do to help? And most of the time the problem gets resolved within the job cycle where things don't stop. But part of the mental model would be quality and safety come first. And if the line has to stop.
Because of a quality problem, that's actually the best thing for our long-term productivity and profitability to do that. and and so, and and part of the line might stop, and you know, not look, if Toyota's still got to build cars. So they have some strategic buffers in the line, where the other pedantic point is that if the line stops, only a segment of it's not the entire factory, but.
You know, the the LinkedIn meme should be at Toyota, people can ask for help without getting punished. They can admit a mistake without getting punished. Like that to me is the headline and the transferable idea. So there's a classic story going back almost 20 years. The BBC went and visited factories at Toyota Plant in Kentucky. A new Ford truck in Dearborn, Michigan, like the home and the roots and the origins of Ford.
And they said at the Toyota plant, the Anon cord was pulled 2,000 times a week. Okay, number sounds right. Like if you go through a Toyota plant in Kentucky or San Antonio, Texas, or in Japan, like I've had the privilege to do, you almost constantly hear the music and the chimes that play. And the light somewhere is blinking. You know, that I mean, is it's just it is very routine. And for all of Toyota's continuous improvement and waste reduction, they are not perfect.
So the Anon cord gets pulled a lot. The Ford truck plant, again, this is the BBC's reporting and being on hand and talking to people, the cord got pulled two times per week.
Mark Graban (26:59.245)
Because, you know, and and I always figure somebody on first shift had to test it once a week, and someone on second shift also had to test it. But the real test is like, and I worked at General Motors, where it was really crappy environment in 1995 under a very traditional plant manager, before I got to work for a Toyota-trained plant manager. but I know that environment was quantity first.
That you would get yelled at for slowing production. Don't you know how expensive it is to shut the line? Like, yeah, in the short term, but how expensive is it to keep cranking out junk and fixing it later? And some of it slips through to the customer. So I would never look at that comparison and say, Toyota employees are clearly a thousand times better at seeing problems. No. Toyota people are clearly a thousand times more brave about speaking up. No.
Like it it's it's all about the environment. And I guarantee if you took a Toyota person and threw them into that Ford plant and they'd learn really quickly, don't pull the andon cord anymore. That's the same person in a different fishbowl. And I've been really really trying to follow up with Ford people, including Ford communications, of like, help me write a story about how things have gotten better at Ford.
And I haven't heard anything. And I'm like, I'm trying to help tell a happy story instead of just crapping all over you for this twenty year old story. Even you know, Ford Communications, they actually they they reached out and got a little pissy about something I blogged about recently. And I'm like, hey, all right, that opened a door. Like, hey, okay, I'll tweak that headline to be a little bit more fair, I guess. but while I've gotcha and like no and I've followed up a couple of times, I'm like, all right, don't want to talk about it. Maybe things haven't gotten better. That's
That's my that's my assumption.
David J Bland (28:55.584)
That is an assumption. Yeah. Well, I think you're you're on to something with the environment and environmental design and and culture. And you know, y you spend a lot of time in healthcare and I know not exclusively, you work with many different types of companies now. But in healthcare, do you see those same habits of I can't speak up because I will get yelled at? Do you see that occur there as well?
Mark Graban (29:15.499)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. yes. And it it's it's sometimes as bad or worse than some of these bad manufacturing environments. And that was wildly disappointing to me. you know, I came in to first start working with healthcare organizations in in 2005. the organizational, like the the typical managerial hierarchy is very strong. The professional hierarchies
And pecking orders are very, very strong. So if you speak up, you might get punished by your manager and if you're a nurse, you might also get punished by a doctor. You know, and
The the the the level of psychological safety is is usually, I will assume, unless proven otherwise, there are exceptions. I will assume the level of psychological safety in a hospital is really low. And the thing that to me is really sad, I mean, I think everybody deserves a good work environment. But I I when I think about the parallels between again, like connecting dots, because I've seen these environments, you know, a UAW assembly worker who didn't finish eight eighth grade.
being treated exactly the same way as a hospital laboratory professional with two master's degrees. Like they're just as abused and put upon and not supported and blamed individually for systemic problems. Like that, that to me, that should be the other meme that gets around: is that Toyota doesn't blame and punish individuals for systemic problems. Healthcare does that constantly. And it's to the detriment of
Patients, it's to the detriment of nurses and healthcare professionals who get burned out and quit. You know, it's not due to you know it might be in some cases due to overwork, but it's really more of like, I don't get treated respectfully. That's a huge problem in healthcare, I hate to say. I'm not the only one saying that.
David J Bland (31:15.059)
Yeah. It it doesn't surprise me. And and it's not, you know, unique to healthcare either, you know, software companies, B to B, B to G, B to C services, whatever, hardware, software. It it it's you know so so what gives you hope right now? Like what do you see in your work? 'Cause you've been at this for a while. What g what gives you hope that there there is more attention to
Mark Graban (31:34.457)
Mm-hmm.
David J Bland (31:41.021)
If we don't create a culture or or nurture this, it's it's gonna happen whether we pay attention to it or not. Our org environment, you know, are we paying attention to it? Our leadership styles like what's giving you hope right now?
Mark Graban (31:51.978)
Yeah. I mean there's a couple of things. I mean, you know, one is, you know, a company I've had a role with for over fifteen years. it's a a B2B SaaS company called Kinexis. You know, we're beyond startup phase. I mean, you know, it's not a unicorn, it's not setting the world on fire, but beyond surviving, like the company's growing, it's a good company. but from the get-go, the the co-founders and and I was kind of a third wheel.
with them from the get-go, they understood the importance of actually trying to build culture and not just let culture happen. that can't be the only thing that matters, but I think all things being equal, an environment that rewards people for speaking up and for challenging the status quo and for asking questions and for saying I don't know, and expressing that uncertainty. you know,
Measurably in a in a pretty objective sense, you know, the measured level of surveyed psychological safety at Kinexis is pretty high. we're not perfect, like the level of psychological safety is high enough we can actually talk about the gaps and the shortfalls and what we could all do better. But a lot of that behavior is modeled, you know, our our co-founder, our CEO, Greg Jacobson, he's he's a he's an ER doctor by training.
Like he is the first to say things like, I don't know, I might be wrong, I made a mistake, let's figure it out. I mean, he it's not a false sense of humility. he's extremely accomplished academically and professionally in two different domains, but like he really he and he and other leaders at the company set that tone. There's there's not this know-it-allism, there's not this how dare you challenge or question me, you know, kind of mindset. So
That gives me hope that we can create those environments when we put our minds to it. It's probably hard it's probably easier to build it than it is to try to turn around a really crappy, broken culture. It's possible, though. I mean, I've seen it happen in manufacturing and in healthcare. and I think the other thing that gives me hope is there's at least more discussion in kind of the current wave of lean manufacturing adoption.
Mark Graban (34:18.277)
And within lean healthcare of the f of at least recognizing and using the phrase psychological safety. Now, the thing you have to check sometimes is like, well, what do you what do you mean by psychological safety? Because there are misunderstandings, just as there are misunderstandings about what does lean manufacturing mean, what does lean startup mean? What does minimum viable product mean? Like, we get to throw shit out in the market and it sinks or swims, that's our MVP. Well, no, right?
sometimes people think psychological safety means like, so we're all coddled and nobody can disagree and but no, not at all. Like a a high psychological safety environment has more disagreement, but it's done, you know, professionally and constructively and focused on, you know, the mission and what we're trying to accomplish. That that the best idea should win through testing, as opposed to the quote unquote best idea, meaning, you know, who had it. You know, th so
it's it's it's c you know, i I mean, it's optimistic with the caveat. I think, you know, people are getting better at it, but sometimes we have to dispel some of these myths or uncertain kind of incorrect understandings of of of what these words or phrases mean. But more more people are getting it, that that none of these lean tools or practices really work without a relatively high degree of psychological safety.
David J Bland (35:40.234)
I I would agree with that. And I I also agree with the levels of conflict. I think that's how I learned it, which was you can disagree and be respectful in tone and use facts, you know? And and that's okay. That's actually a good healthy work environment if you're behaving that way, you know? I know there's always like this inside joke if it's like it's a quiet woods you have to worry about. Yeah, because they're not having actual disagreements, you know, it's all just getting stuffed down and buried and it's just gonna explode one day. And so I do think
Mark Graban (35:59.716)
Yeah.
David J Bland (36:10.453)
Having common definitions or like a shared language within companies is still something we need to work on. And I I do say when executives bring me in sometimes, it's it's one of the things they want to see. They want to see critical thinking skills, being used, you know, day to day. They also want to see they want to hear a shared language versus talking past one another. And so I do think I'm in agreement there with it it's not all doom and gloom, you know. I w we can we can work on this. We have
Mark Graban (36:13.933)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mark Graban (36:30.008)
Yeah.
Mark Graban (36:35.957)
No, no.
David J Bland (36:40.639)
We have the tools and we have the language and we we need to see it modeled. We we need to see leaders close that say do gap like you were saying earlier, you know, like what I say versus what I do. And sometimes they need feedback that maybe they don't get from inside the company, you know, maybe they need that from an external coach or somebody. so 'cause sometimes feedback doesn't always make it up to them and they don't even know that they accidentally undermine something with their behavior, you know.
Mark Graban (36:51.563)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Graban (37:05.697)
Yeah. Or or there there's the way the feedback gets asked for. Like I saw recently a relatively clumsy attempt of an executive asking for feedback. where he kind of, you know, he talked a lot, first off, and then kind of it's not the exact words, but he basically said, All right, well, so you know, somebody tell me what's wrong about this. And the room was kind of quiet. And then he was like, This is your opportunity.
Lord, like I mean, like mm. Like on one level he meant well, but like it's gotta be more like you can't demand people speak up. And I could just see some of that hesitation in the in the room. And I had a chance kind of privately to chat with him a little bit about, you know, thinking about the dynamics of why why would people hold back? Why would you have to try so hard to pull any sort of constructive criticism out of them? What's happening normally?
Within the C-suite team here and and and try to reflect. you know, I think the other misunderstanding sometimes around psychological safety is that it can somehow be mandated. Like, we told people it's safe to speak up here now. Like, well, you test that hypothesis. Telling people it's safe now doesn't mean anything. It's it's the action of and somebody actually goes to test that and say, okay, I'm gonna speak up.
If they get slapped down for it, you know, doesn't lead to anything. So again, I think a lot of times executives are used to mandating things. I don't think you can mandate culture. You can only demonstrate what the culture is, lead by example.
David J Bland (38:37.918)
Yeah, I
David J Bland (38:49.776)
I I had the pleasure, and I may have mentioned this on a previous episode of of working with Alexa Dembeck at DuPont and she did this thing she called Dead Projects Day. And what we would do is we'd all dress up on Halloween in costume and we would celebrate the projects we killed. Like these were not viable in the market projects and no one was punished and usually they didn't fail because they couldn't build them. I mean build anything. it was more of a either the customer didn't
Mark Graban (39:07.191)
Yeah.
Mark Graban (39:14.819)
Mm-hmm.
David J Bland (39:19.87)
really have the need or their needs changed, or they wouldn't pay enough, or even if they'd pay enough, the switching costs were really high because they'd have to change out something on their manufacturing line. And we didn't uncover that soon enough. So there's all valid reasons. But it was more of a celebration. Like we kind of laughed and we were all dressed up. Like even the execs were dressed up. And it was it sounded kind of silly at first, but then you start to understand what she's trying to do with that organization, which is
It's okay to fail and we'll actually celebrate it if it saved us hundreds of millions of dollars because we didn't go down a path that wasn't viable. And so I I I haven't seen that copied, you know, with a lot of other clients yet, but I do think like there needs to be equivalent of that inside your org where it's it's a little silly, it's a little lighthearted, but you are modeling the behavior that look, you're you're not gonna get passed over on a promotion or you're not gonna be reprimanded for this.
Mark Graban (39:53.219)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Graban (40:08.643)
Uh-huh.
Mark Graban (40:16.951)
Well, you know, one of the things we do at Kinexis, and I try to lead by example on this, you know, our our software platform is used by companies that are you know, managing continuous improvement projects and initiatives and employee ideas in a in a very much lean manufacturing or or kaizen continuous improvement model. I talked a long time I've talked a lot about lean without using Japanese words up until there. But okay, kaizen.
And you know, one one of the principles there is, you know, document your idea, document what you're working on. not just document the ideas that were implemented, but I think it's also really helpful to document your quote unquote failures. Documenting a mistake that I made and what I learned from it, documenting something we tried that didn't work out. you know, I think that's I think that's healthy. I think a lot of you know, when people say, I mean, people are quick to agree, like, you know.
we learn as much from our failures as we do from our successes. I'm like, well, are you documenting your failures so that people beyond yourself can learn from them? Like I think there's something, you know, really helpful, not not just around the culture, but just the practical learning that happens when when you document failures. So it could be done in a lighthearted way. You know, you get a failure Friday.
You know, I the the only pushback I've heard, I'm curious if you've heard this, David, is you know, people saying, like, there's this failure fetish in Synac Silicon Valley, you know, like taken to an extreme. And like I I I I I think to me the phrase fail early, fail often is a problem if the often means we keep failing the same way over and over again. Like we could fail early and learn from it and then succeed. Like little little failures prevent big failures. If it's
fail early, fail often means like there's lots of different experiments and we fail often and learn often, you know, I think that's that's o that's okay.
David J Bland (42:21.406)
There there are a couple things there. I think, you know, just my time in Silicon Valley, there there was the whole move fast and break things, which was pushed a lot by Facebook and and Meta. And I think people had a a reaction to that, right? Because we've seen the fallout from behaving that way. Also, I I I I don't like this idea of embracing failure. I don't really like framing it that way. It's like, let's give failure a big hug. It's like, no, we can acknowledge it and we can give it a fist bump and just move along and and learn from it. But this idea of embracing
Mark Graban (42:30.263)
Yeah.
David J Bland (42:51.42)
it and and stri it's it no one wants to fail, but we do have to acknowledge it's happened and we do have to learn from it. And so I don't hear it as much anymore. I would say early 2010s, 2015s, maybe it was it was still there, but I don't I feel like a lot of that's been less popular, less, less common as far as the failing fast language.
Mark Graban (43:12.557)
Yeah. Yeah, I I I agree with you. I wouldn't say we should be celebrating failure. I think we can be celebrating the struggle. We could be celebrating people for speaking up and acknowledging a small failure. And we could celebrate the learning and the success that would come from it. So in a lot of it's context driven. there, you know, the this idea of celebrating mistakes. Like, well, in healthcare, a mistake might be fatal.
I'm not to celebrate mistakes. We should be trying really hard to prevent mistakes in systemic ways. But then when a mistake inevitably occurs, like I like your word acknowledge. Let's acknowledge the mistake and let's focus on learning instead of focusing on blame and punishment.
David J Bland (44:03.21)
For sure, yeah. I I think there's there's different words to be used there, but I I do think we can get together in a half lighthearted, silly way and share how we failed and learn from it, but not be, you know, completely embracing it in okay. Like I I don't know too many people that are in love with failing, you know. It it's just something that's gonna happen if you're not playing it safe and you're not gonna grow your business without trying things. So I I do think it's just more
Mark Graban (44:23.852)
No, right.
David J Bland (44:33.33)
You can't go to extremes. You can't just ignore that it happened and then make it look like an ex success.
Mark Graban (44:37.751)
Yeah. Yeah.
David J Bland (44:40.532)
So I asked you what gives you hope and I wanna kinda wrap up with where you see this as going. Like is there some fun thing that you're working on that we could share with us that either, you know, you're writing or you're creating something, you know, like what what's what's next for you at the moment?
Mark Graban (44:58.881)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so my my little startup eventures, one is in the book category. And I really do think there's I mean, I think you know, every book is a startup. or it's a new it's a new product. And I think we can test our way to a better book. And you know, though I mean look, you know, I mean hopefully I mean any any book that's been published well goes through iteration. I mean that iteration might be
An editor working with you about the content, copy editing, proofreading, you know, yeah, there's cycles of iteration. Most authors will share a book with trusted friends and colleagues to ask for feedback. It's the same risk of like any startup idea. Like you might not hear a lot of real-pointed feedback. There's always that risk as well. but I mean I I've I've been using a process, there's a company.
That I really like out of Vancouver, British Columbia, called Lean Pub. And their idea of lean publishing is basically publish early, publish often. they call it like, you know, iterative publishing or in progress publishing, where like their whole model and their website, like and and people can go buy the book I'm working on right now. I I think the title, I think I'm gonna publish it as a a title, the silence tax.
About how still tweaking the subtitle, but how leaders can help reduce the feelings of fear and futility in an organization. So how how do we help people speak up, go, you know, psychological safety plus some other factors. But people could go on lean pub and buy, like it's a it's this idea like with you know lean publishing, if you've published it, if you're not slightly embarrassed by what you've published.
know, you treat the book like startup software. And you know, if people like your your early adopter fans or whatever say, Yeah, I want to read the early draft, even if it's not fully formed, they can like pay for that. it's not the landing page of would you buy it, but like somebody can actually buy the book. And then when you publish updates, they they get the updates and they can send you feedback. And I've gotten some good feedback.
Mark Graban (47:22.821)
from from people already. And a lot of people are like, yeah, I can't be bothered with that. Tell me when the book is done. You know, they could buy it the the the traditional way. so yeah, so that that's one book that the latest book that I'm working on right now. And then the more the the actual software thing that I've been working on. Like everyone I want to do an experiment with vibe coding.
You know, that went beyond like make me a silly iPad game that only me and my family would find funny for some inside chokey reason. Like I've done that and that's fun. but then I also I I the original idea about a year ago was like, let me create you know, a search engine for my books. And I was starting off the f the first test was with my book, my first book, Lean Hospitals, of
David J Bland (47:54.815)
Yep.
Mark Graban (48:14.009)
you know, so kind of playing around and and and I and I learned, huh, like yeah, I could upload my book in the chat GPT, but I can't embed a chat GPT window in my book's website. They want you to go to the chat GPT website. And I wasn't even thinking about monetizing it, but I'm like, I want people to be on my website. So then I searched and I'm like, well, God, there's gotta be a WordPress plugin that went and you're shaking your head. No, I could not find a WordPress plugin.
AI told me that there was no plug-in for this. So I vibe coded the first iteration was just a way of embedding and doing API calls to Chat GPT. They'll let you do that, right? So I'm like, I'm gonna vibe code. I'm gonna build something. and so I was doing that. And then, you know, I started thinking and testing my, you know, I started doing the testing myself before I invited others to start testing it. And then I thought, well, better than just searching the
book would be trying like what like maybe there may maybe there's an AI coach that could be built off of the content of the book that would be a little bit more tightly bounded than just asking a generic LLM of your choosing, you know, questions about lean and questions about what should I be doing and looking for help. And so that became a different product to to to be building out.
And a lot of the testing was honestly me banging on the model and evaluating the quote unquote coaching that came back and kind of changing the high-level prompt within the system. And the one thing I learned really quickly, and AI will agree with you if you ask it, AI loves telling you how much it knows. And you think of like if you're an agile coach or a lean coach or a startup coach, or like,
Does an effective coach just barf out a lot of knowledge? Well, hopefully no. Like, not a good coach. And so actually, like constraining, I've actually then I pivoted, I'm using Claude mainly right now as the engine for this. Like it will very, very stubbornly try to get out of coaching mode and back into telling mode. So that's required a lot of testing and a lot of iteration. to to behave like a Toyota coach might.
Mark Graban (50:34.445)
might ask of like asking a question. Like even you can go at you know tell ChatGPT, I want you to coach me by asking questions. And you give it a scenario, it'll barf out 15 questions. Like, no, how about one question at a time and actually have a conversation? So I've been you know testing and experimenting with that. And then I actually did go to market with this is a product that people can pay actually sign up for.
so that was a fun experiment and there's different testing and iteration. But you know, the the the one failure I will readily admit to here, even for all of my Toyota mentoring, for all of my reading of of Eric's books and Steve Blank's books and and and books by others, guess what? I fell into the trap of having fun building features.
David J Bland (51:29.001)
It's easy to do.
Mark Graban (51:30.374)
And my quote unquote minimum viable product was way beyond a minimum. It was way overfeatured. It was way overcomplicated. So I've had to go and I should probably still do more pruning and pulling, you know, more out. So, you know, I got caught up in the excitement of can I build this? instead of back to your question of should I be adding these features? Should I be building this coach model you know, to begin with? So
But you know, it was low cost, low stakes. I'm like, well, this could end up being a side hustle. It could end up being a business. I still don't know if there's really a business model. But at the very least, like I've enjoyed myself. you know, I'm a I mean, I'm a kid of the eighties where I used to write programs in basic and save them to a cassette tape. Like I'm that old.
You know, so like to you know, even vibe coding, yeah, I I know I'm br I'm being more like a product manager than I am a coder, but that co creation cycle was fun and I've learned a lot and you know, if that's all I get out of it then then so be it. But
David J Bland (52:40.231)
No, I love that you're playing with that stuff and you're open. And and I get the same feedback. You know, I'll explain something that's super overcomplicated and people are like, Yeah, there's a book out there that'd help you test that. And I was like, Yeah, I I wrote that book. But it's it it's not always easy. It's easy you know, it it just it just humbles you in a way, you know, that in and writing a book's a very humbling process too. of of just, my gosh. Th this is why it's so hard for people to follow our advice, you know. there's all this
Mark Graban (52:49.817)
Ha ha ha
Mark Graban (52:57.827)
Yes.
David J Bland (53:10.693)
l this is lore of creating, you know, because we we like creating things. but no, I think publishing, you know, book publishing is interesting. So we we tested our book too and I I feel as if now though, it's almost like publishing hasn't quite caught up yet. And I do think this idea of an AI companion or can I have a conversation with the author about this book and not just reading, you know, there's returning parts of the book, you know, I I do think there's something really interesting there. And
Mark Graban (53:14.561)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Graban (53:32.729)
huh.
David J Bland (53:40.126)
Vive coding has, you know, the quality has increased and and and the tools are just evolving every day. But I do think there's something there with publishing, changing the model where and Lean Pub's awesome too, the way they the way they handle it. Being more iterative, being more digital friendly, you know, trying to get a just a Kindle version of my book still is a pain. And and it doesn't even work on the the old Kindles. So it's it's like
I I do think it'll be nice to see the change happen in the publishing industry too, where as authors we get to be a little bit more creative about how people interact with our our content.
Mark Graban (54:15.064)
Hm.
Mark Graban (54:20.311)
Yeah. Well in the in the way I'm doing that mainly I mean I my last two books and now this book, I don't like to call it self publishing 'cause I certainly don't do it alone. I call it indie publishing.
You know, you you can be more innovative, you can be faster, you can have fewer constraints or fewer bad assumptions that you're locked into from decades past. so that you know, I'm a I'm a big advocate for independent publishing and partnering up with people that are you know, working with you to bring something to market that's as good, if not better, than a tr a traditional publisher might. And I see people doing innovative things around you know, AI companions.
with their books and and and there'll be a lot of a lot of interesting experiments, some of which will work and some of which some of which won't. But so it goes. Yeah, yeah.
David J Bland (55:10.093)
Yeah, that's so it's goes back to testing. Well, I just so we'll we'll put those links in the podcast so people can can definitely find you and find the the book. if people want to reach out directly to you though, what what's the best way, you know, if they've listened to this and say, wow, we need we need Mark's help, what's the best way for them to reach out?
Mark Graban (55:30.401)
yeah, so you know email mark at markgraben.com, web address obviously is markgraben.com. I'm I'm most easily found on LinkedIn. if you want to find me on a social media platform. I'm lucky enough that my my name is unique enough. I'm easy to find online.
David J Bland (55:52.464)
That's amazing. So we'll we'll put those links in the description as well. I I just wanted to thank you for hanging out with me. You know, we did everything from you know to like fanboying over Toyota, which I mean it's just amazing to share stories with somebody else who has has worked with them and our our unique take on how it applies to other companies.
Mark Graban (56:08.525)
Yeah.
David J Bland (56:11.713)
And working on new books. So that's exciting. I'm really curious to see how that plays out on psychological safety and and working on your vibe coding stuff, you know, trying to change how people get access to your knowledge, I think is is brilliant. So I I just appreciate you sharing everything, the ups and downs and what you're seeing from your day-to-day work. Because you've been at this for a while and I always I always learn when I hear hear you talk. So I'm sure our listeners have of as well.
Mark Graban (56:37.905)
well thank you. It's very it's very kind of you and yeah, fun conversation. I have you the we'll we'll we'll flip the script and come have you come on the My Favorite Mistake podcast with me sometime. How's that?
David J Bland (56:49.533)
I would love that. That would be awesome. We can continue our our Toyota fanboying as well. All right. Thank you so much, Mark, for joining us and I I just appreciate you being being available for us today.
Mark Graban (57:00.69)
of course. Thanks. Thanks for the invite.
