Mark's goal is to provide value to your audience, providing practical ideas that can be put in place immediately and inspiring stories and context that make people want to take action. This can be in person or via a virtual presentation.
Book Mark as a Speaker Today – in person or virtual!
Key Themes & Topics
- Learning from mistakes
- Psychological safety (understanding and improving it)
- “Lean” management mindsets and methods
- Leadership
- Managing metrics and improvement
- Continuous improvement and innovation
- Change management
- Safety and quality
- Employee engagement
- Change management
- Organizational culture
Mark can draw upon his experience working in various manufacturing, healthcare, and software company settings. He puts in the effort to learn about your industry and your organization. Mark doesn't repeat the same canned talks over and over.
You can also contact Mark about virtual speaking, as he is a very experienced webinar presenter and has learned how to be dynamic and engaging in this setting.
Popular Keynote Talks & Lectures
Psychological Safety as a Foundation for Continuous Improvement
Mark’s keynote will explore the connections between Psychological Safety and Continuous Improvement, using examples from Toyota, KaiNexus, and other companies. Mark will explore how we can assess the current state of Psychological Safety in teams or across a broader organization. He’ll also discuss what leaders can do to help create conditions where employees feel safe enough to speak up about mistakes, problems, and improvement ideas. His latest book is titled The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.
POPULAR TOPIC FOR 2024!!
Bring Mark to your healthcare organization
Bring Mark to your company, no matter what the industry
The Mistakes That Make Us… Better
We all make mistakes, even the most successful people we know. Are people successful because they avoid mistakes or because they make sure to learn from them? Mark Graban thinks it’s the latter based on podcast conversations with corporate CEOs, athletes, entrepreneurs, and entertainers – and former Toyota employees.
Are we willing to admit mistakes to ourselves, let alone our colleagues, employees, or leaders? Do our organizations create a culture where it’s safe to talk about mistakes as a first step toward preventing future mistakes? Can we shift from blaming and shaming to building a culture of continuous improvement?
In this talk, you will learn and hear impactful stories and lessons about:
- Why it’s important to admit mistakes
- How to reflect on mistakes without being too hard on ourselves (or others)
- How to prevent repeating mistakes
- What key leader behaviors create a culture where it’s safe for people to admit mistakes
When Being Right is the Wrong Strategy for Change
Presented at the 2018 KaiNexus User Conference and other events
Successful organizations have learned how to engage everybody in improvement and innovation. That’s easier said than done when leaders and change agents have bad habits, including pushing change on others from the top down or from a position of expertise. Having the “right” solution to a problem or the “right” strategy for an organization means nothing if you can’t get alignment and buy-in from others. In this keynote, Mark Graban shares personal stories and practical strategies for shifting your approach to change, combining proven methods used in multiple industries.
- “Great new info on Change Management… have a Masters on this topic…. still learned a lot.”
- “Very polished, self-aware, critical thinker.”
- “I really felt that his message was timely as many of us are just a few years in on our journey. It was great to hear the ‘expert’ tell us that it’s okay to not be an expert.”
React Less and Improve More: Learning How to Distinguish Signal from Noise in Metrics
Presented first events like Agile Day Chicago and Lean Startup Week
Leaders are often caught between being short on time and having to make accurate assessments of performance. By using simple statistical methods, we can avoid overreacting to every up and down in our performance measures, though, saving time and reducing frustration by not asking for “special cause” explanations for data points that are essentially noise in the system. Mark Graban will share expert tactics for shifting leadership focus from the old standby of drilling into random metrics to instead using data points correctly to systematically improve overall performance for the long term.
Measures of Success: From Data to Knowledge That Drives Improvement
Webinar examples of this type of talk for healthcare and a broader “Lean” audience
As health systems are focusing more on a balanced set of improvement metrics from the front line to the boardroom, it's important that “data-driven” decision making is based on a statistically-valid view of performance metrics. Without the skills and mindsets discussed in this talk, leaders at all levels risk creating waste that's caused by overreacting to every fluctuation in performance. This talk describes a practical methodology for evaluating performance measures that allows organizations to ask the right questions and to focus on improvement in a way that best improves outcomes.
Warning: Signs! From Cautionary Commands to Proactive Prevention
In this talk, Mark Graban humorously raises serious points. Why do organizations so frequently rely on posted signs, warnings, and “be careful” exhortations with employees? In this talk, Mark shares a light-hearted examination of these signs and leads a discussion on a better alternative: mistake-proofing. What are the types of mistake-proofing and how can they benefit any organization?
Healthcare-Focused Topics
Healthcare Kaizen — Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements
Leading healthcare organizations are discovering the benefits of engaging all staff members and clinicians in ongoing quality and process improvement efforts. Some organizations are saving millions each year based on the small ideas implemented by staff and managers. But, it sounds easier than it really is. In this talk, Mark Graban describes key principles, the mechanics of a working Kaizen approach, and the important role and behaviors required of leaders at all levels.
Versions of this talk include short overviews, half-day interactive workshops, and longer working sessions that help you start creating a culture of continuous improvement – today.
“How Lean Thinking Helps Hospitals” (tailored for healthcare or non-healthcare audiences)
How does Lean help hospitals? Lean helps your leaders and staff work together to improve patient safety and quality, reduce waiting times, reduce cost, and more! In this talk, Mark Graban provides an engaging overview of the Lean methodology and its powerful applications in various healthcare settings. Moving beyond mere tools, Graban’s talk illustrates the foundations of Lean as a management system and an organizational culture, using examples and lessons learned from his own work and leading hospitals around the world.
This talk can be anything from a one-hour overview, a longer in-depth session, or a facilitated discussion with senior leaders that helps clarify your organization's plan and progress.
It’s All About the Patient: Using Lean to Improve Safety, Flow, and Satisfaction
“Lean” is a holistic approach to quality and process improvement. Lean combines tools with a management system, all built on a consistent philosophy. In a Lean environment, we’re driven to focus on the customer and the things that matter most. In hospitals, that includes patient safety, patient flow, and patient satisfaction. How can we reduce risk and harms, reduce delays, and reduce annoyances that lead to low marks from patients? We can do so, in part, by engaging everybody in the improvement process.
In an era of value-based purchasing, readmission rate penalties, and HCAHPS scores factoring into reimbursement, focusing on the patient leads to better financial performance. Through Lean, lower costs are an end result of doing everything else well… putting the patient first. In this talk, Mark Graban will explain these principles, share examples, and facilitate discussions that will make this all very practical for you.
Key Lean Mindsets for Healthcare
As organizations progress with Lean, they naturally shift from just implementing a few tools and completing a few projects. The best Lean organizations have embraced “Lean thinking, ” including the key mindsets that shape our culture and drive the behaviors that create change and sustain excellence.
In this talk, Mark Graban shares key Lean mindsets, pairing the important conceptual background of Lean with real-world stories that bring these principles to life, vividly contrasting traditional healthcare thinking with Lean thinking. Using the mindsets explained in this talk will increase your chances for success, speeding up your Lean journey.
This talk can be tailored to your particular hospital or medical specialty, with examples that will be relevant and engaging.
Other topics
- Lean Healthcare
- Improving quality, outcomes, and patient satisfaction
- “Putting the Continuous Back into Continuous Improvement”
- Engaging Staff to Design the Hospital of Tomorrow (“lean design” and “lean construction”)
- Practical Daily Lean Management Methods
- Lean in Hospital Laboratories
- Using Lean to Improve Patient Flow
- A specific topic can be crafted for your event based on a consultation with Mark
General Lean Leadership and Employee Engagement
Be Lean, Not L.A.M.E.
You want to be “Lean,” not “lame,” right? In this engaging talk, Mark shares stories and examples that illustrate the difference between true Lean management practices and methods that engage employees instead of those that are, instead, “L.A.M.E.” The acronym that Mark coined, “Lean As Misguidedly Executed,” describes practices that might sound “Lean” but anger and alienate employees, customers, or shareholders. This keynote will help you prevent repeating some of the painful and expensive mistakes others make.
Today's Effective Leader: Shifting from Cop to Coach and Counselor
How often do we hear phrases like “If only people would just do what they’re told” and “They’re being resistant to change?” Organizations with better quality and higher levels of performance make the shift from a culture of compliance to a culture of continuous improvement.
Learn how to start or sustain this culture change through the proven methods shared in Mark Graban's talk. Using real-life examples, Mark shares practical approaches for changing how you lead to engage everybody in ongoing and sustainable continuous improvement. The talk also introduces some innovative mindsets and tactics from a surprising place: clinical counseling and addiction therapy. This “Motivational Interviewing” approach has helped Toyota and other companies realize that “resistance to change” is a natural part of the change process. What might appear to be “resistance” should be the start of a conversation about change, not the end.
Engaging Employees in Improvement: Everybody, Everywhere, Every Day
The suggestion box is dead — but long live improvement! Today's leading businesses are engaging employees in a different style of improvement called Kaizen. In this talk, you will learn proven improvement methods and the leadership styles and behaviors that support them. In a Kaizen culture, you don't have to force people to improve – they willingly participate. Employees, customers, and the business all win. Let Mark Graban show you how.
Contact Mark
Talk to Mark about the value he can add to your event or organization as a speaker or a moderator.