Helping leaders build cultures of learning, better decision-making, and continuous improvement — without blame, overreaction, or performative change.
Built around your industry, your organization, and the problems your leaders actually face
As a keynote speaker, consultant, and author of books includibng The Mistakes That Make Us, Mark works with organizations that are serious about improving performance by improving systems, leadership behaviors, and how people respond when things go wrong. His work bridges Lean leadership, psychological safety, and data-driven improvement in a way that is practical, human, and grounded in real organizational challenges.
Mark does not deliver canned presentations or recycled Lean slides. Each talk is shaped around your industry, your organization, and the problems leaders actually face — from managing metrics without chasing noise, to creating conditions where people feel safe speaking up about mistakes, risks, and improvement ideas.
Whether presenting in person or virtually, Mark’s goal is simple: provide insight leaders can use immediately, paired with stories and context that make lasting change more likely.
Book Mark as a Speaker Today – in person or virtual!
What Organizations Hire Mark Graban to Help Them Improve
Learning from Mistakes
Turning mistakes into learning, improvement, and innovation — without blame.
Psychological Safety
Clarifying what psychological safety really is (and isn’t), how to assess it, and what leaders do differently every day to strengthen it.
Lean Leadership Mindsets and Management Practices
Moving beyond tools to develop leaders who think systemically and improve sustainably.
Managing Metrics Without Overreacting
Helping leaders distinguish signal from noise so measures drive improvement — not wasted effort and firefighting.
Daily Continuous Improvement and Innovation
Designing systems that engage everyone in meaningful improvement, not just projects or events.
If you are planning a keynote, leadership workshop, or facilitated discussion, Mark will work with you to clarify goals and determine the right format for your audience.
Mark brings experience across manufacturing, healthcare, and software organizations, paired with a deep understanding of how leaders actually work and decide.
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.
How Mark’s Talks Are Different
Each talk is designed around real organizational challenges, leadership behaviors, and outcomes — not generic frameworks or recycled slides.
Featured Keynotes for Leaders and Change Agents
Psychological Safety as a Foundation for Continuous Improvement
In this keynote, Mark Graban connects psychological safety to continuous improvement, using examples from Toyota, KaiNexus, and other organizations. He shows how leaders can assess the current state of psychological safety across teams or an entire organization, and what leadership behaviors create conditions where people feel safe speaking up about mistakes, problems, and improvement ideas.
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. The difference is not whether they avoid mistakes, but whether they learn from them. Based on conversations with corporate CEOs, athletes, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and former Toyota employees, Mark Graban argues that learning from mistakes is a defining leadership capability.
But learning from mistakes is not automatic. Are people willing to admit mistakes to themselves, let alone to colleagues or leaders? Do organizations create conditions where it is safe to talk about mistakes as a first step toward preventing them? Or do blame and fear quietly shut down learning?
This talk challenges leaders to rethink how mistakes are treated — and what that means for performance, safety, and innovation. Through practical examples and real-world stories, Mark shows how organizations can move from blame and avoidance to learning and continuous improvement.
Leaders will learn:
- Why admitting mistakes is essential for improvement and trust
- How to reflect on mistakes without blame or overreaction
- Practical ways to prevent repeating the same mistakes
- The leadership behaviors that create a culture where people feel safe speaking up
When Being Right is the Wrong Strategy for Change
Presented at the 2018 KaiNexus User Conference and other events
Successful organizations engage everyone in improvement and innovation — but that is harder than it sounds. Too often, leaders and change agents undermine their own efforts by pushing change from the top down or relying on expertise rather than engagement.
Having the “right” solution or the “right” strategy means little without alignment and buy-in. In this keynote, Mark Graban shares personal stories and practical strategies for changing how leaders approach change, drawing on proven methods used across multiple industries to build commitment, learning, and sustained improvement.
- “Great new info on Change Management… have a Master's 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 at events like Agile Day Chicago and Lean Startup Week
Leaders are often caught between limited time and the need to make accurate performance assessments. By using simple statistical methods, they can avoid overreacting to normal ups and downs in performance data — saving time, reducing frustration, and eliminating unnecessary demands for “special cause” explanations when the data is simply noise.
In this talk, Mark Graban shares practical tactics that help leaders move beyond drilling into isolated metrics and instead use data correctly to improve overall performance in a sustainable, long-term way.
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 adopt more balanced sets of improvement metrics — from the front line to the boardroom — it becomes essential that “data-driven” decision-making is grounded in a statistically valid view of performance. Without the skills and mindsets addressed in this talk, leaders at all levels risk creating waste by overreacting to normal performance variation.
This talk introduces a practical methodology for evaluating performance measures, helping organizations ask better questions and focus improvement efforts where they will have the greatest impact on outcomes.
Warning: Signs! From Cautionary Commands to Proactive Prevention
In this talk, Mark Graban uses humor to make a serious point: why do organizations rely so heavily on posted signs, warnings, and “be careful” reminders to prevent errors? These approaches often shift responsibility to individuals while leaving underlying system problems untouched.
Through a light-hearted but practical examination of real-world examples, Mark introduces a better alternative: mistake-proofing. The talk explores different types of mistake-proofing and shows how designing systems that make errors harder — or impossible — leads to safer, more reliable performance in any organization.
Healthcare-Focused Lean and Quality Improvement Talks
Healthcare Kaizen — Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements
Leading healthcare organizations are seeing measurable results by engaging clinicians and staff in ongoing quality and process improvement. Some are saving millions each year through small, frontline-driven ideas — but sustaining this approach is harder than it looks.
In this talk, Mark Graban explains the core principles of a successful Kaizen system, how the mechanics work in practice, and the leadership behaviors required at every level to support meaningful, ongoing improvement.
This talk can be delivered as a concise overview, a half-day interactive workshop, or a longer working session designed to help organizations begin building a culture of continuous improvement immediately.
“How Lean Thinking Helps Hospitals” (tailored for healthcare or non-healthcare audiences)
How does Lean help hospitals? Lean helps leaders and staff work together to improve patient safety and quality, reduce waiting and delays, lower costs, and improve reliability across care processes.
In this talk, Mark Graban provides a practical overview of Lean as a management system and organizational culture — not just a set of tools. Drawing on examples from his own work and from leading hospitals around the world, he shows how Lean principles can be applied in real healthcare settings to improve outcomes for patients, staff, and the organization.
This talk can be delivered as a one-hour overview, a deeper in-depth session, or a facilitated discussion with senior leaders to help clarify your organization’s Lean strategy 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 that combines practical tools with a management system, all grounded in a consistent philosophy. In healthcare, Lean focuses leaders and staff on what matters most to patients: safety, smooth flow of care, and a reliable, respectful experience.
In this talk, Mark Graban shows how hospitals can reduce risk and harm, shorten waits and delays, and eliminate the everyday frustrations that drive poor patient experience scores. A central theme is engaging everyone—clinicians, staff, and leaders—in improving the systems that shape patient care.
As value-based purchasing, readmission penalties, and HCAHPS scores increasingly affect reimbursement, focusing on the patient is not just the right thing to do—it is also essential to financial performance. Lean helps organizations achieve lower costs as a result of doing the right work well, rather than through blunt cost-cutting.
Through real-world healthcare examples and facilitated discussion, Mark makes these principles practical and actionable for leaders and teams.
Key Lean Mindsets for Healthcare
Building on the Lean principles described above, this talk focuses on the leadership mindsets that sustain improvement in healthcare. In healthcare, Lean aligns leaders and staff around what matters most to patients: safety, smooth flow of care, and a reliable, respectful experience.
In this talk, Mark Graban shows how hospitals can reduce risk and harm, shorten waits and delays, and eliminate the everyday frustrations that drive poor patient experience scores. A central theme is engaging clinicians, staff, and leaders in improving the systems that shape patient care.
As value-based purchasing, readmission penalties, and HCAHPS scores increasingly affect reimbursement, focusing on the patient is not only the right thing to do—it is essential to financial performance. Lean enables organizations to achieve lower costs as a result of doing the right work well, rather than relying on blunt cost-cutting.
Through real-world healthcare examples and facilitated discussion, Mark translates these principles into practical, actionable guidance for leaders and teams.
General Lean Leadership and Employee Engagement
Today’s Effective Leader: Shifting from Cop to Coach
Leaders often express frustration with phrases like “If only people would do what they’re told” or “They’re being resistant to change.” High-performing organizations take a different approach, shifting from a culture of compliance to a culture of continuous improvement.
In this talk, Mark Graban shares practical methods for making that shift by changing how leaders show up in everyday interactions. Using real-world examples, he demonstrates how leaders can move from enforcing compliance to coaching, engaging people in ongoing, sustainable improvement.
The talk also introduces insights from an unexpected source: clinical counseling and addiction therapy. Drawing on principles from Motivational Interviewing, Mark explains why “resistance to change” is a normal part of the improvement process — and how effective leaders treat it as the start of a productive conversation, not the end.
Engaging Employees in Improvement: Everybody, Everywhere, Every Day
The traditional suggestion box is no longer enough. Leading organizations engage employees in a more effective approach to improvement: Kaizen — ongoing, everyday problem solving built into the way work is done.
In this talk, Mark Graban shares proven improvement methods along with the leadership behaviors that make them work in practice. Rather than forcing participation, a Kaizen culture creates conditions where people willingly contribute ideas to improve their own work. The result is better outcomes for employees, customers, and the organization.
Contact Mark
Whether you’re planning a keynote, leadership workshop, or facilitated discussion, Mark will help you clarify goals and determine the right format.
Talk to Mark about the value he can add to your event or organization as a speaker or a moderator.