A
selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of September
2025.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.  

Fear and Futility: Two
Barriers to Improvement (and How Leaders Can Remove Them)
– Mark Graban explains how fear and futility undermine improvement and what
leaders can do to eliminate these barriers.

What is your “OK Zone?”
– Mark Rosenthal introduces the concept of the “OK Zone” to encourage learning
and growth outside of one’s comfort zone.

Mendomi: The Well-Being of Japanese Employees
– Christopher Roser explores Mendomi, the Japanese approach to employee
well-being, and its importance in lean workplaces.

What Is the Lean
Practitioner Program and Why It Matters – Alen Ganic outlines
the Lean Practitioner Program and why it is essential for building capability
and sustaining improvement.

The Battles We Have to
Win: Fear – Pascal Dennis reflects on fear as a
central battle leaders must win to create trust and enable continuous
improvement.

Strategy Deployment for
the 21st Century – Bruce Hamilton shares how strategy
deployment must evolve in the 21st century to align organizations and engage
employees.

Why Technical Solutions
Fail Without People: Reflections from 30 Years in Operations
– Mark Graban highlights
why technical solutions often fail without addressing the human and cultural
side of operations.

Lean Is about the Work:
Enhance Value-Creating Work to Truly Transform End-to-End, Value-Stream
Performance – Josh Howell and Mark Reich argue that Lean is
fundamentally about enhancing value-creating work to transform value-stream
performance.

How I’ve Aimed to Share
the Uncommon Knowledge of Lean Product and Process Development
– Larry Navarre describes
his efforts to spread the uncommon knowledge of Lean product and process
development.

Excellence Isn’t an
Accident: Mentorship as the Engine of Mastery –
James Morgan emphasizes
that excellence is driven by mentorship, which serves as the engine for
mastery.

The Design Brief | What
Most Companies Miss about the Role of Chief Engineers –
Lex Schroeder explains
what many companies miss about the role of chief engineers in design.

Plan, Do, Check, Act…
or Plan, Do, Cover Your A? Leadership Makes the Difference
– Mark Graban contrasts genuine PDCA with superficial “Plan, Do, Cover Your A”
behaviors, stressing leadership’s role in real learning.