Lean Coffee Talk (formerly known as Lean Whiskey)
Formerly known as ”Lean Whiskey.” Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh share more than just their MIT degrees: they’re authors, speakers, and trusted voices in the Lean community... plus they’re both serious about their coffee. Each episode offers insightful discussions on essential topics like operational excellence, leadership effectiveness, organizational culture, problem-solving strategies, innovation, and building a thriving Lean culture. Whether you’re an experienced executive, an ambitious manager, or someone passionate about elevating organizational performance, Lean Coffee Talk provides practical wisdom you can apply directly to your workplace. They bring expertise without the complexity – because Lean doesn’t have to be rocket science. Their takes are bold and their insights are fresh. welcome to Lean Coffee Talk... Where Lean wisdom is brewed and served. Mark Graban: http://markgraban.com/ Jamie Flinchbaugh: https://jflinch.com/ Podcast home: https://leancoffeetalk.com/ Note: The first 50 episodes were done under the theme and name of ”Lean Whiskey”
Episodes
Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh sit down with single-origin coffees and a 1987 GM Confidential report Mark pulled from the Don Ephlin papers at Wayne State's Reuther Library. The document, "NUMMI Management Practices: Executive Summary," lays out five management strategies behind the joint venture's success and the line that ties them together: "The key to NUMMI's success is not its tools or techniques, but the management philoso...
How many KPIs are too many — and how do leaders know which metrics actually matter?
In Episode 7 of Lean Coffee Talk, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh explore how organizations overload themselves with metrics, why some “red” indicators fail to drive action, and how to evaluate whether KPIs are still relevant. They also discuss the role of change management in Lean transformations, why people don’t resist change itsel...
Episode page with links, video, and more
In this episode, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh respond to listener questions about system design, leadership behavior, and navigating misguided Lean requirements.
They explore why some systems—like college football playoffs or improvement quotas—fail to deliver their intended results, and what leaders can do instead. Topics include cultivating psychological safety in higher education, ge...
💡 Submit your question (and maybe win a Lean Coffee Talk mug!) at: LeanBlog.org/coffeequestions
In this short bonus episode of Lean Coffee Talk, hosts Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh share an invitation for you to help shape future conversations.
They’re asking for your toughest, most thought-provoking questions about Lean, leadership, culture, and continuous improvement — the ones without easy answers. Mark and Jamie will selec...
In Season 2, Episode 5, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh are going back in time (apologies to Huey Lewis and the News) to the 1990s and examining companies that were iconic then and trying to find new ground today. But we start with coffee mugs - our most vintage mugs. A coffee mug can make coffee better, or ruin it, or bring back memories. The vessel may not be more important than what’s in it, but it’s up there. And this is our...
In Episode 4 (Season 2), Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh are joined by the hosts of the Just-in-Time Cafe podcast, Elisabeth Swan and Tracy O’Rourke. This is the second joint episode, the first being episode 45 of Lean Whiskey. In part, we celebrate the launch of Tracy and Elisabeth’s new book, the 2nd edition of "The Problem-Solver’s Toolkit," which we discuss on the show.
We talk quite a bit about our respective daily routines...
In Season 2, Episode 3, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh both share specific episodes of their other podcasts. Jamie shares his People Solve Problems episode featuring Crayola CEO Pete Ruggiero, and Mark shares a repeat guest for My Favorite Mistake with NFL Players Association Dr. Thom Mayer to talk about the experiment of new kickoff formats and the impact (pun intended) on concussions. We then share our coffees, with the caffe...
In Season 2, Episode 2, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh begin with Mark sharing about his Australia and New Zealand workshop tour with the Association for Manufacturing Excellence. Even koalas find their way into the conversation.
Episode page with videos and more
We then shift to our coffee selection of the day - pour overs. This old school method has found a resurgence not for being inexpensive but for giving you more contro...
We would have called this Episode 51 of the Lean Whiskey podcast with Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban.
Episode page with video and more
Lean Whiskey is transitioning to a new brand, Lean Coffee Talk, so stay tuned for more episodes from Mark and Jamie. We're also calling this Episode #1 of Season 2 of the podcast series. If you're subscribed, the podcast logo will change but the feed will continue as is.
We are just as passi...
It's Episode 50 of the Lean Whiskey podcast with Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban!
tl;dr: Lean Whiskey will transition to a new brand Lean Coffee Talk, so stay tuned for more episodes from Mark and Jamie
In their 50th and final episode of Lean Whiskey, hosts Mark and Jamie announce a significant transition, revealing that while this marks the end of “Lean Whiskey,” the podcast will continue under a new title called “L...
It's Episode 49 of the Lean Whiskey podcast with Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban!
Episode page with video and more
Mark shares tales of his holiday / study tour trip to Japan. Since we start with the whisky (like scotch, note the lack of an ‘e’), and Mark’s opportunity to visit bottle shops, his favorite whisky bar, and even a whisky museum, along with the many samples he had a chance to try along the way. He brought one home,...
In Episode 48 of the Lean Whiskey podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban begin by comparing two whiskeys from the same distillery.
OOPS! We recorded this in October... and I released it via YouTube and my blog. But it somehow ended up stuck in "Draft" unreleased status on the podcast. That's why we had two episodes released in the same week...
Episode page with video and more
Mark selected Woodford Reserve, and had a pour of...
In Episode 47, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh attempt another experiment in format, covering a range of quick-hit topics in the news rather than a single deep dive. As always, we welcome feedback.
Before we got to that, however, our whiskey theme was also new, or new to us: we each picked a whiskey we hadn’t tried before.
Jamie’s pick was Four Walls Irish American Whiskey, a celebrity whiskey from a group of stars from It’s Al...
In Episode 46, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh spend a lot of time talking about AI, but that still, as always, begins with the whiskey.
We both asked ChatGPT to consider all our ingredients for making a whiskey-based cocktail, and to invent an original recipe. Jamie's is called The Bourbon Harmony, although there was a lot in there to try to reach harmony, and Mark's was called the Spiced Cherry Rye Cocktail.
T...
In Episode 45, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban join the Just-in-Time Cafe team of Elisabeth Swan and Tracy O’Rourke as a special nod to their 100th Episode, while also having a chance to toast Mark’s accomplishment of 250 episodes of My Favorite Mistake podcast and 500 episodes of the Lean Blog Podcast. This episode blended the two formats a bit, but you can be sure whiskey was one of those elements that we retained....
Episode page with video and more
In Episode 44, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh get back together for this first episode of 2024. Since we’re not doing Dry January, we go right into the whiskey first by talking about old bottles, including one very old one found at auction. We then did our own comparison tasting, with Jamie trying two different age statements of Knob Creek bourbon and Mark trying two different expressions of Glen...
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In Episode 43 of the “Lean Whiskey” podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban begin by talking about each of our interviews regarding the new book by Steve Spear and Gene Kim, Wiring the Winning Organization.
Mark interviewed Steve and Gene for the Lean Blog Interviews podcast, and Jamie interviewed Steve for a forthcoming episode of the People Solve Problems podcast. We then shifted our attention ...
In Episode 42, Jamie Flinchbaugh visits Mark Graban in northern Kentucky and they get to record an episode in person. This was the origin of the podcast series — getting together in person, enjoying whiskey, and talking about Lean stuff.
In the last episode, we did an experiment that was inconclusive — sometimes that's how it goes. We had moved the whiskey talk to the end of the episode, but since we had no firm evide...
Should Lean be Forced? Running & Evaluating Experiments with the Podcast and Beyond, Inexpensive Sip
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In Episode 41, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh try a couple experiments, in the spirit of continuous improvement. You’ll first notice that we moved the whiskey talk to the end. The hypothesis here is that some people don’t want to hear the whiskey talk, so they can just exit the podcast when we finish the lean talk. We also used a different platform for recording, so it may affect your listening o...
Episode page with video and more
In Episode 40, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh get back together after their in-person visit where they enjoyed the origins of this podcast: talking about lean stuff while enjoying some whiskey. We get to celebrate the launch of Mark’s new book, The Mistakes That Make Us, as well as Jamie’s new podcast titled People Solve Problems. We recap our in-person visit and some of the great whiskey we were...
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