Learning From Mistakes: Building a Culture of Learning and Continuous Improvement

Why Learning From Mistakes Is Essential for CI, Innovation, and Engagement

Webinar Description

Organizations often say they want people to speak up, experiment, and improve—but in practice, mistakes are still met with silence, discomfort, or blame.

The result? Missed learning, hidden problems, and stalled improvement.

In this on-demand KaiNexus panel discussion, leaders from across the KaiNexus team explore what it really takes to build a culture where mistakes are treated as opportunities to learn—rather than reasons to punish or assign blame.

Hosted by Mark Graban, this candid conversation brings together perspectives from leadership, product development, customer experience, and Lean strategy to share real stories, practical examples, and honest lessons from inside a growing continuous improvement organization.

Rather than focusing on theory alone, this session examines how learning from mistakes shows up in day-to-day work—from software development and onboarding to leadership behavior, psychological safety, and accountability.

View all previous KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Webinars

What You’ll Learn

• Why learning from mistakes is foundational to continuous improvement

• How fear and punishment drive mistakes underground

• The role leaders play in modeling openness and vulnerability

• How psychological safety enables learning, innovation, and improvement

• Practical examples of turning everyday mistakes into system improvements

• How accountability and learning can coexist without blame

Who This Webinar Is For

This webinar is especially valuable for:

• Executives and senior leaders shaping culture and behavior

• Continuous improvement, Lean, and operational excellence leaders

• Managers looking to increase engagement and trust

• Organizations struggling with fear, blame, or silence around mistakes

• Teams seeking to strengthen psychological safety and learning

Key Insight: You Can’t Improve What You’re Afraid to Admit

Mistakes are already happening in every organization.

The real question is whether people feel safe enough to talk about them.

When leaders respond constructively to mistakes—by focusing on learning instead of blame—organizations unlock faster improvement, stronger engagement, and more resilient systems.

As this panel discussion makes clear:
Continuous improvement depends on continuous learning—and learning depends on how we respond when things go wrong.

About the Panelists:

Kym Guilliotti, Director of Product

Kym Guilliotti is a seasoned  Product Management leader with over 10 years of experience across various industries including healthcare and manufacturing.  As Director of Product at KaiNexus, she and her team are responsible for intimately understanding the operations, needs, and challenges of KaiNexus's customers and utilizing that information to deliver high-value software solutions that empower organizations to drive efficiency, collaboration, and excellence in their continuous improvement efforts.

Greg Jacobson, Co-founder & CEO

Greg Jacobson is the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of KaiNexus. He is an ER doctor that is fanatical about the single biggest barrier holding companies back from greatness - their lack of continuous improvement work. It has taken him down the path of developing KaiNexus. He also loves pickles, playing squash, and hanging out with his insanely awesome wife and daughter.

Maggie Millard, VP of Customer Experience

As the VP - KaiNexus, Head of Customer Experience, Maggie educates the continuous improvement community, KaiNexus customers, executives, managers, and staff in just about every industry you can think of about improvement principles and KaiNexus' continuous improvement software. Her desire to improve the American healthcare system combined with a love of spreading knowledge to the far reaches of the internet inspires her work with KaiNexus every day. Maggie graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2010 with a BA in History. She spends her free time hanging out with her two kids and furbabies in the mountains of Virginia.

Linda Vicaro, Senior Lean Strategist