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The Lean Leader: A Personal Journey of Transformation
Without Lean leaders, there can be no Lean.
If an organization wants to be Lean, its leaders must lead using Lean principles. Put another way, until the top of your organization fully embraces Lean, the rest of your organization will never be Lean.
The Lean A Personal Journey of Transformation uses a compelling novel format to tackle the nuts and bolts of leading a Lean transformation. Readers follow along as the characters face real crises and what seem to be unreasonable deadlines.
As the story progresses, readers will see how the main character, Don, and his colleagues transform from being "command and control" autocrats―those who make decisions and bark orders―to more Socratic coaches and mentors.
As Don and his staff come to realize that the folks they employ are the real experts in the processes they control, you will learn why it behooves you to do more asking than telling. You will come to realize that a leader’s greatest skill must be in coaching great performance from their people. You will also witness the difference between managing and leading.
After reading this book, you will understand why it’s so important to shed the decision-making tasks that have cluttered your days, and how to delegate those decisions to employees who are closer to the action. You will learn how important it is to look over the horizon to identify upcoming challenges, define and communicate new courses of action, and compel others to follow.
Most importantly, you will learn exactly what it takes to lead a Lean organization that thrives socially, as well as financially.
If an organization wants to be Lean, its leaders must lead using Lean principles. Put another way, until the top of your organization fully embraces Lean, the rest of your organization will never be Lean.
The Lean A Personal Journey of Transformation uses a compelling novel format to tackle the nuts and bolts of leading a Lean transformation. Readers follow along as the characters face real crises and what seem to be unreasonable deadlines.
As the story progresses, readers will see how the main character, Don, and his colleagues transform from being "command and control" autocrats―those who make decisions and bark orders―to more Socratic coaches and mentors.
As Don and his staff come to realize that the folks they employ are the real experts in the processes they control, you will learn why it behooves you to do more asking than telling. You will come to realize that a leader’s greatest skill must be in coaching great performance from their people. You will also witness the difference between managing and leading.
After reading this book, you will understand why it’s so important to shed the decision-making tasks that have cluttered your days, and how to delegate those decisions to employees who are closer to the action. You will learn how important it is to look over the horizon to identify upcoming challenges, define and communicate new courses of action, and compel others to follow.
Most importantly, you will learn exactly what it takes to lead a Lean organization that thrives socially, as well as financially.
- GenresLeadership
167 pages, Paperback
First published January 19, 2015
14 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 2, 2019
Whenever I read or listen to business fiction, I have to compare the book to what I consider to be the pinnacle of business fiction, Eliyahu Goldratt’s The Goal. The Lean Leader is a well-written and a well thought-out short novel about a plant manager who, under duress, goes from lean ignorance to a lean student and ultimately a lean leader. The audiobook is well written and well narrated. The storyline has a share of conflict and learning moments to keep your interest and warrant a high rating.
The major problem I have with most business novels is, and this book is no exception, is that for the author to drive their point home they need to tie the story up into a nice little package. I have yet to see this happen in any organization that I have been employed. Additionally, my direct observations more closely mirror The Goal as opposed to most other non-fiction business books. By that, I mean is that most novels describe top management is pushing lower managers to embrace lean. By contrast, Goldratt’s book highlights a lower manager struggling yet receiving little or no help from their upper managers. They implement an improvement strategy only out of desperation. Maybe it's my ignorance or lack of experience, but I have yet to find an executive that thinks like Jim in this novel and truly knows and understands the power of lean.
Lean Leader is an excellent audiobook with great narration. I would highly recommend it. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the people who need to embrace it, won’t.
The major problem I have with most business novels is, and this book is no exception, is that for the author to drive their point home they need to tie the story up into a nice little package. I have yet to see this happen in any organization that I have been employed. Additionally, my direct observations more closely mirror The Goal as opposed to most other non-fiction business books. By that, I mean is that most novels describe top management is pushing lower managers to embrace lean. By contrast, Goldratt’s book highlights a lower manager struggling yet receiving little or no help from their upper managers. They implement an improvement strategy only out of desperation. Maybe it's my ignorance or lack of experience, but I have yet to find an executive that thinks like Jim in this novel and truly knows and understands the power of lean.
Lean Leader is an excellent audiobook with great narration. I would highly recommend it. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the people who need to embrace it, won’t.
November 16, 2022
Excellent way to get the understanding of how things fit together for the Kaizen process in a format that is easy to remember (and understand). I've been through some classes a few years ago when I worked at a location implementing it, and it didn't make sense from an overall system point of view because as a low level person I didn't get all of the explanation on the system.
If you are looking for an explanation of 5S and a granular book about each step at floor level, this isn't the book for you.... although I would definitely listen to that as well! This is more about changing the minds and hearts of yourself as a leader so that you can get buy-in and implement the system even if you haven't been a lean leader in the past. I would love to see a book in this novel format walking through things at floor level and adapting to the changes.... while we had some leadership that was good where I was at, it wasn't in the places it needed to be to get the changes in attitude and everything done without a ton of churn at the bottom.... more replace instead of explain and adapt to bring employees with.... which actually created a ton of stress instead of the way it was handled in this book.
If you are looking for an explanation of 5S and a granular book about each step at floor level, this isn't the book for you.... although I would definitely listen to that as well! This is more about changing the minds and hearts of yourself as a leader so that you can get buy-in and implement the system even if you haven't been a lean leader in the past. I would love to see a book in this novel format walking through things at floor level and adapting to the changes.... while we had some leadership that was good where I was at, it wasn't in the places it needed to be to get the changes in attitude and everything done without a ton of churn at the bottom.... more replace instead of explain and adapt to bring employees with.... which actually created a ton of stress instead of the way it was handled in this book.
March 19, 2021
This was really good and really bad. I loved parts of it. But there where some really bad patterns of lack of growth support for people on your team among other things. It makes this book impossible to recommend to people who is not already on the lean agile waggon.
February 17, 2020
A horrible novel filled with stereotypes but two stars for the good thinking behind.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews