Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels: A Practical Guide

by Jeffrey K. Liker

In Developing Lean Leaders at all Levels we build on the theory in the original book, The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership, and answer the How can I apply this in my organization? What concrete actions can I take to begin the journey of becoming a lean leader? How can I spread this learning to all parts of the organization? What critical tools are needed to turn the theory to practice? This book adds examples from over twenty years of experience by Dr. Liker in working with companies outside of Toyota. The book treats you as a student who will be actively engaged in developing lean leader skills as you read. It acts as a tutorial for beginning the journey!

Genres: Management, Leadership, Business

373 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2014

About the author

Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan and principle of Optiprise, Inc. Dr. Liker has authored or co-authored over 75 articles and book chapters and nine books. He is author of the international best-seller, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer, McGraw-Hill, 2004 which speaks to the underlying philosophy and principles that drive Toyota's quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. The companion (with David Meier) The Toyota Way Fieldbook, McGraw Hill, 2005 details how companies can learn from the Toyota Way principles. His book with Jim Morgan, The Toyota Product Development System, Productivity Press, 2006, is the first that details the product development side of Toyota. He is doing a series of books focused on each of the 4Ps. The first books are (with David Meier), Toyota Talent: Developing exceptional people the Toyota Way (May, 2007) and (with Michael Hoseus) Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way (January, 2008). His articles and books have won eight Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence and The Toyota Way also won the 2005 Institute of Industrial Engineers Book of the Year Award and 2007 Sloan Industry Studies Book of the Year. He is a frequent keynote speaker and consultant. Recent clients include Hertz, Caterpillar, AMD, Android, Areva, Rio Tinto Mining, Tenneco Automotive, Jacksonville Naval Air Depot, US Airforce Material Command, Johnson Controls, Harley Davidson, Eaton, and Fujitsu Technical Services.

Source: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~liker

Reviews

[Jeff Mousty · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and foremost i would highly recommend reading "The Toyota Way to lean leadership" prior to reading this book. I have fortunately, because the author of this book has also authored that book and makes many references to it. If you haven't, i think it detracts some from the content in this book.

The biggest thing i have taken from the book when I started this review part way through was going to the jemba. Which if you have read any lean material that is one of the biggest items they reference is going out to the floor (jemba) or whatever it is that is being made to "see" the problem first hand.

There is also a lot of references to A3 reports which are called that due to their size.

They mention starting at the top and working your way down through the levels to adopt lean. Starting at the bottom and going up isn’t good. The rationale is because if you have huddles with your team and the leader isn’t able to ask appropriate questions to spur improvement. Which instead of improvement would sound more like here is your target now go make the target.

Lean is a 5-10 year effort to adopt and a continuous process after that.

They also talk about a process for lean adoption:
*Educate yourself
*Coach your team
*Continual improvement forever

The last thing I wanted to mention is this book does do a very good job of explaining lean terminology. So if your wanted to understand lean terminology with examples for those terms then this book will do that well.

[Bryon Brandt]

The Four Steps of the Lean Leadership Development Model
1. Commit to Self-Development
2. Coach and Develop Others
3. Support Daily Kaizen (Improvement)
4. Create Vision and Align Goals

Mike Rother – Don’t Say Problem Solving. Say Improvement Kata.
We want to Develop People, at All Levels, To Be Better Problem Solvers.

Built in Quality, With Ownership. Never let the problem progress past the place it originally occurred. Never pass on a defect and let it get out of your station.

Ownership means once I detect a problem, I am responsible for it.
The Disease of Over-Confidence is one of the Biggest Barriers to Problem Solving.

1. What specific skills would I need to work on?
2. How Can You Learn Those Skills?

Lean Leaders Skills – Learn to Manage from the Gemba.

T type Leadership – First Deep, Then Wide.
T type Leadership – First Deep, Then Wide.

Go and See People in Their Daily Lives.

Continue to be a Teacher, as you Continue to Learn.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for leaders, or people who wanted to be.

“management has no more critical role than motivating and engaging large numbers of people to work together toward a common goal; defining and explaining what the goal is; sharing a path to achieve it; motivating people to take the journey with you; and assisting them by removing obstacles.

[Dag Chyou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great guidebook to lean executives

Insightfully integrate lean core values and development processes with focus on 4P. A must-read for all leaders at all levels. Highly recommended.

[Charles Walden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great vision and coaching ways to TPS


A must read for any business leaders who is going through Lean deployment. the 8 steps outlined in the book will help each deployment.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant read. It went through the basics of lean leadership and brought up some really crucial points that have been referred to in other lean books, but only fully expanded here.

[Austeja St. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found it as very very valuable reading, full of insights! Though book is not about lean tools, one needs to be aware of lean terminology before getting to this reading - these are often referred to and not explained.

[Troy Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written book about developing Lean Leadership. It has won awards, so I'll only point out the faults that I saw. First, the opening chapter talks so much about Toyota, I almost stopped reading. I felt that at some point, I was going to be asked to drink kool-aid. Second, I am turned off of the subject of Lean by the Japanese terminology. These concepts largely originated from W. Edwards Deming so I don't need to learn Japanese terms to describe what was originally an American concept. Third, I disagree with the author's recommended starting point for implementation. He nearly contradicts himself from earlier chapters when saying the starting point is the tools. Having said that, the book is well-written, thought-provoking, motivating, and it strikes a good balance between theory and practice. I would highly recommend it for those considering a Lean journey.

[Jaakko Vasankari · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to coach lean leaders

I've read a few books on lean, and I do have lean six sigma green belt. Some of the books I have read are interesting but they kind of follow introducing the same kind of tools used in similar fashion. This book only focuses on the leadership, and in a quite an interesting way. The main giving of this book is on how to connect strategy and continuous improvement to people developing.

[Bob Wallner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true 5* book. Listening to this on Audible reaffirmed the reason I started studying and practicing lean. I have added to my list of books that I need to purchase a hardbound copy for my library.

[Blake Merrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best management books I've ever read!

On of the best lean books I have ever read. I have been formally trained on Lean, and this book helped me more than anything else!

[Александр Меланин · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 stars