Chasing The Rabbit
Steven J. Spear
McGraw-Hill

In a broad range of situations - heavy and high tech manufacturing, product design, medical services, consumer services, commercial aviation, engineering - some organizations accomplish far more, with more certainty, in less time, using fewer resources than their rivals. Steve Spear’s book, Chasing the Rabbit, explains how.

While everyone confronts unpredictable perturbations while managing complex organizations - many people, drawn from myriad disciplines, tasked with the design and delivery of complex products and services - most treat difficulties as unavoidable, to be worked around. Not the leaders. For them, problems are not fires to be fought but are correctable weaknesses that, if addressed quickly and meaningfully, can be the source of competitive knowledge and expertise. Chasing the Rabbit discusses how - through a high velocity, high endurance approach to improvement and innovation - the leaders outrun their rivals.

Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction
Mark Graban
Productivity Press

Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction helps hospital administrators looking for a proven improvement method understand the promise of applying lean and Toyota Production System methods. The book lays out a framework for defining and understanding lean hospitals, starting with the challenges faced by hospitals, including rising costs, falling reimbursement rates, employee retention, and patient safety and satisfaction.

Lean Hospitals spells out a holistic way of viewing lean - not just tools, but also explains the lean management system that is used to make sure lean is not just a project or “program of the month,” but is a sustainable system that leads to a dramatically different lean culture. It is a practical book written by a practicing lean healthcare consultant, drawing on his own examples from leading real change and improvements. The book also features many case studies and quotes from hospital executives and personnel.

Managing to Learn
John Shook
Lean Enterprise Institute

Managing to Learn, by Toyota veteran John Shook, reveals how the structure of an A3 report creates engaged and analytical employees through the process of solving problems. A3 thinking - and the underlying A3 management - is the process of identifying, framing, and then acting on problems and challenges at all levels. Managing to Learn uses a unique format that teaches readers how to produce and use A3 reports, while at the same time explaining the underlying basis for these tools.

We read side-by-side how a lean manager, Desi Porter, learns the formal elements of an A3 proposal and its applications as he tackles a key project. At the same time, the thinking behind the coaching of his manager, Ken Sanderson, is revealed on the same page. As a result, readers learn how to write a powerful A3, while learning why the technique is at the core of lean management and lean leadership.

Staying Lean: Thriving, not Just Surviving
Peter Hines, Pauline Found, Gary Griffths, and Richard Harrison
Lean Enterprise Research Centre

The book, Staying Lean: Thriving, not just surviving, tells the story of how a multi-national manufacturing organization successfully implemented and sustained lean enterprise operational improvements to help turnaround the group’s financial performance. The story is based around the Lean Iceberg Model of sustainable change and addresses the often invisible, and hard to copy, enabling elements of successful lean management in manufacturing organizations.

Staying Lean is written as a practical workbook to help business managers consider all the elements they need to address when implementing lean thinking in any organization. The book guides managers along their lean journey so lean becomes embedded throughout the organization sustaining the performance improvements over the long-term; thus, enabling the organization to outperform low-cost economies, and hence, be better able to compete in a global marketplace.

Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way
Jeffrey K. Liker, Michael Hoseus, and the Center for Quality People and Organizations
McGraw-Hill

Companies throughout the world are engaging in “lean” programs and following Toyota as a model. Generally speaking these programs have had success at driving impressive dollar savings, but the results are still far below what is possible and are generally not sustainable. The problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of what has made Toyota so successful. Toyota Culture provides an in-depth look at the human systems that underlie Toyota’s great success globally.

The book is organized around a human systems model. At the center of the model is the people value stream by which people are attracted, selected, and developed. The X factor in Toyota’s ongoing success is the way Toyota develops people to not only do their jobs but to become committed to the Toyota value system. The authors use examples throughout the book to bring the cultural concepts to life.

Understanding A3 Thinking
Durward K. Sobek, II and Art Smalley
Productivity Press

Understanding A3 Thinking is an overall explanation of the A3 Thinking process used within Toyota to support the twin pillars of respect for people and continuous improvement. The work is also intended as a reference guide for any party drafting an A3 report. In the book, the authors outline seven key elements that define A3 Thinking. The seven elements combine with the PDCA cycle to create the basic structure of an effective A3 report. The authors also depict the basic types of A3 reports.

The first is the Problem Solving A3 Report, the second is the Proposal A3 Report, and the third is the Status A3 Report. A section on each one is provided with examples and key points for creation of each type. In addition, suggestions are provided for both writing and critiquing the various types. The book also contains chapters with advice on form and style, as well as the various support structures that can help foster A3 Thinking.