The Lean Kohai: Meditations for Strategy, Practice, and Balance in Living Change Management

This book consists of 76 statements on various issues and practices encountered by process improvement/operational excellence (PI‑OpEx) practitioners, managers, and leaders. Many of these issues are also encountered by those outside of PI‑OpEx. This book contains instructions, encouraging readers to write and journal in its pages. The key benefits of this work fuel the unending learning journey of PI‑OpEx practitioners and leaders.

Practitioners face issues regarding practice, methods, leadership, management, and purpose. The reflections in this book allow them to either tackle the issue upfront and be prepared or the reflections can act as jump-off points to develop an approach to an issue encountered, individually or as a team. For example, the practitioner may have a problematic team member, and using a reflection from the book and having the group discuss it may resolve the issue. Or, the practitioner can read a reflection and use their response to develop a strategy for handling the team member.

Essentially, this book provides readings that could form the basis of daily meditation, be consulted for perspective when a specific issue arises, or both. It seeks to instill a mindset of emotional intelligence that can then fuel the pursuit of meaningful, lasting change.

Don Arp, Jr., Ph.D. has held several leadership roles including as a founder and deputy director for a state-level process improvement center and as a deputy director in a social services agency. Don has served as a cabinet member in the administration of a former governor of Nebraska and is currently an executive director in the public sector.

He is a writer, researcher, and leader, with years of experience in public and private sector compliance, oversight, investigations, operational excellence, management assessment, and executive leadership.

Don is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts with Highest Distinction in history and a Master of Arts in anthropology (specializing in archaeology). In 2019, Don received his doctorate in transdisciplinary writing from Middlesex University in London. Don is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and has had his work published in Six Sigma Forum Magazine and Lean & Six Sigma Review.