REAL LEAN (Volume Two) continues the six-volume series with thirteen practical essays confronting the toughest obstacles that stall Lean transformations and the overlooked opportunities that could carry them further. Like Volume One, Lean is a management system built on "Respect for People," not a toolkit, and it adds a distinctive historical lens, repeatedly drawing on the pioneers of Scientific Management a century ago whose struggles to advance a new management system mirror the challenges Lean advocates still face today.
This book helps readers by:
- Explaining Why the Status Quo Persists. Opening essays on the persistence of the current state and the leadership problem draw on blunt early-1900s voices to show why bosses' lack of curiosity and motivation keeps better systems from taking hold.
- Freeing Lean from the Tool Age. Essays like "Can Lean Exit the Tool Age?" and "How to Make Lean Last a Long Time" confront the tools-only trap and offer countermeasures for sustaining Lean as a complete system over the long term.
- Sharpening Market and Competitive Thinking. "Manage to the Market," "Know Your Competition," and "Lean is Not a Theory" ground Lean in the realities of buyers' markets and real competitive pressure rather than abstraction.
- Overcoming Complacency and Overwhelm. Essays such as "We're Beyond That" and "It's Overwhelming" tackle the attitudes and anxieties that quietly derail practitioners and leaders.
- Removing The Accounting and Finance Roadblocks. "Accountants and Their Cost Systems" and "Memo to Finance Executives" expose how standard cost accounting and bad metrics punish Lean and produce poor decisions, and what finance leaders should do instead.
- Seizing Neglected Opportunities. "Neglected Opportunities" and the forward-looking "Lean Enterprise Estate Planning" point to value and continuity that most organizations overlook when faced with changes in leadership or ownership.
Concise, practical, and unusual in its historically grounding, each essay stands alone yet reinforces a single message: advancing Lean means confronting leadership, mindset, and measurement obstacles head-on while learning from those who faced the same problems a century ago. For practitioners and leaders serious about making Lean last, Volume Two is both a troubleshooting guide and a source of fresh opportunity.
Dr. Bob Emiliani has been a progressive management practitioner and researcher for over 30 years. He worked in industry for 15 years and had management responsibility in engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain management at Pratt & Whitney. Bob was part of a team responsible for implementing TPS principles and practices in both manufacturing and supply chains at Pratt & Whitney. Subsequently, he was full-time professor for 23 years. He now holds the honorary title of Professor Emeritus. Bob was the first academic to establish a research agenda focused on Lean leadership, resulting in numerous publications and varied leadership development workshops. Bob is a prolific, versatile, and award-winning writer whose publications span engineering, business, social sciences, and humanities. He has authored or co-authored 28 books and 45 peer-reviewed papers across six different disciplines (leadership, management, management history, supply chain management, higher education, and materials engineering). His work is widely recognized and he is praised for being a unique voice and a creative thinker.
