Real Lean: Learning the Craft of Lean Management (Volume Four)

REAL LEAN (Volume Four) reframes Lean as a craft, something executives must practice daily, at the genba, to gain real proficiency, not a set of ideas absorbed from books alone. Continuing the series' emphasis on the too often ignored "Respect for People" principle, this volume gathers the essential facets of the craft that practitioners must master to genuinely succeed.

This book helps readers by:

• Committing To Deliberate Practice. Establishes that Lean mastery, like any craft, demands sustained, disciplined practice, dispelling the fantasy of quick, easy transformation.
• Learning Before Crisis Hits. Urges organizations to build Lean capability when times are good, rather than desperately reaching for it when trouble arrives.
• Developing the Ability to Think. Centers the real work of Lean on developing judgment and reasoning, not memorizing tools.
• Breaking the Cycle of Repeated Errors. Confronts the habit of "making the same mistake" and shows how learning from the past prevents its repetition.
• Refusing to Aim Low. Challenges the modest, unambitious goals that limit results, pushing leaders toward genuinely transformative expectations.
• Recognizing the Eighth Waste. Names behavioral waste – the wasteful, disrespectful behaviors often shown by leaders – as the overlooked eighth waste that quietly undermines Lean.
• Managing the Other Information System. Surfaces the human, informal information system that formal systems miss, and its importance to real improvement.
• Escaping "One Step Forward, Eleven Back." Diagnoses the regressive dynamics that erase hard-won gains and how to counter them.
• Practicing Ethical Management. Frames Lean as an inherently ethical management system, tying "Respect for People" to fairness and non-zero-sum conduct.
• Setting Policies for Learning. Offers concrete organizational policies that institutionalize continuous learning rather than leaving it to chance.
• Answering the Hard Questions. Tackles the pointed questions practitioners must resolve and distills the craft into "Twelve Rules" as a practical capstone.

Concluding with an afterword that ties the first four volumes together, this book treats Lean not as knowledge to acquire but as a discipline to practice for a lifetime. For leaders and practitioners ready to move from reading about Lean to genuinely mastering it, Volume Four is the craftsman's guide.

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.