Customer Reviews

Chasing the Rabbit: How Market Leaders Outdistance the Competition and How Great Companies Can Catch Up and Win, Foreword by Clay Christensen

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Steve's in-depth look at how high velocity organizations do what they do, takes the mystery out of why Toyota and others outdistance their competitors. It gives anyone interested the critical skills required to get started today in order to create sustainable change. His hands on experience and love of story telling weave together the technical and human aspects of the hard work of defining and continuously refining our work.

With the 4 capabilities defined the leader is left with the challenge of creating an environment where everyone can learn from mistakes, be problem solvers and challenge the status quo. No small feat. Like anything we want to learn or habit we want to change it means we have to practice. And practice is a cycle of act/fail/learn/adjust/act. It is also takes time and patience. In our western business culture a problem is seen as failure and patience for the long term pay off is not the norm.

Steve's examples illustrate that we need an attitude/mindset adjustment top to bottom. We need to think and behave differently. When we lead as learners and mentors we create emotional safety. With emotional safety everyone participates in seeing problems or breakdowns as an opportunity. With that possibilities and creativity emerge. Everyone benefits from being part of this continuous cycle of practicing. Everyone is engaged.

So, soak up the lessons in the book and then set a practice in place. Most importantly as a leader at any level you have to walk the talk. The standard of arrogant top down management does not align with the lessons Steve lays out in the book. A fresh humble look at "how we lead" would be a good practice to start.

Steven Spear has probably contributed singly more than anyone to the emergence of "lean management" from the field fo lean manufacturing and lean production. Three of his seminal contributions have been around different angles-of-view. In Toyota's DNA he has focused on the level of detailed specification of the operatiosn processes, specifying outputs, pathways, connections and activities. Taking a different tack, he has opened our eyes to the double-loop learning system at the core of Toyota's success in his Learning to Lead at Toyota paper. Finally, his Healthcare article provides a blueprint of how Toyota-like problem solving can be applied in a completely different field.

In this breakthrough book, Spear brings these three different insights together and blends them into the most powerful and elegant buisness theory yet to come out of the lean field (imagine Good to Gtreat with substance). This is a landmark book because it finally creates a bridge from lean mavens to business thinkers - and it offers a splendid opportunity to talk to CEOs about HOW to change their operations system in order to improve both strategy and execution.

I've already read the book twice, and have immediately started applying the core framework to my own work. I have to confess also stealing some detailed images and expressions to try to sound clever in public speaking. The description of the worker who knows he's going to fail today, because he's failed yesterday and the system will ensure that he fails tomorrow as opposed to the worker going to work with the possibility of success every day is priceless. I've used it to great effect at my boy's school to explain to a teacher that giving every day kids opportunities for success and reward was more productive than continuously pointing out their defficiencies against a list of 32 criteria (there's no way you can't get at least one wrong in the course of the day).

Read it! Offer it to your boss and your staff. Require your consultants to have read it carefully. This is one of these rare frame changing book that, with some luck, could also become a game changer in the way senior executives see their role, their mission and their organizations.

Especially useful for the leader who may not yet realize how important bringing "not knowing" and "failure" to the forefront are to his or her success and that of the entire organization.

Another new book on business performance? Steven Spear, a rare "dirt under the fingernails" process thinker with Harvard academic credentials has spent enough time on Toyota and US Big 3 assembly lines to condense succinctly the differences. His concise summary of performance improvement builds upon 4 simple capabilities: 1)specify design to capture existing knowledge and force the process to reveal more knowledge through forcing and following problems, 2) "swarming and solving" problems, 3) spreading learnings rapidly throughout the organization and 4) leadership's role in driving points 1) to 3).

For the thousands of lean and six sigma practicioners who have suffered the lack of leadership understanding that can stall or even insure failure of lean six sigma business performance efforts, this book offers a refreshing view of the important role of executive leadership, without dwelling on methodology.

Although they make for a long read, the health care examples after page 323! are very close to each of our hearts. If you get a chance to see Steve present, be prepared for many sleepless nights, as he goes deeper into his examples, burning them into your memory banks.

For organizations looking to succeed in an ever more competitive world, the message Mr. Spear communicates is clear: make certain leaders learn and drive the learning process. (which can only happen in the blameless search for FAILURE or NOT KNOWING)

As a working sensei with over 20 years experience since my first 'kaizen event' I can say that books like this are way too few and far between. In amongst the sea of identikit TPS 'fan books' Steve's book rises above the crowd by going beyond the usual list-of-tools and /or re-telling Ohno stories fare. In contrast Steves natural desire to 'know-why' more than 'know-how' sees him tapping into the very essence of what it takes to run an enterprise that is not:-
a)Cynical about the human talent employed nor
b)Seeking to exert super-control of the culture or perhaps worst
c)Seeking to fashion it into the image of a charismatic leader

I agree with the earlier reviewer that this book is aimed at the C-level reader but the reality is we need it to be. Too many attempts to create rabbits are lacking good leadership and hence few have managed to get anywhere near Toyota-like performance. In my experience and data the number one failure mode in seeking rabbit-like performance is lack of appropriate leadership. For those leaders in question I always find that they are never the 'bad cops' the local standing army of black belts would have you believe. Mostly they are supportive but unsure of their role and exactly 'how' they are to lead in what people keep telling them is a different way. Meanwhile their only crime is typically wanting to understand when all this training and six sigma project stuff is going to produce a return on the investment? So i digressed but the point is Steves book gives it to you and your C-level straight. He tells you it is all about the rate of improvement. plain and simple rabbits it seems typically start from behind and out-improve the rest. Moreover they keep improving and accelerating in such a way that they do not get caught........Think Toyota vs GM : Honda vs the British Motorcycle industry. Steve then highlights for us the simple principles by which leaders of 'rabbits' routinely get that kind of beheaviour from their organisations. Suprise suprise this isn't by micro-control, charisma nor endless hours of 'training'. No it is simply by demanding work and improvement be done within a few non-negotiable principles and creating a culture where all staff can learn-by-doing collectively to sector leading performance. Forget sweat-the-details it is 'sweat-the-principles' and let the people who do the work do so in a organisation-wide culture of repeated discovery and shared insights.
C-level folks have been crying out for this degree of simplicity otherwise how can they can mobilise an entire enterprise:-

1) Seek worker designed work systems that: aid regular discovery, provide constant learning insights and force improvement
2) Make problem solving and improvement a way-of-life for all
3) Share knowledge and insights
4) Develop these skills in others

Note Lean principles in themselves and the majority of the lean industry is merely peddling the principles of Just-in-time extrapolated beyond the 'shopfloor'. Thankfully Steve is one of the few of us who understands that without leaders living and demanding the above principles the 'Toyota temple' has no 'spirit' and hence the ubiquity of soul-less toyota copyists

Great book, recommended for all senior execs who believe their people and organisations are capable of far more than even they realize.

This is an excellent book. Gemba is a Japanese term indicating being present where the work is being done. While this is hugely important it can be difficult to make sense of what is happening there. I've had the good fortune to have Steve Spear as a coach in the Gemba of a large Aerospace organization. He stood looking over my shoulder, helping me and the people doing the work right in front of us make sense of what was happening and how it could be done better. I have the same sense in reading this book - that Steve is right there helping me make sense of my own work as a Lean Six Sigma professional. Insights that I have been groping for in trying to gain insight on my own are spelled out clearly and directly with examples from all types of business situations. Steve can't design your own work for you but he can certainly make it much easier to discover the best things to do in your own process. Get this book!

Steve Spear's book, "Chasing the Rabbit", is a must read for people in leadership positions who hold a deep desire to move their companies and people forward. Once again, Steve breaks down for the reader the fundamental capabilities of high performing companies. Having personally worked with Steve on several occasions, I believe the full content of "Chasing the Rabbit" describes his understanding of high performing organizations that have developed a culture of active leadership. This is a book about 'doing' rather than 'thinking', about being prescriptive in designing the ideal, and about pursuing perfection in every activity. "Chasing the Rabbit" describes in detail the difference between marginal and high performing organizations. It is the application of these activities which will make the difference for leadership whose companies excel into the future.

Steve Spear has once again produced a critical work for leaders of organizations grappling with how to transform their performance. By looking beyond Toyota at the other organizations that have used some of the principles (some with good success, others not), Steve has continued to do what he does best; DERIVE truths about leadership and performance from observing what is there to be learned.

This is not a technical book about TPS, though it certainly provides many important technical insights during the observations of the contrasts between Toyota and the Big 3. What it does best is ground successful improvement in some of the preconditional steps that only leaders can establish - goals of perfect performance, a professionally safe environment in which to call out and rapidly solve problems, transparency of problems so everyone can learn, and a relentless effort by the CEO to be a lead learner and teacher whose most important role is to coach better and better problem solving each day from each person in the organization. If every CEO had the courage, self-confidence, and training to lead this way, coupled with the TPS principles ("Rules in use"), we would not have a health care crisis or an auto manufacturing crisis in the United States today.

Fortunately there is this book as a partial guide for courageous leaders to help lead us out of these messes we are in.

This book is about how your organization can develop a system that helps you pursue perfection in a very deliberate manner. Steve has helped my organization apply the principles that he has outlined in Chasing the Rabbit and it works!
After you come to the realization that EVERYTHING is a process with a distinct output, pathways, connections/handoffs and methods, the application of Steve's framework will work in your favor to create a high performing organization.
As my organization applies the framework that Steve has laid out, we are beginning to experience a velocity around problem solving that would have been unimaginable a year ago.
You too can cause your competitors to wonder how you are able to do more with less while being bound by the same constraints as the market.

Steve Spear has a unique ability to take complex issues and through detailed research and analysis provide simplicity that can be understood by almost anyone. In Chasing the Rabbit, as with his previous works, he synthesizes the core issues managers and practioners alike need to grasp. This treatise is fundamental, whittled down to the core, truth about what it takes to succeed in any business. It is not a lean book, it is not a management book, it is a leadership roadmap for how to guide your company through the unique challenges it faces. The concepts apply to industry, government or academia. He shows how organizations that are vastly different in the space they occupy can thrive even in very competitive environments. The cornerstone is how to shape the culture to achieve what is needed and how to think about the work differently. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is responsible for running a company or anyone who is part of transforming the way work gets done.

[...]

Thanks for taking time to read "Chasing the Rabbit," and taking time to share your thoughts and thanks too for the nice words about my research over many years.

I thought I would describe the motivation and framing for my new book, and its intended audience as you had a question about that.

As you know, my research started in `95 with the simple question: "Why is Toyota dusting its competition?" What I learned was that rather than the competition missing another shop-floor production control tool, they had missed the holistic approach to designing and operating systems so delivering value and learning how to deliver more value are tightly coupled. That was the theme of "Decoding the DNA of TPS" and "The Essence of Just in Time." As I dug further, I saw that there was an incredible discipline around problem solving (and leadership that developed great problem solvers), the themes of "Learning to Lead at Toyota." More experimentation revealed that the management system Toyota had invented had application broadly (e.g., "Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today.")

What writing a book like "Chasing..." allowed me was to show the whole management system in its entirety--capabilities around process design, problem solving, knowledge sharing, and leadership with examples that span heavy industry and high tech, manufacturing and product design, dot.com and healthcare.

The breadth created the opportunity to deal with the objection: "But we don't make cars!" It turns out, the management system transcends industries.

The book also gave me the chance to address the objection: "Our work isn't repetitive!" Neither is technology introduction (e.g., nuclear propulsion, jet engine design, and new business launch in Chapter 5) and crisis management (Chapter 10). It also allowed me to focus on the leadership imperative, as in Chapters 4 (Alcoa), 5 (US Navy), and 9 (Toyota), something I had yet to do in writing.

The other thing a book allowed which articles have not is to take really deep dives into how the principles are applied, hence the detailed look at how this is practiced at Toyota in Chapters 6 through 10. In doing this, the book addresses a problem often confronted by those who are deeply steeped in the tools--value stream maps, pull systems, standard work, and so forth. They often loose the forest for the trees. My hope was that by focusing on the fundamental `capabilities,' their expression would be easier in practice.

I hope you, your colleagues, and other readers find "Chasing..." useful for at least one of these reasons.

Please keep the ideas flowing.

Best wishes,
Steve Spear