Managing to Learn by Toyota veteran John Shook, reveals the thinking underlying the vital A3 management process at the heart of lean management and lean leadership. Constructed as a dialogue between a manager and his boss, the book explains how A3 thinking helps managers and executives identify, frame, and then act on problems and challenges. Shook calls this approach, which is captured in the simple structure of an A3 report, the key to Toyota's entire system of developing talent and continually deepening its knowledge and capabilities. The A3 Report is a Toyota-pioneered practice of getting the problem, the analysis, the corrective actions, and the action plan down on a single sheet of large (A3) paper, often with the use of graphics. A3 paper is the international term for a large sheet of paper, roughly equivalent to the 11-by-17-inch U.S. sheet. The widespread adoption of the A3 process standardizes a methodology for innovating, planning, problem-solving, and building foundational structures for sharing a broader and deeper form of thinking that produces organizational learning deeply rooted in the work itself, says Shook. Management expert James Womack predicts Managing to Learn will have a deep impact on the way lean companies manage people. He believes readers will learn an underlying way of thinking that reframes all activities as learning activities at every level of the organization, whether it's standardized work and kaizen at the individual level, system kaizen at the managerial level, or fundamental strategic decisions at the corporate level. A unique layout puts the thoughts of a lean manager struggling to apply the A3 process to a key project on one side of the page and the probing questions of the boss who is coaching him through the process on the other side. 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.
John is an industrial anthropologist who divides his time between teaching & research and advising individuals and organizations who wish to understand and implement the collection of principles and practices known as the lean enterprise. He writes the on-line John's Lean Management Column at www.lean.org/shook/.
John is author of "Managing To Learn", awarded the 2009 Shingo Prize for excellence in manufacturing research and publication, which exposes the DNA of Toyota's management, leadership and mentoring processes. He is co-author with Toshiko Narasawa of "Kaizen Express", and with Mike Rother of "Learning To See", winner of the 1998 Shingo Prize. John was lead author of the "Lean Lexicon" and "Mapping To See". Other notable writings include the chapter "Bringing The Toyota Production System to America" in Becoming Lean by Jeffrey Liker, and "Toyota's Secret: The A3 Report" in Sloan Management Review, Summer 2009.
For 11 years John worked for Toyota in Japan and the United States. He joined Toyota in 1983 in Toyota City to help with the process of transferring the company's management and production systems to NUMMI and subsequently to other operations around the world. During his seven-year stay at Toyota's headquarters, he became the company's first American 'Kacho' (manager) in Japan. In the United States, John became a part of Toyota's North American engineering and R&D center in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1991 ss general manager of administration with responsibilities included strategic planning, purchasing, public affairs, and general administration. His last position with Toyota was as senior American manager with the Toyota Supplier Support Center in Lexington, Kentucky, the company's organization to assist the efforts of North American companies to implement TPS.
John is president of two consulting groups, the Lean Transformations Group, LLC, which focuses on the application of lean principles in services, health care and other non-manufacturing settings, and the TWI Network, Inc., a consortium of lean manufacturing experts. John as been Senior Advisor with Dr. James Womack's Lean Enterprise Institute Since its inception in 1997. John was Director of University of Michigan's Japan Technology Management Program, and taught in the university's Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering. He is a lifetime member of the Shingo Academy, member of the Shingo Prize Board of Directors, and frequent presenter at academic and industry forums and is periodically cited in major publications such as Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Time, Automotive News, and others.
