Lean Foundations
Fourteen principles, one automaker, and a management system that actually sticks.
What is The Toyota Way (Jeffrey K. Liker)?
The ‘go see’ mapping method that makes waste visible in real time—one pencil line at a time.
What is Learning to See (Mike Rother & John Shook)?
Level 5 Leadership, Hedgehog Concept, and getting the right people on the bus.
What is Good to Great (Jim Collins)?
The 8-step change model that everyone references—urgency, coalition, wins, anchor.
What is Leading Change (John P. Kotter)?
System 1 vs System 2—the book that made cognitive bias mainstream.
What is Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)?
The book that popularized ‘banish waste and create wealth’ by rethinking value from the customer backward.
What is Lean Thinking (James P. Womack & Daniel T. Jones)?
A whole book devoted to drawing the current state, future state, and seeing flow—not just talking about it.
What is Value Stream Mapping (Karen Martin & Mike Osterling)?
Be proactive, begin with the end in mind, and ‘sharpen the saw.’
What is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey)?
Rider, Elephant, Path: change the system and the behavior follows.
What is Switch (Chip Heath & Dan Heath)?
Reciprocity, scarcity, social proof—the classic persuasion playbook grounded in research.
What is Influence (Robert Cialdini)?
If you’ve ever said ‘efficiency ≠ effectiveness,’ this ‘flow vs. resource efficiency’ book is probably why.
What is This Is Lean (Niklas Modig & Pär Åhlström)?
One page. One story. One PDCA thinking process—Toyota’s ‘reasoning on paper.’
What is Understanding A3 Thinking (Durward Sobek II & Art Smalley)?
Leadership is a team sport: build safety, belonging, and purpose—or you don’t have culture.
What is Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek)?
Trust, vulnerability, and purpose—the elements behind high-performing teams.
What is The Culture Code (Daniel Coyle)?
We’re irrational… but in ways you can predict. ‘Free’ is never free.
What is Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely)?
Before ‘Lean’ was a buzzword, this MIT-backed story compared mass production to Toyota’s system—and changed industry language.
What is The Machine That Changed the World (Womack, Jones, Roos)?
The safety-and-quality superpower that made aviation and surgery better: the humble checklist.
What is The Checklist Manifesto (Atul Gawande)?
Take ownership. Full stop. Even when it’s not your fault.
What is Extreme Ownership (Jocko Willink & Leif Babin)?
Not the change—the transition: endings, neutral zone, new beginnings.
What is Managing Transitions (William & Susan Bridges)?
Choice architecture: improve decisions without removing freedom.
What is Nudge (Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein)?
The Improvement Kata + Coaching Kata: a routine for scientific thinking, not a toolkit.
What is Toyota Kata (Mike Rother)?
The ‘micro-kaizen’ book where small 2‑second fixes compound into culture change.
What is 2 Second Lean (Paul Akers)?
Care personally. Challenge directly. The feedback model that leaders quote constantly.
What is Radical Candor (Kim Scott)?
When personal development is built into the operating system of the company.
What is Everyone Culture (Robert Kegan & Lisa Lahey)?
The book that explains why rare outliers dominate outcomes—and why we keep missing them.
What is The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)?