REVIEW – The Ballés’ novels – The Gold Mine, The Lean Manager and Lead With Respect – have greatly contributed to the advancement of lean thinking by enthusing practitioners the world over. Now, a new Study Guide will help leaders to teach lean to their teams.
Words: Dan Jones, co-founder of the lean movement and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy
The Ballé Trilogy distilled the core lean practices, management tasks and leadership of continuous improvement into the most compelling and comprehensive narrative.
The colourful stories in the three novels didn’t just explain what lean is about, but gave readers the opportunity to experience the challenges and rewards they will find on their own lean journeys. Through the books’ characters, you get a true sense of the intent and purpose of lean thinking with no holds barred. You can often feel the heat from the original TPS senseis who taught the Ballés!
Over the years, even those who don’t naturally learn from reading fiction have got a lot out of these novels. Now there is a new tool to make the most of the teachings of the trilogy: The Gold Mine Trilogy Study Guide, by Tom Ehrenfeld and Michael Ballé.
This study guide turns the three novels into an ideal curriculum for leaders to work through and reflect on with their teams.
Indeed, my hunch is that really a company’s lean “ah-ha” insights come from learning and discussing these counterintuitive practices in a group and relating them to the business’ specific circumstances. This beats online learning hands down!
The Trilogy helped us to understand what lean entails and inspired many practitioners to begin their lean journeys. In fact, the most important lesson it has taught us is that lean and change begin with us! However, as with anything else, the real test is when you can also teach these ideas to others. To do this effectively, you will find the new Study Guide to be an essential companion.
To purchase your copy of the Study Guide, click on one of the following links:
For UK buyers; for USA buyers?
THE AUTHOR
Daniel Jones is co-author of the seminal books The Machine that Changed the World, Lean Thinking and Lean Solutions; and co-founder of the lean movement. He is founding chair of the Lean Enterprise Academy in the UK.
