An intimate portrait of the human side of leadership, The Sensei Leader is about discovering the leader in each of us, in all of us--regardless of title, rank or position. The Sensei Leader is based on the author's transformation from loser to leader; from drug abuser and dropout to Black Belt and Sensei. This is not, however, an autobiography. Rather, the author draws on his experiences and his extensive study of philosophy and martial arts to craft a highly personal portrait of an effective leader. The Sensei Leader provides a practical guide to the essential characteristics of the true leader with particular emphasis on Courage, Compassion and Wisdom. The book also highlights 8 Strategies and 5 Tactics every leader can use to be more effective.

The Sensei Way at Work follows in the wake of dozens of successful business books on the Toyota production system, lean enterprise, and the Toyota Way, yet it is unique. It identifies the five keys that sustain successful lean production in Western enterprises—a challenge that has stymied business leaders, managers, and lean coaches for decades. The first reason for our frequent inability to sustain the initial gains of lean startups is a misunderstanding of the Japanese term "kaizen mind." Many mistranslate it as a "hunger" for business efficiency and cost reduction. In fact, kaizen mind is a psychology of "mindfulness" joined with "creativity." And once evoked by a sensei, it can be applied (without training) when a leader mandates that employees and managers solve quality problems and redesign the work together. The second reason is our need to develop new change leaders who know "the way." A sensei immerses prospects in a series of challenges until they learn to do the work of change with the mind of a leader, that is, from the states of presence, flow, and compassion. Lasting organizational transformation becomes possible, even inevitable, when its leaders learn the five keys and realize "one big thing" in the Sensei Way.

Because Discipline, Focus and Excellence are not optional- in life or business! The author takes you inside the mind of the Black Belt to develop confidence, courage, discipline, focus and leadership you need for excellence in personal & professional life. Jim Bouchard combines the wisdom of the ancient masters with a bold new voice for our contemporary challenges. This is practical philosophy written in a blunt, often humorous and always accessible style by a guy who knows the streets, has tasted hardship and knows how to stay in the ring and keep punching! This is not another self-help cookbook full of hollow promises of quick fixes, shortcuts and mind games; it's a gut-level examination of what it takes to reach your goals and how to develop the mental toughness it takes to keep going when times are tough. You don't have to be a martial artist yourself or even know how to kick to put these powerful ideas to work for you. You only have to be open to changing the way you think- to Think Like a Black Belt!

"This is the perfect book for the perfect storm we're in." - Alan Weinkrantz - From Sun Tzu to the Samurai, the lessons of The Resilient Leader are timeless, and never have these lessons been more timely than now. Winslow Swart, M.A.A., a leadership and organizational Sensei who mastered several martial arts in the dojos of Japan, has helped corporate executives and NBA superstars navigate the turbulent waters of economic meltdown and world-championship competition. The Resilient Leader shares those same insights, helping you draw forth increased levels of focus and resolve, transform obstacles into opportunities, and become the calm in the eye of the storm. The Resilient Leader distills the core ideologies of the eastern martial arts disciplines into an effective curriculum for developing leadership capabilities and increasing human performance.

In this groundbreaking sequel to The Gold Mine, authors Michael and Freddy Ballé present a compelling story that teaches readers the most important lean lesson of all: how to transform themselves and their workers through the discipline of learning the lean system. The Lean Manager: A Novel of Lean Transformation reveals how individuals can go beyond the short-term gains from tools, and realize a deeper, sustainable path of improvement. Full of human moments that capture the excitement and drama of lean implementation, as well as clear explanations of how tools and systems go hand-in-hand, this book will teach and inspire every person working to make lean a reality in their organization today. This book will help you learn both the how of doing lean, as well as the why behind the tools, enabling you to become lean. Lean is the most important business model for competitive success today. Yet companies still struggle to sustain enduring and deep-rooted business success from their lean implementation efforts. The most important problem for these companies is becoming lean: how can they advance beyond realizing isolated gains from deploying lean tools, to fundamentally changing how they operate, think, and learn? In other words, how can companies learn to go beyond lean turnaround to achieve lean transformation? The Lean Manager: A Novel of Lean Transformation, by lean experts Michael and Freddy Ballé, addresses this critical problem. As we move from what Jim Womack, author, lean management authority, and LEI founder, calls “the era of lean tools to the era of lean management,” The Lean Manager gives companies a definitive guide for sustaining their ability to learn and improve operations and financial performance, while continually developing people. “The only way to become and stay lean is to produce lean managers,” says Womack. “Every isolated effort will recede—or fail—unless companies learn to use the lean process as a way of developing individual problem-solvers with the ownership, initiative, and know-how to solve problems, learn, and ultimately coach new individuals in this discipline. That’s why this book matters so much.” The Lean Manager, the sequel to the Ballé’s international bestselling business novel The Gold Mine, tells the compelling story of plant manager Andrew Ward as he goes through the challenging but rewarding journey to becoming a lean manager. Under the guidance of Phil Jenkinson (whose own lean journey was at the core of The Gold Mine), Ward learns to use a deep understanding of lean tools, as well as a technical know-how of his plant’s operations, to foster a lean attitude that sustains continuous improvement. Where The Gold Mine shows you how to introduce a complete lean system, The Lean Manager demonstrates how to sustain it. Ward moves beyond fluency with tools to changing his behavior as a manager and leader. He shifts from giving orders and answers to asking the right questions so people identify and address problems. He learns how to use tools to unleash the creativity and motivation of people, so they learn how to solve problems as well as coach and teach others to solve problems. Ward learns how to create lean managers. “I am excited and have hopes that this book will enlighten readers about what it really means to live a business transformation that puts customers first and does this through developing people,” said Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way and professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. “People who do the work have to improve the work. There are tools, but they are not tools for ‘improving the process.’ They are tools for making problems visible and for helping people think about how to solve those problems.”

Courageous Leadership: The Missing Link to Creating a Lean Culture of Excellence is one of the firsts of its kind to wade through the confusion among leaders on selecting the type of change approach that will get the best results in their organization. It educates the senior executive leaders and organizational excellence practitioners on the different characteristics of change and answers why the approach to incremental and transitional change cannot deliver the results expected from a transformational change. The author shares his experiences from leading several small and large scale organization transformations in multiple industries across different countries on how to establish a robust foundation for an excellence journey and integrate strategy into daily operations. This book elaborates on the types of courage and what it means to be a courageous leader while leading change in difficult situations, and what leaders do differently for putting the organization on a path to excellence and culture transformation. This book shares an innovative design, a methodology and an approach that combines best practices and principles from Malcolm Baldrige, Shingo, Lean, Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard, accreditation, change management, patient and family-centered care, the Competing Values Framework, the LEADS framework, and the project management body of knowledge. The implementation of this model at a hospital in Canada propelled the organization further ahead on their transformational journey compared to other organizations that started much earlier. Sensei in Japanese means Teacher and Gyaan in Sanskrit means Knowledge. Brief sections on ‘Sensei Gyaan’ have been interspersed throughout the book to provide valuable tips to the readers based on author’s experiential learnings over the past two decades. This book serves as a practical guide for senior executive leaders and organizational excellence practitioners, who wish to embark or are in various stages of their organizational excellence and culture transformation journey. Readers will be guided through 26 elements necessary for establishing a robust foundation and an additional set of 22 Management System elements required to create and sustain a culture of quality across the organization. For leaders in healthcare, the book provides a framework, guiding principles, and associated practices that support the implementation of the 4 core concepts of patient and family centered care namely, dignity and respect, information sharing, participation and collaboration. Included in the book are several examples with creative visuals, ready-to-use templates and standard works, models, guiding principles, and strategies based on best practices to assist leaders in their organization excellence journey.

"A must-read for every leader." —Dan T. Cathy, Chairman and CEO at Chick-fil-A, Inc. Preston Poore has spent decades in corporate America. Despite all the excellent advice he was given for growing in leadership, there was something missing: a way to bring his Christian beliefs to bear in his professional life, not just his personal life. So Preston sought his own answer to how his faith could impact his management of hundreds of employees. What he discovered was this: the first step wasn't adjusting his leadership style. Instead, he needed to let God change him before he could effect real change in his workplace. And in order to model discipleship to his team, he needed to first be discipled by the Spirit. Here, in the day-to-day practice of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, Poore found where his faith and exceptional leadership intersect. Through personal stories, biblical principles, and hands-on workplace guidance, Poore offers readers a unique look at this seldom-discussed connection. He challenges struggling leaders to engage in the hard work of daily discipleship. And he charges experienced leaders to return to the fundamentals of their faith, encouraging them to disciple other Christians with leadership potential. For anyone wrestling with how to bring faith to the workplace, whether it be a cubicle or a boardroom, Discipled Leader reveals that leadership doesn't begin behind the desk--it begins in the soul.