A PDF of the A3 template provided in the book Managing to Learn.

The link below contains an audio interview with John Toussaint, MD, co-author of the LEI book "On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry."

The first Q&A:

Q I realize that it's a few months off yet, and you probably haven't finalized your remarks, but what are some of the challenges that you intend to address in your keynote speech in Baltimore? Some of the messages you're taking with you?

A I think that this is about leadership behavior. The tools are the tools, the tools are important, you've got to learn the tools, but you can learn the tools. The hard part is the people part. What does a lean leader look like? That's what I'll be focussing on, what it takes to be an effective lean leader. It means, pretty much, that you have to change everything that you've learned in business school, or medical school, or nursing school, and you have to pretty much retool yourself, because our existing education system is turning out autocratic control freaks who manage by the numbers, and they don't know anything about quality improvement, and they don't know how to manage a group of people to actually achieve 100% reliable results. If we don't change ourselves as leaders, we will never be able to transform our companies.

When Toyota moved production of mid-sized Tacomas to its San Antonio plant, the facility used the lean principle of heijunka or leveling to integrate production with the full-size Tundra. In a departure from Toyota's traditional practice of building more than one model in a facility, the plant had been dedicated to Tundras. Heijunka means the plant will alternate production of the half-ton Tundra and the smaller Tacoma one right after the other, rather using than the traditional automotive practice of building a big batch of one, then a big batch of the other. (San Antonio Express News)