Using Th A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor, and Lead. Managing to Learn shows what a real leader in action looks like, is easy to understand and translates to real behavioral change.

Managing to Learn was written by Toyota veteran John Shook. Shook was the first Western manager at Toyota in Japan before Toyota's international expansion. One of his most important assignments was to 'translate' Toyota's Lean management system outside Japan for that internationalisation. Today, Shook has succeeded Jim Womack as CEO of our American sister institute.

Shook unveils the ideas behind the crucial A3 management process at the heart of Lean management and Lean leadership. Written as a dialogue between a manager and his supervisor, the book explains how "A3 thinking" helps managers and executives identify, capture and then address the problems and challenges facing the organization, especially at the tactical (or middle management) level. Shook calls this approach, captured in the simple structure of an A3, "the key to Toyota's entire system in developing talent and continually deepening its knowledge and capabilities.

Although A3 is primarily known as a problem-solving technique, a thorough study of this book reveals that the strength of A3 lies in other things. Important aspects that are made concrete in this book include:

• The failure to unite but rather to separate authority (power, control, mandate) from responsibility
• A3 mentoring as targeted development - more than just asking questions
• Complexity is a primitive state; simplicity marks the end of a refining process