Creatively Lean

You know your organization needs creativity. Your improvement program is effective, but you’re not making the real breakthroughs you were anticipating. Your employees struggle to create innovative change, while you struggle with how to help them. Your lean advisors talk about a "different way of thinking," but how do you get there? In this unique and uplifting book, Bella Englebach shows how the principles and tools of Creative Problem Solving drive deep and creative thinking when used with lean problem-solving approaches. In this book, you will learn how you can encourage creative thinking, how to support the creative thinking of your peers and employees, and how to help everyone in your organization develop high-value insights to advance strategy.

Amid a lean deployment, Beth, a mid-level manager, is shocked to find that she has been assigned not one, but two coaches. Linda is her lean thinking coach, Carlo, a coach in Creative Problem Solving. As Beth faces serious business challenges, Linda and Carlo guide her to think deeply and creatively to solve problems and to become a strong lean thinking leader. You will follow her journey and see how Creative Problem Solving tools enhance lean thinking at every step. Creatively Lean is your roadmap to going beyond as a lean thinker and leader.

Creatively Lean is more than a business novel. Appendices provide insight into the history of Creative Problem Solving, tools for divergent and convergent thinking, and tips on how to use Creative Problem Solving with A3 thinking. Use the book club questions to spur group discussion or for self-study.