ABSTRACT
The principal elements of the lean management system do not seem to be complex or difficult to understand. Yet they represent the shoals on which so many lean initiatives have run aground. Why?
Part of the answer involves discipline, certainly. But, part of that answer involves the process needed to learn how to do lean management and how to be a lean manager. This chapter focuses on one aspect of your own personal lean transformation: learning lean management. (Chapter 8 covers another aspect: leading a lean operation.) This chapter describes becoming apprenticed to a sensei (or lean teacher) and a principal method by which a sensei teaches: the gemba walk.
