Courageous Leadership: The Missing Link to Creating a Lean Culture of Excellence

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.

With broad experience spanning two decades, Sumeet Kumar has been leading individuals and organizations through business and culture transformation. He has a proven track record for stimulating organic business growth, increasing revenues and profits, and decreasing overhead.

Organizational excellence through strategy planning & execution, innovation, continuous quality improvement, and project management has been the focus of his partnerships with Boards, leadership and executive teams in automotive, food, chemical, paper, textile, education, and healthcare. Sumeet has expertise in optimizing systems and processes, improving flow, and developing integrated quality, risk, safety and management system frameworks that complements departmental and enterprise-wide policies.

Mechanical Engineer and MBA, by qualification, he has held a number of titles that speak to his expertise in strategic systemic change, including Vice President and Business Head, Chief Strategy Officer, Director Transformation, and Quality Deployment leader among others. A certified Project Management Professional, Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma, and Master Black Belt in Innovation, he is an expert motivator who brings an infectious enthusiasm to every change initiative. In Canada, he is one of the three consultants trained to conduct the organizational culture assessment instrument (OCAI).

Sumeet’s professional reputation and passion for driving positive culture change by integrating best practices and principles of Malcolm Baldrige, Shingo, Accreditation, ISO, GMP, Six Sigma, TQM, TPM, WCM, and Lean quality management into daily operations has made him a sought after speaker at national and international forums. In 2015, he founded KFI Management Consulting (www.kumarfriends.com) that provides advisory services to clients in the areas of designing and implementing Lean management system frameworks, strategy planning and execution, and building capacity to support operational and cultural transformation.