Book excerpt: Take advantage of your organization’s brainpower with Kata-driven continuous improvement “This is the first book I have read that provides a clear picture of what it takes to develop and mobilize creative capability across an organization, to achieve challenging goals.” Jeffrey K. Liker, author of The Toyota Way (from the Foreword) Nobody drives continuous improvement in real, tangible ways like Toyota, where everyone at every level works toward common, customer-related goals. At Toyota, continuous improvement is habitual. In his groundbreaking book Toyota Kata, Mike Rother revealed management practices that drive Toyota’s success in providing value to their customers. Now, Rother and coauthor Gerd Aulinger provide the routines and know-how for scaling these practices across your entire organization. It all builds on five simple foundational questions at every level: What is the target condition? What is the actual condition? What obstacles stand in the way of the target condition? What is the next step? What have you learned from taking that step? Illustrated cover to cover, Toyota Kata Culture helps you visualize exactly how these methods work—so you can start putting them into action right away. You’ll learn how to develop your own iterative process of trial and adjustment, build a deliberate, scientific-thinking culture that grows capability, and make aligned strategic continuous improvement part of everyday work. Achieve your goals and differentiate your organization by following the proven formula laid out in Toyota Kata Culture.