Books

The Simple Leader: Personal and Professional Leadership at the Nexus of Lean and Zen
By Kevin Meyer, Foreward by Matthew May

Lean manufacturing principles, also known as the Toyota Production System, are very effective at streamlining and reducing waste in organizations. Zen concepts can help create a calm, peaceful, and focused personal life. Over the last three decades I have discovered the power of lean and Zen, and have found how the concepts are remarkably complementary to one another. This book describes, with short summaries, how the concepts can be used to simplify personal and professional leadership, thereby reducing chaos and stress while improving effectiveness and balance.

Christmas Greetings from a Remarkable Life
By Harleigh Thayer Knott, Edited by Kevin & Kimberly Meyer

Harleigh Thayer Knott was born in Morro Bay, California in 1929 and died in the same house in Morro Bay in 2019. Between those two milestones was a remarkable life that included an education at Stanford and traveling throughout the world. 

She developed deep interests in topics ranging from opera to history, polo, Indy car racing, and even frogs. Harleigh wrote an annual Christmas letter to her friends and family to keep them updated on her adventures. These letters went into considerable detail with a humorous and captivating style. 

To preserve the memory of this remarkable woman we have consolidated sixty years of Christmas letters, plus some other interesting writing and history, into this book.

Evolving Excellence: Thoughts on Lean Enterprise Leadership
By Kevin Meyer and William Waddell

A categorized compilation of favorite early posts from the Evolving Excellence blog, Evolving Excellence: Thoughts on Lean Enterprise Leadership offers different-even outright contradictory-viewpoints that explore various aspects of lean enterprise excellence. In the shared desire to see American manufacturing thrive, authors Kevin Meyer and Bill Waddell have poured their knowledge, opinions, and ideas into their blog for the past two years. Sometimes tongue in cheek, usually provocative, occasionally humorous, but always passionate, they point out the failures of companies, organizations, and individuals in the manufacturing industry while also lauding those that understand true excellence.