Daily Management to Execute Strategy (EN)

Your organization has a strategy. Goals have been set, priorities established, and plans made. But on the ground, every day is about putting out fires, resolving disruptions, and making ad-hoc decisions. The strategy? It takes a back seat.

This isn’t a matter of bad faith or a lack of commitment. It’s a systemic problem: most organizations don’t have a functioning system that links day-to-day operations with strategic objectives. *Daily Management to Execute Strategy* shows you how to build that system.

Ferro and Gouveia describe daily management as the engine that translates strategy into daily action. Not as an additional meeting structure, but as a cohesive system of routines, visual management, and problem-solving that operates at every level of the organization.

You will learn how daily management relates to strategic planning and where the two intersect and reinforce each other. You will discover the three fundamental building blocks of an effective daily management system and understand how to implement them effectively at various levels of the organization, from team leaders to senior management.

A key theme is the daily resolution of problems: not as an exception, but as a structural practice that strengthens teams. Ferro and Gouveia demonstrate how to integrate kaizen as a daily habit, how to foster ownership among employees and teams, and how to create cohesion within and between departments. The book includes extensive case studies from a wide range of sectors, through which the authors demonstrate that daily management is not limited to manufacturing. It works anywhere people collaborate toward common goals.

Many Lean initiatives focus on process improvement on the shop floor but fail to address the link to strategy. Hoshin kanri and strategy deployment set the direction, while daily management ensures that this direction is followed every day.

This book fills a persistent gap in the Lean literature. Drawing on decades of experience with Lean transformations in Brazil, Europe, and North America, Ferro and Gouveia combine this breadth of experience with an in-depth understanding of what goes wrong in practice when daily management is absent or poorly organized. The result is a book that is both conceptually strong and directly applicable for leaders who want their organization to move a step closer to its strategic goals every day.

•        Managers and leaders who are struggling with the gap between strategy and day-to-day execution
•        Lean practitioners who want to deepen and broaden their knowledge of daily management
•        HR and organizational development professionals who want to integrate cultural change into specific management practices
•        Executives and senior managers responsible for establishing management systems at the organizational level

"Ferro and Gouveia pinpoint something that many Lean initiatives lack: the daily connection between what happens on the shop floor and where the organization is headed. This book is that connection." — Jim Womack, founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute

"Daily management is the glue that holds a Lean transformation together. Without strong daily management, everything falls apart as soon as attention wanes. This book explains exactly how to prevent that." — John Shook, former CEO of the Lean Enterprise Institute

José Roberto Ferro, PhD is the founder and former president of the Lean Institute Brasil, and one of the leading Lean thinkers in Latin America and far beyond. He worked closely with James Womack and Daniel Jones to spread Lean thinking worldwide, and has spent decades guiding organizations through profound Lean transformations across a wide range of industries. His academic background and extensive practical experience come together fully in this book.

Robson Gouveia is an experienced Lean consultant and coach with special expertise in leadership, daily management, and the human side of organizational change. He works with leaders at all levels to build sustainable cultures of improvement, not by implementing tools, but by structurally changing daily behavior.