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| How to think
for great ideas |
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person in an industry - every day - to come up with suggestions for
improving everything: themselves, their job, their lunchroom, their office layout,
their telephone answering habits and their products.
Says Toyota Motor chairman Eiji Toyoda: "One of
the features of the Japanese workers is that they use their brains as well as their hands.
Our workers provide 1.5 million suggestions a year, and 95 per cent of them are put to
practical use."15 And at Nissan Motors "any
suggestion that saves at least 0.6 seconds - the time it takes a worker to stretch out his
hand or walk half a step - is seriously considered by management."16
Matsushita, the giant Japanese electronics company, receives about 6.5 million ideas every
year from its staff.17 And the big majority are put into
operation quickly.
It is beyond the scope of this book to cover the total
secret of Japan's Total Quality Management and Kaizen movements. But to test, in part, the
effectiveness of their method, try an introductory Kaizen on anything you're
involved in. One excellent method is to use David Buffin's hexagon Think Kit. Staff
or students are encouraged to fire in new ideas. The teacher or facilitator writes each on
a colored hexagon and attaches the hexagons to a large magnetic board. The group then
arranges the hexagons around various themes or activities, and agrees on the main
priorities. These are then left on display as a continual spur to agreed action (see
diagram opposite).
For business we prefer to marry the two methods
together: to look for the big Aha! idea for strategic planning (what is the really
big breakthrough that will change the future of your company or industry?) and Kaizen
(how can you involve all your staff in continuously striving to upgrade every aspect of
that performance?). In oversimplified terms, many would describe Aha! as the key to
American business success, and Kaizen as the Japanese secret weapon. Their
"marriage" is The Third Way. And an excellent way to display them is on
another David Buffin innovation, the arrowed action kit (see illustration next page):
again a good permanent and colorful visible reminder of agreed goals and actions.
Many universities, of course, would say they have
always taught thinking as part of logic, psychology and philosophy. But most schools don't
teach what Edward de Bono18 has termed lateral thinking:
the ability to open-mindedly search for new ideas, look in new directions.
Roger von Oech thinks even the terms logical and
lateral thinking are
Contents Page Preface
Introduction
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