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| Tomorrow's
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widespread use of new learning methods - including "learning with
the heart as well as the head" - as the key to Taiwan's place in the 21st century.
Inventec is typical of Taiwan's new learning-based
industries. One of its most recently-developed software products, Dr. Eye,
translates English text into Chinese, and Chinese into English. Its products are selling
so fast that Inventec has hired 1,600 extra software engineers to staff its operations on
the Chinese mainland.
 In Britain, one of the country's oldest flourmills, in
Yorkshire, has become a model of modern efficiency by linking together new training
methods with "upside-down" management. In 1990 Rank Hovis's Selby mill was the
group's worst performer, unprofitable, with terrible industrial relations - and about to
be closed.
Today all its staff regard themselves as co-managers,
its output is up by 85 percent per person, customer complaints are down by 66 percent, the
mill is profitable, and it has won the National Training Award and the Industrial
Society's special award for "unlocking people's potential".
Rank Hovis's former National Training Manager David
Buffin says the key is to "involve everyone in a passionate application of simple
things".21
Also in Britain, John Hoerner, Chief Executive of The Burton Group, would
agree. He heads one of Britain's major retail chains, with a turnover in excess of $3
billion, a staff of 44,000 and more than 600 outlets in six chains, including the giant
Debenhams subsidiary with its 88 department stores.
In 1995 Hoerner set out on a program to change Burton's
corporate culture. That year he and 400 leaders from other British companies spent a day
at a planning seminar on "the new millennium", organized by Speakers
International, one of the British management-development and training companies
specializing in accelerated-learning methods. The presenters: Gordon Dryden, on The
Shape Of Things To Come, and Stephen Covey, on the theme of his book, The Seven
Habits of Highly Successful People. The other main activity: an interactive,
accelerated-learning business game, The Gold of the Desert King, to hone
decision-making skills, with all the teams in middle-east dress.
Hoerner and his Burton co-leaders decided to repeat the
exercise in 1996 for all their own senior executives. Since then they've introduced
programs to spread the culture throughout the company.
Contents Page Preface
Introduction
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