Matthew E. May, who wrote The Elegant Solution Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation, reports that:
“researchers found that workers who used instant messaging on the job reported less interruption than colleagues who did not.”
Which is absolutely amazing because it’s the exact opposite of conventional wisdom. I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve heard shoot down IM because it’s “more ways for people to interrupt me”.
Garr Reynolds reports on Toyota’s CEO Katsuaki Watanabe recent comments. Mr. Wantanbe wants his employees to minimize the use of PowerPoint. Or more precisely, minimize the ineffective (and common) use of PowerPoint. (Garr likes to call the Document-Slide combination slideuments).
In the context of a challenging economy and an atmosphere of reducing costs, what would you say of any business practice that (1) takes more time, (2) costs more money, and yet (3) appears to be less effective?
When you make presentations, do you create a stack of slideuments, or a stack of slides to go with a good presentation and informative handout?
On the Elegant Solutions blog, Matthew E May asks What’s a Leader to Do?
Here’s what I know to be true, because I’ve seen and experienced it time and time again, in work and in life: you can’t attack “change” and “culture” directly. Why? Because the full-frontal assault only makes us hold on tighter to the current ways.
The only thing I’ve ever seen work as a sustainable pathway to true change is to foster a learning mindset. I learned that from Toyota, the ultimate learning machine. Learning precedes all performance improvement, even personal growth. Learning IS how we change.
Just finished up The Elegant Solution by Matthew E. May. It came to me highly recommended and was a quick read.
In a nutshell the advise is: use the the scientific method, give yourself time to think through things, plan for continuous improvement, use system thinking, simple is better than complex, and go for small improvements with the resources you have – not big changes.
Yet sometimes take big risks – like Toyota’s billion-dollar initiative that created the Lexus brand: “the decision was clear: start clean.” (p43)
Many examples in the book impressively detail out how successful Elegant Solutions can be. The book is worth the read if only for the examples. And yes, I do want to buy a Prius now – but I’ll settle for any Toyota.
Be sure to check out the book site, their blog and don’t forget the downloads to get a jump start on innovation in your own projects.
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