The Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions
February 5th, 2006 by lanxpcame across below post and thought it a good read
for all of us:
Case 1
When NASA began the launch of astronauts into
space, they found out that
the pens wouldn’t work at zero gravity (ink won’t
flow down to the writing
surface). To solve this problem, it took them one
decade and $12 million.
They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity,
upside down, underwater,
in practically any surface including crystal and
in a temperature range
from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.
And what did the Russians do…?? They used a pencil.
Case 2
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese
management was the case
of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of
Japan’s biggest cosmetics
companies. The company received a complaint that a
consumer had bought a
soapbox that was empty.
Immediately the authorities isolated the problem
to the assembly! line,
which transported all the packaged boxes of soap
to the delivery
department.
For some reason, one soapbox went through the
assembly line empty. Management asked
its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste,
the engineers worked hard
to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution
monitors manned by two people
to watch all the soapboxes that passed through the
line to make sure they
were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and
they worked fast but they spent a
whoopee amount to do so.
But when a rank-and-file employee in a small
company was posed with the
same problem, he did not get into complications of
X-rays, etc., but instead
came out with another solution. He bought a strong
industrial electric fan and
pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the
fan on, and as each
soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty
boxes out of the line.
Moral
Always look for simple solutions. Devise the
simplest possible solution
that solves the problems.
Always Focus on solutions & not on problems.
