What's green, moves at 158 mph, and sounds like a flower?
This week's Kaizen Tip comes to you from Haider Imam of Kaizen Training.
Question: What’s green, moves at 158 mph and sounds like a flower?
Answer: the new Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel sports car!
Not the answer you were expecting? A Lotus sports car? Green? Surely not? Yet, in May 2008, Lotus unveiled its new car at the Eden Project in Cornwall, which is actually greener than most of the small hatchbacks on the market…
Not only that, but the sustainable bio-fuels involved can be delivered through our current fuel distribution infrastructure – meaning zero extra spend for suppliers. And soon, technology will allow these bio-fuels to be made synthetically from CO2 extracted from the atmosphere. Carbon neutral driving made reality. I wonder whether, perhaps, we no longer have to ask, “Do I want a luxury driving experience or do I go green?”
I wonder how many ‘either/or’ compromises we make in our own operations, that could potentially be masking innovative results? We now know that the old ‘quantity or quality’ paradigm doesn’t have to be true; get the processes right and we can have both. Is it ‘customer service or bottom line profitability?’ Is it ‘speed of delivery or on-time-ness of delivery?’ And is this situation down to the quality of the questions that we ask in our organisations or because of the limits of what we think is possible? Well, unsurprisingly, I contest that it’s both!
If Lotus can reverse a barrier of that size, then we all can! So here are some innovation questions to ask in your organisations once you’ve found the ‘either/or’…
Start off with some ‘Why?’ or ‘So what?’ questions to get people receptive to challenging the process
What short, medium and long-term benefits would having x and y bring us? Our customers? Our people? You? And what else? And what else?
What would having x and y at the same time allow us to focus more of our energies on?
What problems would disappear overnight if we had x and y together?
What did you once think were impossible to combine, but now realize just needed a shift in thinking? For example, powerful computing technology and something that fits in your pocket!
Then, try some ‘What?’ or ‘How?’ questions to generate ideas?
What would have to happen here to have both x and y at the same time?
What assumptions might we have been making, which stop us having both that may not be 100% proven?
Where in our operation, our industry, or the world do both these things already co-exist quite happily?
What are the ‘piranha’ that nibble away at the likelihood of achieving both x and y simultaneously?
If we started a new company tomorrow (knowing what we know now), what would be the blindingly obvious way to have x and y?
This week’s call to Action: