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Motorcycle Book Store > Motorcycle books beginning with E
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The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation |
Author: Matthew E. May
Published: 2006-10-10 |
List price: $26.00
Our price: $6.97
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As of: November 22nd, 2008 03:00:58 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Can Be Used for Personal Development
I really enjoyed this book. It applies the principles of innovation to an industry that most people don't have familiar "inside" knowledge of. The book is useful not only for business purposes but also for personal development. I loved the sections on the Japanese concept of "hansei." The only criticism I have of the material is that at times it can be a bit dry. Probably to be expected when writing about the automotive industry.
 My new Bible
I marked probably 30 pages in this book as "Must Know" pages that contain principles that could change the thinking of any business for the better - or more specifically, to be more like Toyota.
A good read
This book is a very easy read that made it hard to put it down. The little success stories are very inspiring and great conversation starters.
"The Elegant Solution" is written by Matthew E. May an educator on innovation at Toyota's university. I think that Matthew did a really good job of explaining his procedures to making any company run elegantly with examples of his procedures in little side notes and quotes of related stories.
This book will not only help you find an elegant solution for your company but for your every day life as well. Be prepared to look at your word with your eyes wide open.
 Unreadable
Unbelievably bad. Ironically, for a book about innovation, the concepts are trite and the prose consists of one lazy cliche after another.
Watch -- I'm going to open the book to a random page and list the cliches: "secret sauce," "blow the doors off," "boil the ocean," "where the action is," "ivory tower," "marching instructions."
The book is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who might conceivably want to read it.
A tactical field guide for everyone looking out for elegant solutions to their life pursuits, as innovation is everybody's job!
Because of my early influences from Japanese management culture during the eighties, I had bought the above book.
In fact, during the nineties, I had also owned & read '40 Years 20 Million Ideas: The Toyota Suggestion System' by Yugo Yasuda (a translated work by Productivity Press, Inc.).
From my personal standpoint, I would consider it as a precursor to 'Elegant Solution', as it was the first book to reveal the idea revolution in Toyota, which had its implementation origins since the eighties.
I had enjoyed reading both books. In a nutshell, both books were about the nuts & bolts of creating innovation at the workplace, mostly from the team point of view, even though they were practices at Toyota.
I found 'Elegant Solution' to be a much more fun book to read because of the myriad of fascinating stories & insightful anecdotes, which the author had artfully used to clarify many of the current tools & practices at Toyota.
Frankly, my personal favourite chapters were the first three touching on the 3 core principles of the Toyota Way, followed by 'Chapter 4: Let Learning Lead' (particularly the art & science of reflection); 'Chapter 4: Learn to See', 'Chapter 7: Think in Pictures', & the last two chapters, which more or less summed up the entire book.
For me, the crux of the Toyota Way was actually epitomised in the simple reframing exercise illustrated on page 152 of the book. I never knew that there could be such an elegant solution to the simple problem.
In my end analysis, I wish to say that 'Elegant Solution' is a tactical field guide for everyone looking out for elegant solutions to their life pursuits, as innovation is everybody's job.
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