- Excerpt
THE WRIGHT WAY:
7 Problem-Solving Principles
from the Wright Brothers
That Can Make Your Business Soar
by Mark Eppler
INTRODUCTION
The excerpt below is from the new book, The Wright Way by
Mark Eppler. Published to coincide with the Centennial of Flight (December
17), The Wright Way celebrates the contributions of Orville
and Wilbur to business theory as well as air travel.
How did two high school dropouts with less than $1,000 solve the greatest
problem of the century in a matter of months, when teams of well-financed
scientists and engineers couldn't find a solution after decades of trying?
Some credit genius or just good luck, but Eppler says it was the application
of a set of problem-solving principles the Wright Brothers learned at home
and honed through several business ventures. These principles are every
bit as applicable to today's business problems.
The excerpt is called "The Heart of the Matter" and describes the brothers'
insatiable curiosity and voracious reading habits. It concludes with a
section called "Learning to Soar," extracting business advice about using
the library, seeking guidance from mentors, and sharing research with others.
More information about the book, The Wright Way, and author
Mark Eppler follows the excerpt. Enjoy!
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
by Mark Eppler
A reporter, looking for a special
insight into how the Wright brothers had solved the problem of flight,
was given a clue by their father, Bishop Wright. "For several years," he replied, "they (Wilbur and Orville) read
up on aeronautics as a physician would read his books." The parallel
the Bishop was trying to draw was that a physician reads with great diligence,
knowing that someone's life may depend upon the knowledge he acquires.
Wilbur and Orville pursued knowledge in a similar fashion, knowing that
their lives might be put at risk as well.
Whenever the Wright brothers had an interest in something, they immediately
sought more information on the subject, going to other sources, if necessary,
when the resources in their home library were not enough. It was their
one uncompromising habit in solving problems. Consider the following:
- At the age of twelve, Orville becomes interested in woodcutting after
reading an article in Century Magazine. He immediately goes
to the library to read everything he can about the subject, and he
later applies this knowledge to develop his own woodcuts.
-
Exhausting home and public library resources on aviation, Wilbur
writes to the Smithsonian Institution to request recommendations and
materials. He purchases every book recommended by the Smithsonian,
rereading the books many times. The original books, which are on display
at Wright State University, have pencil notes in the margins.
-
When the brothers begin work on the propellers for their 1903 Wright
Flyer; their first step is to visit the public library and find everything
they can on marine technology (propellers were already in use on power
ships).
"The time expended in preliminary study of books was not misspent," Orville
told biographer Fred Kelly, "for they gave us a good general understanding
of the subject, and enabled us at the outset to avoid effort in many
directions in which results would have been hopeless."
Disciplined and methodical thinkers, Wilbur and Orville had a low tolerance
for guesswork. If information on the subject was already available, that
was the starting point. Once the information was consumed, discussions
between the brothers would begin with the following questions:
- What is the objective (i.e. the problem to be solved)?
- What has already been done?
- What can we learn from previous efforts, both successes and failures?
- Can the problem be reduced to smaller subsets?
- Is information available on those subsets?
- What information will we need to solve this problem?
- What skills will be required to solve this problem?
- What resources (e.g. materials, equipment, etc.) will be needed to solve
this problem?
- What obstacles will we need to overcome to solve this problem?
For the Wright brothers, who systemized everything, it was an orderly
process powered at all times by their commitment to continually learn
and grow. They solved the problem of heavier-than-air-flight, as much
as anything, by thoroughly studying it. It was something others had neglected
to do.
When Wilbur and Orville's interest in manned flight was reignited in 1896,
it was quite natural for them to do what they had learned to do from their
earliest days: Read all about it. Books on the subject of flight were scarce,
however. In their book Twelve Seconds to the Moon, Rosamond Young
and Catharine Fitzgerald report that Orville was more than a bit frustrated
with the Dayton Public Library's lack of books on the subject of manned
flight. When he asked the librarian why there were no books on aeronautics,
he was told that "scientists held the idea in great discredit and it was
therefore not a subject on which libraries spend money."
The brothers were not deterred.
They continued their research by rereading articles they had previously
uncovered in magazines and wearing out their encyclopedia. They read
everything they could get their hands on for three years. It wasn't
enough, however, to satisfy a rapidly increasing appetite. When Wilbur
took pen in hand and wrote to the Smithsonian Institution on May 30,
1899, to request information on aeronautics, he created what was arguably
the most important letter the Smithsonian has ever received. Wilbur
took pains to let the Smithsonian know that he was genuinely interested
in the topic as an "enthusiast, not a crank." He wrote the Smithsonian
that he wanted to avail himself of all that was already known, with an
eye toward adding "his mite" to the solution.
The letter was received by the Smithsonian on June 2, and responded to
by Richard Rathbun, director Samuel Langley's personal assistant. Rathbun
instructed his clerk to send Wilbur several articles that had appeared
in the Smithsonian Annual Report on flight. The collection included excerpts
from Louis-Pierre Mouillard's Empire of the Air; Langley's own The
Story of Experiments in Mechanical Flight; Otto Lilienthal's The
Problem of Flying and Practical Experiments in Soaring; and E. C. Huffaker's On
Soaring Flight. In a separate note, Rathbun recommended three books: Progress
in Flying Machines by Octave Chanute; Experiments in Aerodynamics by
Langley; and The Aeronautical Annual by James Howard Means. The
books were immediately ordered by Wilbur.
When the books and materials from the Smithsonian arrived, the brothers
were ecstatic. In Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers, Fred
Howard describes the reading material as "a rich feast for two bicycle
mechanics whose diet until then had been restricted to books on ornithology,
encyclopedia articles on bird flight, and an occasional magazine piece
on man's attempt to fly." The brothers often became so absorbed in reading
(and debating) that all other thoughts slipped away, including a commitment
made to sister Katharine to entertain friends she had brought home from
Oberlin College. Their intense focus on the problem at hand would have
made both brothers, had either married, a poor choice for a mate.
In The Wright Brothers, biographer
Fred Kelly tells the story of a friend who once commented to Orville
that he and his brother would always be an example of how young men
with no special advantages could get ahead. Orville immediately took
exception, saying that they did have special advantages. "We
were lucky enough," he explained, "to grow up in a home environment where
there was always much encouragement to pursue intellectual interests; to
investigate whatever aroused curiosity. In a different kind of environment," he
continued, "our curiosity might have been nipped long before it could have
borne fruit." The success of the Wright brothers was forged in an environment
that fanned the flames of potential.
LEARNING TO SOAR
Any organization hoping to prosper in the coming decade will have to
make relentless preparation (forever learning) an integral part of its
competitive strategy. Here are a few tips to make it happen. Some of
these suggestions apply to the organization as a whole, some to individuals,
and some to both. We'll leave it up to you to figure which is which.
- Prime the pump. Like those old-fashioned sucker pumps that
need to be primed to get the water flowing, it may be necessary to
prime the learning habits of individuals. Legends has it that Thomas
Watson, the founder of IBM, told his managers he would pay for any
seminar or workshop his people wanted to take, even basket weaving!
Watson's goal was to place the emphasis on creating a learning habit.
-
Make contact with areas of expertise. Informal
surveys conducted in my seminars reveal that a surprisingly large
percentage of college graduates fail to make contact with their
areas of discipline after graduation. These individuals not only
hurt their organizations by failing to update their knowledge,
they run the real risk of becoming last year's model in a competitive
employment market. Encourage employees at all levels to continue
their education -- formally or informally. I recommend that, at
a minimum, you read a book a month in your area of discipline.
As Vince Lombardi once said, "It's what you learn after
you've learned it all that counts."
-
Encourage inquisitiveness. In
a television interview, astronaut Scott Carpenter was asked what
had made him want to go to the moon. "Driving
curiosity," he replied. His clipped answer doesn't need elaboration.
Curiosity makes things happen. It is the driving force behind everything
-- from the development of new products to improving the processes
to make them. Employees encouraged to pull on the thread of curiosity
will frequently bring ideas and options to the surface. "Create an
institution where people aren't allowed to be curious," Tom Peters
says, "and people won't be curious." Or, as I like to express it,
any good behavior that goes unacknowledged will eventually disappear.
The best way to acknowledge good behavior is by rewarding it in tangible
or intangible fashion.
-
Don't skim, read. Reading has fallen on hard times in a culture
conditioned by the Internet to surf and skim. Depth of knowledge and
understanding, however, come from really getting into a wide range
of topics. Creative thinking expert Mike Vance recommends three hundred
books a year. The fact that his suggestions is greeted with derision
is a reflection not on Vance, but out poor reading capabilities.
-
Tailor learning strategies to meet individual styles. The
learning styles of individuals differ just as their personality styles
do. Some people are more tactile in their creative efforts than others.
They need to be fiddling with things in order to get their creative
juices flowing. Others are more conceptual in the process. The key
here is to judge the output, not the method. Create or sponsor learning
opportunities that take personality and learning styles into consideration.
Some people are detail-oriented and like to thoroughly examine an
issue. Others are "big picture" people who prefer an overview of
a problem. Neither approach is right or wrong. Both, however, need
to be considered in preparing a learning strategy.
-
Redefine the concept of failure. It has been often stated,
that mistakes are among the greatest and most productive learning experiences
people can have. A critical part of the Wright brothers' efforts was
devoted to analyzing the failures of others in an effort to learn from
them, and not repeat them. In Visions of a Flying Machine, Peter
Jakab notes, "Walking through the failures and misunderstandings
of others aided the brothers in focusing quickly on the basic problems
that needed to be addressed."
-
Be an asker of questions. Irving
Stone says Michelangelo depended on the "ever-widening and deepening circles of questions asked and
answered" to provide the knowledge he needed to create his masterpieces.
The principle of applied inquisitiveness states that problem solving
is greatly enhanced by the ability to gather information. And that
requires questions to be asked.
-
Rediscover the library. The
first step for the Wright brothers, when confronting a problem
or opportunity, was to visit their local library. Although the
Internet has surpassed libraries as the primary source of information
for many people, the library remains a valuable resource. Not only
is it a more tactile experience to be able to peruse actual books,
catalogs, and archives, it offers the user an excellent "browsing" opportunity.
On more than a few occasions, I've discovered something of value
when my eye happened to glance over a bookshelf while looking for
something else.
-
Hire the learning, not the learned. There are many criteria
for hiring new employees, but one that should be at or near the top
is the degree to which a candidate accepts personal responsibility
(i.e. accountability) for her growth and development. Dr. Samuel Langley
was a highly learned man, but he spent two decades in aviation research
without gaining a sufficient understanding of the subject. Wilbur and
Orville Wright were forever-learning men who solved the problem in
fifty-five months.
Copyright (c) 2004 by Mark Eppler. All
rights reserved. Printed here with permission of the publisher, Amacom
Books,
http://www.amacombooks.org.
Please feel free to duplicate or distribute this file, as long as the
contents are not changed and this copyright notice is intact. Thank you.
