We miss the simple in pursuit for complex solutions!!!

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan’s biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box 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 soap box 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 soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked and they worked fast but they spent a whopping amount to do so.

But when a workman 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 soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Lesson:

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem. So, learn to focus on solutions more than the problems. Then only we will be able to see the obvious rather than imagine the complexities.

Do not get upset with small problems, because life is like a road and problems are like speed breakers. They save us from bigger accidents and mishaps.

If we look at what we do not have in life, we don’t have anything; but if we look at what we have in life, we have everything.