If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing, Start Asking Questions, You Can’t Go Wrong! In the early part of my career at Procter and Gamble (P&G), I discovered this truism by experience. I was transferred to a new division at P&G that had great promise but was starting to have

I Wonder What Randy Really Wants? I sat in with a struggling product development team at Procter & Gamble to observe and provide feedback on how they worked together. During their conversation, I heard the phrase several times, “I wonder what Randy really wants?” Who was Randy?

Rule #1: First, Give Credit for Thinking In these fast-paced, complex times, many organizations advocate increasing employee engagement. Some try to measure it and post a score. Unfortunately, many give it lip service without changing how they operate. There is a simple method

People do not resist change. They do resist being changed. The need for organizations to adapt to change is accelerating. Managing change has become an important skill managers are striving for. Unfortunately, in many organizations managing change often means having difficulty

Can Your Business Afford Not to Make the Leap? The leap from effective manager to exceptional senior leader demands more than just increased responsibility—it requires a fundamental shift in thinking and problem-solving approach. Many organizational leaders are aware of this

This week's MinSight... Define Slowly So You Can Solve Fast We were asked to work with a frustrated team of 15 plant managers and supervisors who had tried a lot of solutions to increase the quality of transmission casings without success. They took the Profile and we

This week’s MinSight… Taking the Fear Out of the Meeting Before We Start A major manufacturer selected seven of their most respected franchisees and seven key managers, including the President, to prepare for their annual meeting. They wanted to improve their teamwork,

80% of Anything is Just Showing Up In the ‘50s, Honda was a small Japanese company that manufactured small lawnmowers and scooters. They were interested in expanding their business beyond Japan to America and began developing a line of larger, more powerful motorcycles. These

Ivy Tech Executives Master Training to Embed Simplexity Min Basadur and Tim Basadur traveled to Indianapolis to train the leaders of Ivy Tech on how to engage their employees and teams to solve their own work problems. The backbone of the Simplexity System is the Innovative

Deferral of judgment is the gateway to innovative thinking and building trust. Research shows that the following thinking skills can be learned: -Avoid making premature negative judgments (both when working alone and with others) -Do not jump prematurely to a conclusion as to

In my job as a professor at McMaster University, I had the opportunity to travel to Japan and find out more about how Japanese companies manage innovation. Among other things, I discovered they all had great expertise in engaging their employees in problem solving. They taught

Don’t Bring Legal, We’re Trying to Get Around Them Sitting at my desk at Procter and Gamble one day a call came in from one of our brand groups. They said, “We need your help to solve a nagging problem. We have some very ambitious advertising claims we want to use on television,

What Do You Do When You Don’t Know What To Do Next? When the horrific September 11, 2001 disaster occurred, a global aerospace and airplane engineering company found itself especially hard hit. In October, the top seven senior leaders met at their monthly roundtable meeting.

Creativity as a Process Studying and discussing creativity can be difficult and complex, because no single, agreed-upon definition of this quality exists. Researchers have taken many different approaches to its study. Under the identification approach, researchers have developed

Breakthrough Team Dynamics An opportunity to apply Simplexity arose at a newly modernized manufacturing plant. It produced a major component of the company’s products. It was setting records for high quality and low cost, but one department was struggling. Only about one-third

From the Basadur Team...

Balancing Efficiency and Adaptability: The CEO’s Blueprint for 2025 In the past, chief executives could achieve success by focusing almost exclusively on efficiency. Streamlined routines, cost-cutting measures, and incremental improvements were enough to maintain a competitive

What’s Stopping You? Four Boilers from Eight. At Procter & Gamble, my team in the Management Systems division routinely conducted creative problem solving (later defined as Simplexity) workshops to help manufacturing engineers increase efficiency, improve quality, and accelerate

Government efficiency without cutting jobs? Can the government become more efficient without job cuts? True innovation requires more than cost-cutting—it’s about engaging employees in all four thinking styles: generating, conceptualizing, optimizing, and implementing. Leaders

Go Beyond Your Thinking Style Limitations During turbulent times, the organizational development team of a large health insurance company had been tasked by senior management to develop a new business strategy. But each time the team was about to submit a proposal, one or more