The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation [Hardcover]

Matthew E. May (Author), Kevin Roberts (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2006

Toyota is becoming a double threat: the world's finest manufacturer and a truly great innovator . . . that formula, a combination of production prowess and technical innovation, is an unbeatable recipe for success.

-- Fortune, February 2006

For the first time, an insider reveals the formula behind Toyota's unceasing quest to innovate and do more with less, a philosophy that has made it one of the ten most profitable companies in the world (and worth more than GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Honda combined). In a rare look into Toyota's ability to consistently achieve breakthroughs that outperform the competition, The Elegant Solution explains what Toyota associates have known all along: it's not about the cars. Rather, Toyota's astounding success is just the visible result of a hidden creative process that begins with a seven-digit number.

One million. That's how many new ideas the Toyota organization implements every year. These ideas come from every level of the organization -- from the factory floors to the corporate suites. And organizations all over the world want to learn how it's done. Now senior University of Toyota advisor Matthew May shows how any company can achieve an environment of everyday innovation and discover the kinds of elegant solutions that hold the power to change the game forever. World-class benchmarks like Lexus, Prius, Scion -- even Toyota's vaunted production system -- are simply shining examples of elegant solutions.

A tactical playbook for team-based innovation, The Elegant Solution delivers powerful lessons in breakthrough thinking in a provocative yet practical guide to the three core principles and ten key practices that shape successful business innovation. Innovation isn't just about technology -- it's about value, opportunity, and impact. When a company embeds a real discipline around tapping ingenuity in the pursuit of perfection, the sky is the limit. Dozens of case studies (from Toyota and other companies) illustrate the universal power and applicability of these concepts. A unique "clamshell strategy" prepares managers to successfully lead and sustain the innovation effort.

At once a thought-starter and a taskmaster, The Elegant Solution is a vital prescription for anyone wanting to truly master business innovation.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (October 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743290178
• ISBN-13: 978-0743290173
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Professional & Technical > Automotive > Foreign
  • #83 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Strategy & Competition

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Toyota is now one of the top three car companies in the U.S. according to the New York Times--a fact that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. May, a senior advisor with the University of Toyota, reveals how Toyota's philosophy of team-based innovation and creative business practices has made this -postindustrial manufacturing company a winner. A formula of three principles and 10 practices drives Toyota's creativity, with a reported one million ideas from its employees being implemented each year. May was challenged to translate the Toyota Production System into a company-wide process to cultivate creative ideas at every level of the company and convert those ideas to solid value for customers buying a Toyota automobile. May outlines his journey with dozens of compelling real-life examples of creative thinking while weaving in the history and Japanese culture that has made Toyota the well-respected and profitable company it is today. Gail Whitcomb
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Whether you are a home builder, an automaker, or you're just trying to find a way to disrupt your competition, this under-the-hood look at Toyota's innovative engine exposes the blind spots we all share in making innovation too complex. Matt May delivers an elegant solution for creating the highest perceived value for associates and customers!" -- Ken Krivanec, Senior Vice President, Quadrant Homes (a Division of Weyerhaeuser Company) --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (October 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743290178
• ISBN-13: 978-0743290173
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Professional & Technical > Automotive > Foreign
  • #83 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Strategy & Competition

More About the Author

MATTHEW E. MAY is is the author of THE LAWS OF SUBTRACTION: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything, as well as three previous, award-winning books: The Elegant Solution, In Pursuit of Elegance, and The Shibumi Strategy. A popular speaker, creativity coach, and close advisor on innovation to companies such as ADP, Edmunds, Intuit, and Toyota, he is a regular contributor to the American Express OPEN Forum Idea Hub and the founder of Edit Innovation, an ideas agency based in Los Angeles. His articles have appeared in national publications such as The Rotman Magazine, Fast Company, Design Mind, MIT/Sloan Management Review, USA Today, Strategy+Business, and Quality Progress. He has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and on National Public Radio. A graduate of the Wharton School of Business and Johns Hopkins University, he lives in Southern California.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Elegant Solution is a practical guide to innovation January 13, 2007

By Randy Herring

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I highly recommend his book to all who want to practice innovation as a way of doing business. In the foreword, Kevin Roberts writes that Toyota is "the quintessential postindustrial organization" which has "a highly structured and systematized culture that is also a hotbed of individual creativity." Matthew May was hired by Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. to design and deliver education for the University of Toyota that would translate the innovative methods of the Toyota Production System into something that could be used by knowledge workers. It took May five years to accomplish the process. According to May, at Toyota it is the quest for the elegant solution the shapes true innovation. In his book, May not only defines the elegant solution but also tells the reader how to achieve innovation in his or her own work.

In addition to Kevin Roberts' foreword The Elegant Solution contains the following chapter divisions:

Backstory: One Million Ideas

Introduction: In Search of Elegance

Part 1: Principles

1. The Art of Ingenuity

2. The Pursuit of Perfection

3. The Rhythm of Fit

Part 2: Practices

4. Let Learning Lead

5. Learn to See

6. Design for Today

7. Think in Pictures

8. Capture the Intangible

9. Leverage the Limits

10. Master the Tension

11. Run the Numbers

12. Make Kaizen Mandatory

13. Keep it Lean

Part 3. Protocol

14. The Clamshell Strategy

15.... The Elegant Solution

Afterword: Word of Encouragement

In his Backstory: One Million Ideas, May writes that the world needs his book on innovation because it needs a book that is different, that looks at innovation in a new way and that helps with us with our daily work. May tells us that Toyota "implements a million ideas a year." In May's opinion the one million business ideas implemented each year is why Toyota's market value is larger than GM, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Honda and Volkswagen combined. May's basic proposition is that the "quest for the elegant solution shapes true innovation." He says that the "formula for the solution is an amalgam of principles, practices and protocol." But the individual parts are not new. It is "Toyota's remarkable ability to collectively and completely master all of them as a way of life" that makes Toyota unique.

Introduction: In Search of Elegance

In his introduction May tells the story of Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, the precursor of the Toyota Motor Company. Toyoda's story is "about one man's nearly spiritual quest to solve a very real problem facing the world around him." The underlying principals that Toyoda followed were Ingenuity in Craft, Pursuit of Perfection and Fit with Society. It is these principles that "fuel the engine of innovation at Toyota." May says that simple solutions are better, and elegant solutions are better still. He describes the elegant solution as "finding the aha solution to a problem with the greatest parsimony of effort and expense."

Chapter 1: The Art of Ingenuity

May tells us that even though some in the business press are saying that innovation in America is becoming extinct because of outsourcing, "there's a slowly rising tide of creativity among today's workforce. More and more, people are beginning to return to the almost forgotten Renaissance era of mastery. They're adopting a different view of their work ... people are beginning to see themselves as artists and scientists, or more accurately business artists and business scientists." According to May, the business world today demands this change. That because of recent events people have become disenchanted with business and need a new way to work, a new perspective. The new way is creative license. This new way of working at innovation is an applied creativity. May sees applied creativity as ingenuity and says that it has two sides - Engagement and Exploration.

Chapter 2 - The Pursuit of Perfection

In this chapter, May describes the pursuit of perfection as discipline of increments. He shows how we have come to expect and accept mediocrity instead of perfection. But there are companies that don't accept mediocrity, but pursue perfection. He lists Toyota, Apple, Gore and GE. May maintains that elegant solutions "demand optimizing quality, cost and speed. They're the three primary tangible drivers of customer value in all goods and services." He says that our culture is fishing for the red herring, the big idea. And that this keeps us from focusing on the real work of innovation. He claims that the big earth-shattering ideas rarely work at first that it takes innovators to "shape them into something actually workable." May uses the example of the mouse and icon system interface. Xerox conceived it, but it was Apple that made it work commercially. He maintains that the kind of discipline needed for the pursuit of perfection "requires a fundamental mindshift." How it is not big leaps but it is small steps.

Chapter 3: The Rhythm of Fit.

In this chapter May explains how our innovations must fit with the needs of society. How they must be "the right thing, at the right time in the right form, for the right people." In order to accomplish this fit, May writes that we need to employ systems thinking. We must provide solutions within the current context or we must provide a new context. He uses the example of Thomas Edison designing the entire electrical system in order to provide the context for his light bulb. Without systems thinking, May points out that we can have major failure such as the United Airline automated baggage system at Denver International Airport which delayed the opening of the airport for a year and caused the airline ten painful years of operation as it regularly damaged or lost luggage, and the disaster in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. May says that every solution has three dimensions - solid structure, strong systems and social significance. That great innovation must focus on each dimension. That we cannot think outside of the box. If our thinking will not fit in the box, we must build a new box.

Chapter 4: Let Learning Lead

In this chapter, May tells us that while learning and innovation "go hand in hand" the learning must come before there can be innovation. It is through learning that ideas are converted into action. He says that it is accomplished through a cycle of steps. And that cycle of steps is The Scientific Method: Questioning, Solving, Experimenting, And Reflecting. There are several other versions of the cycle. Walter Shewhart called it Plan, Do, Study, Act or PDSA. Dr. W. Edward Deming taught it to the Japanese after World War II and changed it to Plan, Do, Check, Act or PDCA. Capt. John Boyd, a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot called it Observe, Orient, Decide, Act or OODA. The Department of Defense uses it in its Spiral Development process. Police forces call it Scan, Analyze, Respond, Assess or SARA. But they are all just variations on the same cycle of learning. May gives us his version of the cycle as a tool. He calls his version I.D.E.A. Loops - a learning cycle for innovation. His cycle is Investigate, Design, Execute, and Adjust. As he brings the chapter to a close, May describes the Japanese practice of Hansei, which means reflection. It is a process conducted in a meeting after a project is completed to perform a rigorous review of the project to see what can be learned. He notes that the U.S. Army practices hansei in its After Action Reviews.

Chapter 5: Learn to See

In this chapter, May describes the process of genchi genbutsu or go and see. It is part of the Investigate phase of the cycle. He tells us that in order to understand the problem we have to go and see it from the customer's perspective. Only then can we define the problem and design a solution. During genchi genbutsu Toyota uses three ways to understand the problem: "Observe or watch the customer, Infiltrate or become the customer, and Collaborate or involve the customer." May says that if we don't perform this part of the process we risk the "ivory tower peril of basing strategic innovation on prevailing market assumptions and consumer research reports." This led to such great projects as the Ford Edsel.

Chapter 6: Design for Today

May warns that our designs must "focus on clear and present needs." We can "mistake invention for innovation, with the missing link being the principle of fit with society." He describes how to design for today while acting for tomorrow. It is discovering a need that has not been met. He tells us that innovation comes by design and when companies outsource design they outsource innovation. He then shows us how Toyota keeps all of its design in-house. For Toyota, it is a matter of principle, ingenuity of craft. May describes how Toyota used this method to gain market dominance in hybrid technology. Toyota also used this method to exploit a demographic shift to create the Scion brand. The Scion brand is designed to reach out to "the 60 million Generation Y crowd." Toyota innovated today in order to survive tomorrow. To design for today you must have "a firm grasp of the market, society and the customer."

Chapter 7: Think in Pictures

In this chapter, May describes how to add a visual element to our designs. He says, "the value of mental imagery and visualization in driving performance is undisputed." He gives us examples of from great visionaries like Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, Henry Ford and Martin Luther King Jr. Pictures and images can be used to "connect people to the intention in a very forceful way, touching hearts and minds." Toyota makes use of these tools in everything it does.

Chapter 8: Capture the Intangible

May writes that the "most compelling solutions are often perceptual and emotional." It is the "intangibles that differentiate and transform." May describes capturing those intangibles as business art. It is these intangible drives that motivate people to buy a product or service. He says, "it's not business, it's personal." May describes several stories about products or companies that people love. He includes the Prius, Apple Computer, JetBlue, Lexus, Studio D, Pottery Barn and Anthropologie.

Chapter 9: Leverage the Limits

In this chapter, May tells us how to use resource constraints to spur ingenuity. His opening paragraph frames the issue. "The entrepreneurial spirit is M.I.A. We're stuck. Stuck in the old school, stuck in the status quo, stuck in stall. We want things done differently, but we can't seem to get there from here. We've lost our edge. The days of rapid innovation are disappearing. There's widespread lethargy." He says that we need to recapture the "start-up spirit." We need to thrive on the challenge of limits. To achieve innovation we need to exploit limits.

Chapter 10: Master the Tension

In this chapter, May calls for us to work through the tension between an obvious solution and the elegant solution that is a true innovation. This requires finding a solution that solves conflicting goals. It requires us not to stop when the solution is good enough, but to keep working to get the best solution. He writes, "great innovation is often born of an ability to harmonize opposing tensions."

Chapter 11: Run the Numbers

In Chapter 11, May encourages us to back up our ideas with facts, to "do the math." He explains the dangers involved in using instinct instead of facts to make decisions. The ability of our intuition to associate information based on existing patters is a downside for innovative problem solving. May provides several examples of using facts and information to counteract conventional wisdom including Google, the Oakland A's and PayPal. May shows how all of the examples make use of a tool he calls the "slack point." "The slack point is an undetected and counterintuitive inefficiency found through analysis of data."

Chapter 12: Make Kaizen Mandatory

Kaizen is the Japanese word for continuous improvement. He says that continuous improvement "is all about idea submission, not acceptance." It is "the de facto incubator for consistent business innovation." May describes three steps to kaizen, creating a standard, following the standard then finding a better way and finally repeating the steps endlessly. May describes how the idea of kaizen actually is American made and it came from Deming's work during World War II in the Training Within Industries Service. The American government sent Deming to Japan after the war to help General MacArthur rebuild the Japanese economy. At the same time, the strategy of continuous improvement disappeared from American industry after the war.

Chapter 13: Keep It Lean

May says that complexity can kill innovation. That we should make it simple. He tells us to "start thinking lean." That we should build our solution "from the customer back and drive out anything connected with complexity." May goes on to explain that lean means "doing more of what matters by eliminating what doesn't." He describes the roots of lean thinking and goes into the details of how to be lean. May uses several stories to describe the lean way of thinking including Quadrant Homes, MinuteClinic, Leapfrog and Dell.

Chapter 14: The Clamshell Strategy

May describes the clamshell strategy as the leader providing the "necessary air cover and support from the top" while "the team does the heavy lifting from the bottom. And a pearl of innovation results." May then describes the do's and don't of implementing this strategy. He says that micromanaging innovation is self-defeating and pointless. That innovation has to have a "chief design engineer" role that models innovation, is a mentor to those who are doing the innovation and who monitors the progress of innovation.

Chapter 15: The Elegant Solution

Chapter 15 is the story of how a team from the Los Angeles Police Department used May's methods to create an innovative solution to a problem at the city's jails. He documents how a cross-functional team met for one day and came up with a solution to a very real and costly problem. May then concludes the book with some final words of encouragement for those who want to put his ideas into action.

This book is a great book if you are a leader of an organization seeking to create innovative solutions. However, it includes many practices that even a team leader within a larger organization can use to help his team be innovative. I strongly recommend May's book. Read more ›

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Toyota Production System is also a culture and an ethos December 6, 2006

By Craig Matteson HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Toyota certainly deserves its high reputation for manufacturing excellence. When I was studying for my MBA we looked at some Toyota cases and processes and they compared favorably to those of the once highly regarded American manufacturers. What happened? How did a company rise from the ashes of World War II to become what will be the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world? Not only will Toyota lead in volume, but in consistently high quality as well.

The Toyota Production System has been studied in detail. Some have tried to copy it in whole or in part with varying degrees of success. Others have rejected it as hype. In this book, Matthew May shares with readers the core of this powerful system and what makes it work for Toyota. Mr. May has worked within Toyota and has been a senior advisor at Toyota University. He has found a way to explain the essence of the system in a way that can be beneficial to everyone who is interested in understanding the principles that make TPS work. However, while this book teaches many principles it is not a book about making cars. It is about making things better by becoming simpler and, well, more elegant.

While I certainly cannot recount everything in this book here, the opening quote the author supplies from Thomas Edison encapsulates things quite well, "There's a way to do it better - find it". The whole notion of elegance is to find a better way to do things than you are today. Standards aren't for saying what is good enough and for creating a kind of going through the motions. No. They are for summarizing the best known way for doing things today so one can begin thinking about how to improve things....

The author notes that Toyota receives over a million new ideas each year and their system considers them all. Nothing is settled because everything is in play for improvement. Everything is focused on finding a better way. It is quite impressive that an organization as large as Toyota can still embody such an ethos.

The book is organized in three parts. The first lays out the three core principles of ingenuity, perfection, and fit (with society). The second section discusses the ten practices that implement those principles (one chapter for each). I really like the way the author lays out these chapters with problem - cause - solution and then illustrative anecdotes, quotations, and some useful diagrams. The third part consists of two summarizing chapters on what management must do.

There are also an introduction and an afterword that lay out and tie things up nicely. And there is a useful index as well notes, credits, and acknowledgements.

This is a book that you will have to engage in an active way in order to get the most from it. A casual dash through it isn't going to give you what the author has to offer. The material summarized in this book was gained with much work and effort by some very brilliant and dedicated people from all over the globe. Your effort to dig into what they are saying to you will pay real dividends. You will find yourself doing more of what matters and less of what doesn't. That is a great step on the journey for continuous improvement. Read more ›

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Latest Japanese Import - "Shibumi" - Simple Elegance November 4, 2006

By Ben Garen

Format:Hardcover

Since first learning of W. Edwards Deming in a Japanese Society class I took in college, I've been an eager student of Japanese culture and management practices. In my job interview with Canon executives in Tokyo back in 1992, I expressed my view that America had much to learn from Japan in this regard. The experience proved to be extraordinarily enlightening for me. Unfortunately, after all these years it seems that I am still among only a hand-full eager young American "Samurai," as the majority of companies in my homeland seem to stubbornly continue down their determined "Lemming's March" to extinction. On occasion, my hope is rekindled when a book like this comes out. Toyota has proven itself to be a world leader in both quality and innovation. As an instructor at Toyota University, Matthew May was provided a rare insider's perspective into the management principles and practices that have consistently enabled Toyota to remain at the cutting-edge of the world's automotive industry. Thankfully, Mr. May is sharing this "profound knowledge" in his new book "The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation." In the book, Mr. May outlines a number of management principles and practices employed at Toyota to leverage the creative knowledge assets of its workforce, leading to "delighted" customers and ever-higher benchmarks for the industry. A bonus is provided by way of Mr. May's own "IDEA" methodology for promoting innovation within any organization. I believe it was the late Peter F. Drucker who said that the mantra of the new age in business is "Innovate or Die." If you want for your company to survive in the Darwinian business world of today, you would do well to take up the student's seat, get this book, and set a course of innovation for the future.