AFVOA Newletters of Year 2004

Page 68 of 153 Better than working hard We have always been told to work hard. Our parents say that, our teachers say that, and our principal says that. But there’s something better than merely working hard. It’s working SMART. It’s taking time to understand the situation, and coming out with an effective and efficient solution to get more done with less time and effort. As the Japanese say, “There’s always a better way.” One of the most memorable case studies I came across with as I studied Japanese management at Sophia University in Tokyo 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 box of soap that was empty. It immediately 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 tasked 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 hard and they worked fast. But a rank-and-file employee that was posed the same problem 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. Clearly, the engineers worked hard, but the rank-and-file employee worked smart. So what’s better than merely working hard? It’s working smart . Having said that, it is still important to work hard. If you could combine both working hard and working smart you would possess a major factor toward success. Better than dreaming big I will bet my next month’s salary that many have encouraged you to dream big. Maybe even to reach for the stars and aim high. I sure heard that about a million times right before I graduated from this university. So I did. I did dream big. I did aim high. I did reach for the stars. No doubt, it works. In fact, the saying is true: “If you aim for nothing, that’s exactly what you’ll hit: nothing.” But there’s something better than dreaming big. Believe me, I got shocked myself. And I learned it from the biggest dreamer of all time, Walt Disney. When it comes to dreaming big, Walt is the man. No bigger dreams were fulfilled than his. Every leadership book describes him as the ultimate dreamer. In fact, the principle of dreaming and achieving is the core message of the Disney hit song, “When You Wish Upon a Star”. “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are; anything your heart desires will come to you. If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. When you wish upon a star, as dreamers do,” as Jiminy Cricket sang. But is that what he preached in the Disney company? Dream? Well, not exactly. Kinda, but not quite. The problem with dreaming is if that’s all you do, you’ll really get nowhere. In fact, you may just fall asleep and never wake up. The secret to Disney’s success is not just dreaming, it’s IMAGINEERING. You won’t find this word in a dictionary. It’s purely a Disney word. Those who engage in imagineering are called imagineers. The word combines the words “imagination” and “engineering.” In the book “Imagineers,” Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner, claims that “imagineers turn impossible dreams into real magic.” Walt Disney explained there is really no secret to their approach. They just keep moving forward-opening new doors and doing