Monthly Archives: July 2009

General Motors (Pontiac Division) and Vanilla Ice Cream

vanilla_ice_cream_general_motors

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors ‘This is the second time I have written to you, and I don’t blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of...

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Lateral Thinking – Money lender and pebbles

money lender management lesson

Many years ago in a small village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The Moneylender , who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgive the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his...

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Focusing on solutions and not problems

problem solving

Problem When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn’t work at zero gravity (ink won’t flow down to the writing surface). To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal...

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Insight into Decision Making

Insight into Decision Making

A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track. The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. a) You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save...

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