Morning Everyone,

I thought Toyota's A3 report was very interesting. It instantly reminded me of Albert Einstein who is remembered as one of the greatest physicist, engineer and innovator of all times. What Einstein is NOT know for is his terrible personality. In actuality, Einstein almost failed out of his undergraduate study because of his lack of interest in intermediate level classes and liberal arts. Einstein failed with his personal life, divorces his first wife and having a troubled relationship with his children. Most importantly, Einstein wanted nothing to do with talking to investors. Einstein's closets Maurice Solovine, was actually responsible for making all of Einstein's earliest work known to the outside world. Einstein's professional life could have benefited immensely from Toyota's A3 Problem solving method (maybe even his personal life too...?).

Continuing to use Einstein as an application of the A3 system, let's consider Einstein in his earliest years of just before he patented his first innovations on electromagnetism. Einstein was unemployed for 2 years after graduating with his PhD. Einstein could have applied the most basic concept of the A3 system to finding a job; Storytelling. Einstein needed to identify his problem; lack of communication skills. Then he could have used the A3 storytelling tools to market himself to other people in a more mythological and objective way where he could have found a job much sooner. In addition, The A3 problem solving process to identify the root cause of the problem could have forced Einstein to reflect on his weaknesses, understand why the problem exists, how to fix it and a way to sustain the solution.

-Brendan