Creativity, Innovation and Customer Focus
In my leadership development programs I usually share lots of real life stories but this story came to me via Alysson at Yahoo! who got the story from her CFO, Tim. And what a great story it is, maybe it will inspire your creativity, innovation and customer focus.
The Square Watermelon
Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than in other countries and therefore don’t have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it. That is how I would assume the vast majority of people would respond. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon. Continue Reading »
I am writing this post on a rush hour train. I am in Sydney, Australia at the moment doing some work for a client, and am taking a 30 minutes commute.