 The
Wright Way.
By Mark Eppler
Published by AMACOM
205 pages.
Rating 9.
This book is truly a fascinating read. In essence, you will learn
a new way of approaching problems and finding solutions from two
of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century, aviation pioneers
Wibur and Orville Wright.
The Wright brothers were an amazing team. Working part-time, these
two previous undistinguished bicycle dealers from Dayton, Ohio,
solved a problem that had baffled, frustrated and defeated, sometimes
fatally, some of the most well-educated, well capitalised and well-known
scientific entrepreneurs of their and all prior time. The story
of how and why they succeeded in creating and flying the first aeroplane
is not only fascinating, but also rich in lessons for parents, teachers
and business people alike. The author succeeds brilliantly and brings
you delightfully into the story of the Wright brothers.
Wilbur did not seriously begin to pursue his interest in aeronautics
until 1899, when he happened to read a book on birds. He sent off
to the Smithsonian Institution for a list of recommended readings
about man's attempt at flight. He managed to get his brother Orville
interested too, in spite of the fact that some of the most prominent
scientists of the era had declared heavier-than-air flying machines
impossible. Orville and Wilbur Wright were only bike shop workers.
They began without much capital, without much formal education,
and, to all appearances, without much chance at all of succeeding.
But why did these brothers succeed where so many others who were
so much better equipped for success, fail?
The home-schooled Wright brothers turned their deficiencies into
assets. Although they did not have extensive formal education, they
read broadly and voraciously. They did not accept conventional wisdom
as the final truth.
Amazingly they invented the first wind tunnel in order to test
the wind resistance formulas of Otto Liliethal, the German mathematician
and engineer, whose death in a crash had seriously awakened their
interest in the problems of flight. They found his formulas were
wrong!
The Wright brothers were not engineers. Surprisingly they were
bicycle mechanics. They lacked many of the advantages of previous
experimenters with aircraft, but they had one big advantage that
previous experimenters had lacked. They understood what it took
to keep the bicycle upright and rolling. At a time when some theorists
of flight supposed that flying would be mainly a matter of developing
an engine powerful enough to keep the craft in the air. Others thought
that the key issue in flying would be to build a very stable aircraft.
A powerful engine would be a heavy engine. They believed it was
better to have less power and lighter weight. A firm and stable
aircraft would be one that stayed on the ground. They knew from
the bicycle experience, that balance and control allowed a rider
to make good use of instability.
Seven Problem Solving Principles:
- Keep conflict alive - The Wright brothers argued with each other
constantly, and liked arguing so much that they'd switch sides so
each could make an argument for the other side. The conflict was
constructive.
- Pick the hardest problem first - Many problem solving and management
guides recommend that you attack the low-hanging fruit to build
confidence for greater problems. But the toughest problem is the
one that would prevent ultimate success. You have to tackle it eventually,
and false confidence won't make it any easier.
- Fiddle - The Wright brothers would tinker and toy and fiddle
constantly. The habit of fiddling, tinkering, toying and diddling
brought them to solutions.
- Combine flexibility with discipline - The Wright brothers had
a heavy dose of conventional moral and intellectual discipline.
Their discipline served as a rigid but flexible frame for their
approach to problems. Many people today suggests "thinking
outside the box". But the box was built for a reason in the
first place. A better solution is to think both inside and outside
the box.
- Keep learning - The Wright brothers had a curious diversity of
interests that saved them from tunnel vision. A few weeks before
the first flight at Kitty Hawk, Orville was teaching himself French
and German.
- Get into the details - The Wright brothers were sticklers for
accuracy. They broke problems into small pieces, and then attacked
each piece with uncompromising perseverance, getting each element
right before moving on to the next.
- Be a team - Orville and Wilbur were a very effective team.
The Wright brothers tended to start with the hardest problem first.
They believe that you needed to "tackle the tyrant" first.
"Tackling the tyrant is a problem solving principle, based
on the idea that within each problem there is a potential tyrant,
a subset of the problem that, if not resolved, would prevent a solution
of the whole."
They did this by:
- Defining your goal.
- Segment the problem.
- Collect intelligence. Read extensively.
- Ranking the segments of the problem: Ranking the problems in
order of important and difficulty. Identify the part of the problem
that, if not solved, will make all the other solutions irrelevant.
Then tackle that tyrant first.
This approach is not easy to follow because at its very heart is
the one thing most people are not prepared to do. That is, begin
with the hardest problem first.
The Wright brothers’ achievement should not be underestimated.
An editorial in the New York Times written after Langley’s
second failure on December 8, 1903, predicted that “man's
flight was achievable only if scientists and mathematicians worked
on it around the clock for the next one to 10 million years. It
wouldn't take 10 million years. It wouldn't even take 10 days.
The full impact of the Wright brothers’ achievement is not
yet measurable and may never be. Without the flight at Kitty Hawk,
there wouldn't have been moon landing, space exploration, an aircraft
craft industry, or fast travel between countries and no global economy.
Perhaps some other aeronautical pioneer would have solved the problem
within weeks of the Wright brothers, or perhaps it would have taken
the millions of years that the New York Times had predicted. Their
achievement is not merely that they were the first, but that they
were first, despite being such unlikely firsts. Their solutions
to the fundamental problems of aviation, still work today, and their
approach to finding those solutions will work for you too.
This is a brilliant book, very easy to read, and very relevant.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it.
I have given it a rating of 9.
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