Product Description

"Problem Solving 101" started out as a simple guide to teach Japanese schoolchildren critical thinking skills. But it quickly became an international bestseller for readers of all ages, thanks to the powerful effectiveness of Ken Watanabe's unique methods. Full of useful diagrams and quirky drawings, "Problem Solving 101" is packed with practical tools and techniques to train your brain to solve problems, create solutions and make faster, better decisions. Simple enough for a high school student to understand but sophisticated enough for CEOs to apply to their most challenging problems, "Problem Solving 101" has helped millions of people around the world to find successful solutions to even the toughest of problems. Once you've mastered the skills in this book, you'll wonder how you ever got by without them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44487 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

Review
Problem Solving 101 teaches us to recognize the common elements in the decisions we face every day, and how to think carefully about them. It offers tricks and tips for every age. If I may offer one more suggestion: when you don't know which of two options to chose, toss a coin, and when it is up there in the air think about how you want it to fall, and you have your answer. --Dan Ariely, author of The New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational

This book made me angry. It made me angry because there are so many people in this country who need to read it, who should read it, who will benefit enormously from reading it . . . and won't. They'll watch a reality show on TV instead. If everyone made decisions like Ken Watanabe, the world would be a better place. --Seth Godin, author of Tribes

This is an excellent primer on problem solving.
--Lowell Bryan, author of Mobilizing Minds

From the Publisher
Take control of your thinking with this fun and simple problem-solving guide that has taken Japan by storm.

About the Author
Ken Watanabe grew up bilingual in Japan and studied in the United States at Yale and Harvard Business School. He was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company for six years. He is now the founder and CEO of his own education, entertainment and media company, Delta Studio.

Customer Reviews

decisions, decisions, decisions
What started out as a book written for Japanese children became a bestseller, read and followed by so many adults that it became Japan's #1 business book. Why? Because it offers easy to understand viable solutions to making the best problem solving decisions we can in order to reach the goals we wish to attain.

Before writing this book author Watanabe was a consultant for the global management consulting firm of McKinney & Company. As he writes, "For six years I worked with major companies all over the world to help solve their business challenges using a straightforward yet powerful set of problem-solving tools."

Then, in 2007 when the Japanese prime minster placed education at the top of his nation's agenda, Watanabe felt called to help. So he left McKinney to teach children and to write this book. Now, all of us are the beneficiaries.

In a nutshell he suggests 4 steps: (1) Identify the problem quite specifically. A problem can be as simple as where to have dinner that evening or as complex as a major investment. (2) Discover the root difficulties that are causing the problem. (3) Develop a plan of action or steps to be taken to resolve the issue. (4) Take action being prepared to substitute or modify until the issue is resolved.

This abbreviation of the author's ideas does in no way do justice to his theses. His book is replete with charts, graphs and example exercises. Read and learn !

- Gail Cooke