I've been reading a fascinating book titled How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. I originally picked it up to learn more about the guy, but it really isn't that great of a historical text. However the analysis of da Vinci's thought and analytical style was great. There are even a few exercises to develop that style, and apparently an accompanying workbook.
Author Michael Gelb's seven steps to da Vinci genius are:
- Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life.
- Dimonstratzione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience.
- Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to clarify experience.
- Sfumato: A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
- Arte/Scienza: The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination ("whole-brain thinking").
- Corporalita: The cultivation of ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
- Connessione: A recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all things and phenomena; "systems thinking."
Sound familiar? Think about the lean manufacturing analogies.
- Curiosity and testing knowledge through experience... going to the gemba.
- Using sight as the means to clarify experience... visual factory and 5S.
- Embracing paradox... the counterintuitiveness of pull manufacturing and one piece flow.
- Ambidexterity... cross training.
- The connectedness of all things... the value stream.
Was Leonardo da Vinci an early lean thinker?