Understand the nature of your problems – and how to solve them. (Image: Supplied) In an ideal world, problems would melt away. But this side of the rainbow, we’re left to solve them on our own.

For more than 20 years — and after working with more than 10,000 participants who attended my Kaizen workshops — I’ve refined a simple yet powerful tool that makes problem-solving useful for everyone.

Toyota has a unique cultural language. It’s called 8-Step Problem Solving. It’s the “patois” of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The patois is the dialect of the common people of a region, ...