What do only 8% of problem solvers know
that enables them to burst through barriers and reach breakthrough solutions?

The Truth About
How To Solve Difficult Problems

Now Finally, a Handbook
That Explains the 7 Secrets of Breakthrough Solutions
 

       Previously available exclusively to business retreat and university students
this Handbook is now available to you.
 

The Breakthrough Thinking Handbook

A Step-by-Step Guide for Reaching Better Solutions
and Making Superior Decisions in All Walks of Life


7 Breakthrough Strategies that can help you put your career
on the fast track

Be the breakthrough leader who comes up with the answers that solve problems that baffle management. This easy to understand step-by-step guide will show you how to provide greater value, quality and benefits to your company or client.

A young junior engineer trained in these 7 strategies astounded his managers by recommending against the approved automation of the company’s 23 warehouses and instead showed them how they could improve performance and decrease costs by eliminating 21 of the warehouses. He was right. He got promoted.


These proven decision strategies are already improving the performance
of corporations, entrepreneurs and consultants around the world

Japanese quality conscious Toyota was faced with inventory stock-outs and carrying costs that hurt quality and productivity. They imported Breakthrough Thinking concepts from the US to solve their critical inventory problems. The resulting solution was “Just-in-Time” inventory management which has now changed the way most manufacturers around the world practice parts inventory management.  

"Breakthrough Thinking has produced amazing results in Japan, such as increases in productivity by 30% to 100%."

Fujio Umibe, Chief Specialist
Toshiba R&D Center, Tokyo, Japan

 

In a moment I’m going to tell you
the most powerful secret explained in the Handbook
 
But first I want to tell you why Breakthrough Thinking can help you
make superior decisions


For people who need to solve baffling problems -- but can't get started

It’s no fun to stare blankly at a complicated problem and wonder how to begin. With The Breakthrough Thinking Handbook you get to the heart of an issue quickly and develop a course of action in less than 2 hours.

You jump-start the solution process without wasting your time and the company’s resources. You learn about how to identify the real issues to be addressed, how to avoid information overload, how to break free of conventional thinking, how to resolve conflict and how to avoid setbacks during the implementation of an idea.

 

"We developed a regional cost allocation system which was agreed upon by two previously feuding factions. The system was better than each had developed independently and (since it was designed by both parties) was enthusiastically endorsed and implemented by each. A secondary benefit of Breakthrough Thinking is its use as a powerful team building agent."

George Hathaway
Director of Leadership and Management Development
AIG Insurance Co.

 

The present is already obsolete. Imagine a future and create it

A task force at Hewlett-Packard was told to ignore what they knew how current technology could be applied to solve a critical component of their system. Instead they were asked to imagine a fictional technology—even a fantasy—that would be a breakthrough. Then they were charged to research how close this fictional technology was to what was going to be available in the future.

The good news was that H-P labs were in fact working on the exact same concept. The bad news was that Dell was already doing it.  Without the application of the Fantasy Principle in the Handbook, the team would have settled on a less effective solution.
 

Anyone else frustrated by the inability to create a solution that stays solved?

A less effective solution has a short operating life. A Goodrich executive once reported that “Goodrich keeps getting fixed and fixed and fixed.” But at the same time their stock went down and down and down. It’s bad enough that when one problem is solved another sticks up it’s ugly head, but it is worse when it’s the same problem that pops up.

How long will we allow others to use methods to produce answers that turn out to be only temporary fixes? This Handbook will guide you away from “fixes” to solutions that are forward thinking and have sustainability.

 

"I have found The Breakthrough Thinking Handbook especially useful in my consulting practice for helping entrepreneurs think through their growth opportunities. Every entrepreneur needs this Handbook to keep his business from getting ahead of his ability to manage it."

            Austin Pryor The Foresight Consultants


 

Learn the single most powerful secret:
How to discover the real issue to be resolved

Who wants to spend time, effort and resources on a decision only to discover that it was the wrong problem? Your purpose is not always what it seems to be. Using the Purpose Principle in the Handbook you can quickly identify the larger purpose and focus on the real solution.

A nine partner accounting firm outside of Salem, Oregon was negotiating a merger with another small firm 20 miles north. Just before they signed the letter of intent, they applied the Purpose Principle, and to their shock discovered that whereas they thought their purpose was to expand in a new market, in fact it was to diversify their practice offerings, and the proposed merger would not accomplish that.

We are told that understanding purposes is important, but this is the only Handbook that shows how to expand a purpose hierarchy to discover the larger, essential purposes to be achieved.

Click here to learn how to identify the real issues that must be solved

 

"The Breakthrough Thinking Handbook helped our five man consulting team identify the real issues and win the proposal for the U.S. Navy Center of Excellence in Composite Manufacturing against many of the top universities in the United States and to deliver outstanding results. It is a time tested tool to accomplish major projects in less time with more effective results."

John D. Roethle CMC FIMC
The Roethle Group

 

Free yourself and others from the analytic quicksand
of faulty approaches

The problem is not always what you think it is. If you focus on the problem the problem only expands, and the result is usually just fixing something that is broken. This Handbook will show you how focusing instead on the solution can result in a breakthrough, a higher and broader concept with longer term value and life.

 

Case Study

When General Electric manufactured main frame computers in Phoenix, 389 parts and assembly suppliers were generating over 1400 invoices a month. Michael Crane, the accounts payable manager for the plant and his staff of four were responsible for matching these invoices with the amounts received and the prices negotiated, but 11.4% of the invoices had the wrong prices or the wrong material and 23.2% of the invoices didn’t match the amount received.

The extra work to resolve discrepancies created delays in getting out payments. This caused annoyed vendors to send out duplicate invoices, which only exacerbated the problem. To respond to the backlog the staff was working six day weeks with a heavy toll on overtime costs and staff stress. Eventually staff individuals called in sick on Mondays so frequently that Crane decided to add a fifth member to reduce the overtime stress.

Ordinarily GE would have appointed a task force to dissect the problem and try to find a fix for each point of vulnerability, but since 87% of the discrepancies where caused by the vendors’ own system shortcomings a common solution was difficult to find. Instead, Crane built a purpose hierarchy. He started with his purpose being to validate invoices by checking them against prices negotiated and the amounts actually received.

When he asked what the larger purpose was of that, he thought it must be to resolve discrepancies so that GE would not pay for what it had not received or at rates it had not approved. He came to the realization that the real purpose of his accounts payable department was to honor GE’s obligations to its suppliers by paying for what it had received at the price it had agreed according the payment terms it had negotiated.

Since Crane knew he already had the unit price and the amount received, what did he need the invoice for? He decided to ignore the invoice and place the burden of correcting errors on the suppliers and GE’s own buyers in Purchasing. Instead Crane paid suppliers when he received notice of amounts received, taking a 2% discount for paying within 10 days, an additional annual savings for the company of $240,000.

The result of this unconventional breakthrough was a 31.7% improvement in productivity in Accounts Payable and the transfer of the fifth staff member to another department in Accounting. By placing the burden of correcting discrepancies on those who caused them, both Purchasing and the vendors were more diligent in keeping their information correct and updated.

 

Thousands now solve difficult problems
who never thought they could

Used only in our Breakthrough Thinking workshops, the Handbook of Breakthrough Thinking is now available to those who want to go beyond the quick fix to achieving sensational advances in solving problems. It will show you how to focus your thinking and the thinking of your team to reach superior decisions and breakthrough solutions—solutions that may even astonish you.

I want you to learn these 7 secrets, because I know you can, and I know when you do, you will surprise yourself with the ease at which you succeed. And you will wonder how you ever managed without these concepts. You are going to absolutely love the results you are going to get.


Click here to discover the seven secrets of Breakthrough Thinking

 

"Breakthrough Thinking has caused our staff to begin thinking about their work achievements in terms of end results rather than inputs and efforts. It changed our organizational culture by focusing it on accountability, achievement of purposes, and measures of success. Various divisions and units....have reached agreements and mutual understanding of common purposes.....We now measure operations by their outcome and contribution to well-defined purposes, not by their budgets, manpower and costs."

Dr. Sara Hershkovitz
Director, Division of Strategic Planning
Municipality of Jerusalem, Israel

 

Breakthrough Thinking is a powerful tool
but it isn't rocket science

"I found Breakthrough Thinking successful not only with my first seventh and eighth graders but with all levels of high school as well. I am firmly convinced that it offers a method for college bound students to take control of their studying and achievement."

Margaret Norton, Teacher
Riverside School District, Riverside CA

 

Why wait? You are losing opportunities to create breakthroughs every day you put off applying these 7 powerful concepts

Unless you already know these 7 breakthrough principles, you will continue to lose valuable time, expense, and opportunities by trying to solve problems that only get bigger, become elusive and prevent you from becoming the best you can.

We will ship your copy of The Breakthrough Thinking Handbook within 48 hours. See for yourself if it doesn’t show you how to develop more innovative and better solutions than you were able to before.

Click here for more innovative solutions

No risk guarantee

If after 45 days you don’t believe the Handbook is everything I say it is, mail it back for a full refund. I don’t care if it is dog-eared with missing pages. I’ll take it back and send you a check for the full amount. No questions asked.

In fact I’m so sure that this Handbook will help you make superior decisions that if it doesn’t, I’ll send you the password for my next private teleseminar for free.


Learn how you can get the Handbook at savings of 26.6%

These Handbooks retail for $45 but if you promise me you will show your friends and colleagues that these principles really work, I will send you your own copy for only $37.

In addition I will pay the $5 shipping and handling cost myself. That’s a $12.00 savings.

For less than one modest evening for two, you can have this Handbook to feed your innovative leadership for the rest of your life.

And guess what? This handbook is most likely tax deductible as a business expense because it is training material.

 

But don’t delay, because I am about to include a SPECIAL BONUS
for a very limited time 

FREE personal coaching, a $100 value

In addition to sending you the Handbook at the discounted price, for a limited time I will include a certificate giving you 5 free email coaching responses to any questions you have about the material in the Handbook or its application to your specific project.

Why am I making this special offer? Because if I am to change the way people think about problems and opportunities, I will need to point to your success as a breakthrough thinker.

You could spend one thousand nine-hundred ninety-seven dollars plus travel, hotel and meals to come to one of my Boot Camps to learn how to apply the 7 secrets of Breakthrough Thinking or get this book and 5 free email coaching sessions for only $37, shipping included.

It’s not every day you get an invitation like this when you purchase a book, and I’m not sure how long I can continue to offer it. So act now if you want this support package with the Handbook.
 

Hear what some who have been helped by Michael’s coaching say:

"One key difference between Michael's approach and most others in management is his focus on moving past the traditional 'what's your problem and how I can fix it for you' to 'what goals do you and your people really want to achieve, and how can I help you lead your people to achieve those goals.'  Listen carefully to what Michael says - You'll learn a lot that works well in real life rather than just sounds good."

Peter Senior
President, Senior Consulting
Cairns, Queensland, Australia

 

"As he has done for so many others, Michael brings you to look at problems in new ways that help you develop better solutions that accommodate the inevitable future change.  A proven leader himself, he shares with us – thankfully – the keys to success." 

Marsha D. Lewin,  Los Angeles, California
Author, “The Overnight Consultant”

 

"Michael is an individual of focused leadership and a result orientated approach. These are achieved without giving up that great component of a leader, which is empathy and the time to spend with someone who has a need to discuss or work through an issue."

Angelo Kehayas CEO Profweb
Johannesburg, South Africa     

 

There is no better time than now
to be free of the limitations of conventional problem solving processes

With all the decisions you are faced with each day, the problems begging for solution, and the increasing demand for better answers and improved productivity, you need this Handbook. This is the ONLY guide that explains in simple language how to apply the seven principles of Breakthrough Thinking.

With this guide you will:

  • Jump-start the solution process without wasting your time or the company's resources

  • Remove obstacles to simple solutions and barriers to real progress
  • Always be working on the RIGHT problem
  • Be free from the analytical quicksand of conventional approaches
  • Have an excellent means of conflict management
  • Generate a large number of innovative and original options
  • Create future scenarios that are implementable
  • Be led to a solution that has durability and optimal operating performance
  • Turn change into an ally
  • Manage your implementation without pain or stress
  • Provide greater value, quality and benefits to the company or client
  • Plant seeds of continual improvement
  • Find these principles also apply to your own personal and life decisions

 

Click here to get these results, your 26.6% savings
and FREE personal coaching

 

"Once again Michael Shays has brought his unique form of clarity to a complex topic. His structures are clear, his definitions crisp and the illustrations effectively augment the text (plus they are really funny!). The Breakthrough Thinking Handbook should be invaluable to anyone facing baffling problems."

Cox Ferrrall CMC, FIMC
Sales Effectiveness Coach

 

If you were suddenly charged with the task of solving a baffling problem
wouldn't you want to know these secrets of Breakthrough Thinking?

 

Click here to get your own copy
of The Breakthrough Thinking Handbook

 

E. Michael Shays
The Focus Leader

http://www.TheFocusLeader.com


 

 COPYRIGHT © JUNE 2008 E. MICHAEL SHAYS