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The Wright Way

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The Wright Way

7 Problem Solving Principles from the Wright Brothers That Can Make Your Business Soar

AMACOM,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

Orville and Wilbur Wright did not just invent and fly the first plane: they showed how to tackle a problem and solve it.

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

The Wright brothers were an amazing team. Working part time, these two previously undistinguished bicycle dealers from Dayton, Ohio, solved a problem that had baffled, frustrated and defeated (sometimes fatally) some of the most well-educated, well-capitalized 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 airplane is not only fascinating, but also rich in didactic value for parents, teachers and businesspeople. Author Mark Eppler does an admirable job of drawing you into the story of the Wright brothers. getAbstract.com relishes the problem-solving principles he defines, which are, at times, refreshingly unorthodox. He abstracts these principles well and phrases them clearly, but the best demonstration of the principles lies in his retelling of the Wright brothers’ absorbing story. A very good book indeed.

Summary

Two Brothers

When Wilbur Wright was about 21, his brother Lorin, who had gone off to Kansas to find his fortune, wrote a letter home. He worried that Wilbur was aimless and would never amount to anything much. A few years later, Wilbur himself would complain that although he had built a successful bicycle business in Dayton, Ohio, in partnership with his brother Orville, his success was merely modest. He, too, worried that he would never amount to anything much.

Born in 1867, 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 attempts at flight, and managed to get his brother Orville interested in the then-outlandish idea that men could indeed fly. They had ample reason to doubt it. Some of the most prominent scientists of the era had declared heavier-than-air flying machines impossible. All previous attempts by well-capitalized, well-educated and much-celebrated aviation pioneers had failed. Orville and Wilbur Wright were bike shop partners, sons of a Methodist minister; they began without much capital, without...

About the Author

Mark Eppler is an award-winning speaker, former marketing executive and a student of the Wright Brothers. He has taught business and management at Indiana University and is the author of Management Mess-Ups.

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