1. Preparing the ground: Starting with a 'real problem
Nick zenith, the Ford Motor Company's business-planning manager responsible for launching the Ford Lincoln Continental in 1990 and 1994. described the initial ideas for implementing a learning laboratory as follows: 'But with that car the 1990 Lincoln], we had depended a great deal on heroic effort at the last minute we called it "managing by panic" because somehow we weren't able to put the right processes in place early enough. I wanted to avoid that this time' (Senge et al. 1994:555).