This is a book from two brothers who have been close all their lives. As children in small-town Ohio, we played baseball on the same Tigers Little League teams in the summer and built snow forts together in the winter. We shared a bedroom for fourteen years, tacking up posters of muscle cars on the knotty-pine walls in the kind of finished basement that was popular in the Midwest. We went to the same grade school, joined the same Boy Scout troop, went on family vacations to Lake Erie, and once camped all the way to California and back with our parents and two sisters. We took many things apart, and put some of them back together.

Why a book about creative confidence? Because we have noticed from thirty years at IDEO that innovation can be both fun and rewarding. But as you look at the sweep of your life and start to think of legacy that survives beyond it, giving others the opportunity to live up to their creative capacity seems like a worthy purpose. In the midst of David’s battle with cancer in 2007, a recurring question was “What was I put on Earth to do?” This book is part of the answer: To reach out to as many people as possible. To give future innovators the opportunity to follow their passions. To help individuals and organizations unleash their full potential—and build their own creative confidence.

In the mid-20th century, the Japanese manufacturing industry introduced the Kaizen principle to the world. Japanese for “improvement”, this principle combined industrial knowledge and employee participation to increase productivity and quality while also reducing costs and improving the working environments. The Kaizen principle attracted attention outside of Japan, and now the word “Kaizen” is known the world over. What should Japanese companies bring to the world in the 21st century? I would like to propose a whole new value system: KAITEKI or “comfort”

As I write this book, I will be pondering what this essential principle entails. I will tell you as much as I can about science’s investment in KAITEKI, about research and development, and the current state of the chemical industry. I will also discuss the new direction my company is taking, and what we are doing to implement KAITEKI. I hope that this will provide some suggestions for what a company should be doing, or what the future will hold for not just Japan, but for the world, to employees in businesses, especially to those at early career.