“3M” comes from “Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing,” but those three M’s might better stand for Mistake = Magic = Money. Throughout its 101year history, many of 3M’s breakthrough products have followed a similar arc: A 3M customer identifies a problem, and a 3M engineer expresses confidence in being able to solve it. He bangs his head against the wall for years, facing repeated setbacks, until management finally tells him to stop wasting time and money. Undeterred, the engineer stumbles onto a solution and turns a dead end into a ringing success.

Although William McKnight, the man responsible for 3M’s entrepreneurial culture, was not, in fact, a company founder, he does deserve the credit for what made 3M successful during his 59 years at the company and beyond. Says Noa Staryk, chair of the McKnight Foundation, which McKnight founded in 1953: “There are two values that resonate from my great-grandfather: innovation and risk taking.”

His tenure started—naturally—with a mistake. Just as the company showed a profit, with sales at about $22,000 a month, angry clients suddenly began returning 3M sandpaper. It turned out that several casks of olive oil had spilled onto a shipment of 3M abrasives in transit, and the oil-tainted “sand” failed to retain its adhesion to the backing paper. And no one had noticed the problem. After that debacle McKnight established a research lab to test materials at every stage of production.

McKnight’s move to center the business on research ended up having the dual effect of not only testing ideas but also generating them. He set the tone with his philosophy of “Listen to anybody with an idea.” When he received a letter in 1920 from an ink manufacturer requesting bulk mineral samples (not one of 3M’s businesses), McKnight wanted to know what the correspondent would do with the minerals. A Philadelphia inventor named Francis Okie had sent the note, and he wanted to develop his invention of waterproof sandpaper. McKnight realized that Okie’s idea would rapidly be accepted because it produced less friction than dry sandpaper and didn’t generate hazardous dust when used wet. He bought the rights to the idea and hired Okie, and by 1921, 3M had released Wetordry sandpaper, its first breakthrough product. As Richard Carlton, 3M’s director of manufacturing and author of its first testing manual, wrote, “Every idea should have a chance to prove its worth, and this is true for two reasons: (1) If it is good, we want it; (2) if it is not good, we will have purchased peace of mind when we have proved it impractical.”

1. How can many of 3M’s breakthroughs be described best?

［A］ The result of mistakes.

［B］ The result of luck.

［C］ The result of confidence in its employees’ abilities.

［D］ The result of skill.

2. Which of the following means “debacle” as used in paragraph 3?

［A］ surprise

［B］ trial

［C］ incident

［D］ disaster

3. What was the result of McKnight’s focus on research?

［A］ More ideas and more testing.

［B］ More testing of existing ideas.

［C］ More ideas to test.

［D］ Testing before and during production.

4. Why did McKnight say “Every idea should have a chance to prove its worth”?

［A］ Because his whole business depends on new ideas.

［B］ Because he likes hearing new ideas.

［C］ Because even if a new idea doesn’t work, it will be one less competing idea to worry about.

［D］ Because you never know which ideas are good and which are not.

5. What is the focus of the article?

［A］ William McKnight

［B］ 3M

［C］ Getting new ideas.

［D］ Selling new ideas.