Extreme Toyota: Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World's Best Manufacturer [Hardcover]

Emi Osono (Author), Norihiko Shimizu (Author), Hirotaka Takeuchi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 23, 2008

Extreme Toyota offers the first real, comprehensive inside look at what makes one of the world?s best companies run. With unprecedented access to the inner working of Toyota, the authors spent six years researching the company, interviewing hundreds of executives and employees, and discovering the company's secret of success. What they uncovered will surprise you and change the way you think about business. Simultaneously rigidly traditional and seriously innovative, it is precisely those internal contradictions that make the company so successful and admired.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Heavily footed and studded with graphs and charts, this insider's view of one of the world's leading manufacturers is somewhat academic in tone yet has enough anecdotes to make it interesting." (Library Journal, May 15, 2008)

From the Inside Flap

By almost any measure, Toyota is a model of extreme performance among the world's best manufacturers. The company is hugely profitable, known for strong engineering, durability, and reliability, and is on track to replace GM as the world's largest automaker. What explains this phenomenal success?

Based on six years of research and unprecedented access to Toyota facilities, documents, and activities—as well as hundreds of interviews with employees and leaders of the company—Extreme Toyota explains what makes Toyota great and what you and your business can learn from its success.

Though Toyota is well known for its innovative production process—the Toyota Production System (TPS)—there is much more to its success than just its nimble, cost-effective production practices. The authors of Extreme Toyota explain that the secret to Toyota's success lies in a series of striking paradoxes or contradictions that are actively encouraged by Toyota's management. For example:

• Toyota cultivates frugality and thriftiness AND spends big to develop people and projects

• It is hierarchical and bureaucraticAND encourages dissent

• It aims for stability AND fosters a mindset of paranoia

• It moves forward slowly and gradually AND makes big leaps

• It is operationally efficient AND filled with redundancy

This creative clash of innovative production practices and traditional corporate culture not only works, it works extraordinarily well. Toyota manages to turn these seeming contradictions into unlimited growth and success. While most companies seek to stamp out internal contradictions and paradoxes, Toyota actively encourages them, resulting in continuous innovation and constant renewal. If you want to grow your own culture of contradiction and success, take a look inside the world's best manufacturer.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (May 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470267623
• ISBN-13: 978-0470267622
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #758,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More Theoretical, vs. Applicable, November 27, 2008

By 

Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Extreme Toyota: Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World's Best Manufacturer (Hardcover)

The authors contend that there is more to Toyota's success than its well-known Toyota Production system. They identify several contradictions to illustrate:

1)It cultivates frugality, AND spends big to develop people and projects.

2)Moves forward slowly and gradually, AND makes big leaps.

3)It is operationally efficient AND filled with redundancy.

How to make use of these points, however, is not made clear; for example, #3 is illustrated by Toyota having excess people in sales and meetings. The value of doing so, however, was not made clear.

The most interesting portion of the book involved a few relatively unknown facts. Toyota's dividend payouts are low, averaging 20% of earnings over the past ten years (Daimler-Chrysler = 47.5%.) The result is a cash hoard ($20 billion in 2007), and a mediocre ROIC. Average compensation for its top 33 executives is about 10% of Ford's. Finally, the founding Toyoda family owns just 2% of the firm, vs. Ford (40%), and BMW (50%). So much for several American common practices.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why don't Japanese automakers need a bailout? Find out here, January 26, 2009

By 

Rebecca Clement "Publisher, Soundview Executi... (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Extreme Toyota: Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World's Best Manufacturer (Hardcover)

In light of the recent federal bailout, It doesn't take a brainiac to figure out that the Big Three American automakers are in big financial trouble. Each is plagued by a strikingly similar palette of problems, products and poor performance. In fact, one of the biggest gripes leveled against U.S. automakers is that they're too similar overall. That's not the case for Toyota which has turned divergence and internal paradox into a competitive advantage that has helped it consistently rank as one of the best manufacturers in the world. In the book Extreme Toyota a team of business strategy academicians focus on six contradictory forces that Toyota has replicated within its organizational DNA that enable it to constantly self renew and generate ongoing innovation. The authors applaud Toyota's ability to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable issues such as personnel redundancy with operational efficiency; extended experimentation cycles with rapid implementations; and constrained resource usage with extravagant project decisions. Soundview recommends this book because of its counterintuitive insights and powerful premise, which should benefit most manufacturers - perhaps even the Big Three.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good manager level book on TPS., August 26, 2008

By 

GP The Engineer - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Extreme Toyota: Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World's Best Manufacturer (Hardcover)

Having read most of the detailed TPS books, this one was a bit to theoretical. Realize it was likely written for the MBA crowd....

I still find it a bit odd that Toyota subject books tend to avoid the fact that no company is perfect. Wouldn't trade the hectic workweek it sounds like the Japanese based staff work for anything. I liked the references to the CEO's push even thought business was good at the time.