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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good presentation of Toyota's core principles and its production system, December 27, 2007
The subtitle of this book, "Leadership Lessons from the World's Greatest Car Company", let's the reader know that this is really a book targeted to the insatiable market for people looking to develop their business leadership skills rather than a scholarly analysis of Toyota's rise to leadership in the auto industry suggested by the title. We don't get a penetrating analysis of the automobile markets or how the national markets have developed into a global market over the past 50 years or a deep look at the macroeconomic conditions facing the American versus the Japanese (or the European) car makers. Nor do we get a consistent set of measures that capture the shifting ups and downs among the various car companies over decades. Basically, we get a hagiography of Toyota that does everything right for noble reasons that are justly rewarded by the marketplace and a bunch of bumbling and undeserving American car companies get the pounding they deserve. While those of us who have grown up in Detroit over the past decades know very well that the Big 3 have made huge mistakes and have persisted in behaviors that have exacerbated their decline, we also know there are additional reasons helping Toyota and hurting Detroit. For example, do we even get a simple comparison between the demographics, pay, and benefits in the Japanese plants in America versus the plants of GM, Ford, and Chrysler? Nothing much beyond the $2,500 cost advantage Toyota enjoys and blaming the union contracts with the UAW. Certainly, there is truth in blaming the US auto companies and praising Toyota, but not much beyond Toyota's ethos is explained in this book. When we did automotive case studies while I was in business school, it became clear that Toyota had earned its success and does do things better than any other car company in the world. However, the book does not discuss this year's explosion on recalls by Toyota and the concerns being raised about Toyota's quality this year. What went wrong? Where were the hallowed principles and the company culture? Who wasn't pulling the cord and why? Why was Toyota management called on the carpet by the Japanese government? These misgivings aside, we do get a popular history of the development of the firm from its origins as a loom manufacturer. Much of the text focuses on the Toyota Production System and examples of how Toyota has benefited when living its principles and found difficulties when it hasn't. We are told about the power in the more egalitarian ethos of the Japanese executives, the daily striving to find new improvements in quality and finding waste to eliminate. The benefits of long-term investment and building customer trust are highlighted as are importance of learning from mistakes, executing big plans by paying attention to even the tiniest details, why management by example rather than command is more effective, and so on. The appendices cover Toyota's seven guiding principles, a bulleted summary of The Toyota Way, a glossary of Japanese terms used in the Toyota Production System, and a few charts comparing the favorable trends of Toyota's share price, revenue, and net income versus GM and Ford. If you aren't already a student of Toyota and its production system or the principles that make up its culture, you will find this book an informative and well written overview of what the company is trying to do each and every day. However, if you are already familiar with the TPS and the auto industry, this will likely seem a bit on the light side. And if you work for GM or Ford, even as frustrated as you likely are with the past couple of decades, the way your companies are depicted in this book will likely be more than irritating to you. I do believe that business leaders who follow the principles stated in this book will do better than those who don't. However, the principles also need to be supported by the corporate culture and there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. How do you get the culture without people who live these principles? And how do you get people to live these principles if the corporate culture doesn't support and reinforce them? These are important questions to answer and the discussion of NUMMI in the book is not encouraging to the notion that the principles can be transplanted to another company. I liked the book, but wished for things the book didn't offer. That is not really the author's problem, but mine. He wrote his book and I thank him for it. However, I am still looking for something more. Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lessons to be learned from "a self-regenerating internally combustive enterprise", September 4, 2008
Several years ago when explaining the success of Southwest Airlines, then CEO Herb Kelleher observed that "the intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles. You can get the same airplane. You can get the same ticket counters. You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn't something you can do overnight and it isn't something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways. That is why I say that our employees are our competitive protection." The same could be said about Toyota Motor Corporation. As David Magee clearly indicates in this volume, Toyota would not have been able to achieve and then sustain the excellence of its automotive products without "a professional lifestyle - a proven and time-tested way of progression, improvement, ambition, and betterment" for its employees and especially for its customers. Magee focuses on the most valuable and useful leadership lessons to be learned from Toyota's unique approach to business. Here is one of them. Gary Convis (Toyota's top manufacturing executive in the US when interviewed by Magee) recalled being advised by his superior to avoid being a dictatorial boss and to manage as if he had no power. For example, he went to a superior to get sign-off for a large capital expenditure. He had researched the need and presented the findings to his boss. The superior, ultimately responsible for the decision, told Convis to make the decision himself and come back to him not with a request for approval but with a recommendation. "It turned the worm for me," says Convis. "It made me think, `I better check again.' It teaches you not to reach an opinion, but to get the facts; all of the facts." Consider the implications of a core principle that affirms the importance delegating authority as well as responsibility, at all levels and in all areas of your own organization, if everyone managed as if she or he had no power. How serious is Toyota about this principle? Andons are lights attached to machines or production lines that indicate operation status. The andon cord connects to the lights and runs along both sides of the assembly line. Literally anyone can stop a process if she or he has a valid reason. "When a team member pulls one of the draping cords, activating the lights, the entire line is automatically stopped so processes remain in coordination and the problem can be addressed. The message workers learn early on and find continually reinforced is that finding and pointing out problems is a good thing, even though it stops the process." At many Toyota plants such as the one in Georgetown, Kentucky, andon cords are pulled up to 5,000 times a day for safety and quality reasons. Moreover, all Toyota employees (top to bottom) view all problems, flaws, errors, etc. as valuable learning opportunities. All Toyota employees are never satisfied even with continuous improvement (i.e. kaizen) because, as one group manager asserts, "The customer is a moving target. The customer always wants more." Therefore, each Toyota employee must always want better in what continues to be, throughout the entire Toyota organization, a relentless pursuit of perfection. David Magee would be the first to insist that it would be a fool's errand to attempt to apply all of what comprises the Toyota Production System (TPS), if for no other reason than the fact that it is constantly undergoing refinement and, when necessary, major revision. However, there are indeed dozens of valuable and useful leadership lessons for the reader to learn from the material he shares. Among these, I think one of the most important is the need to manage as if you had no power...except the power of your vision, of your values, of your concern for the welfare of others, and of your determination to prove worthy of whomever and whatever may be entrusted to your care.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best and most intuitive books I've read in a long time!, March 7, 2010
This review is from: How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the World's Greatest Car Company (Hardcover)
This is one of the best and most insightful books I've read about how a Japanese company and how Japan in general work together in unison to make a better product by putting there ego aside. I like how they put there philosophy of Buddhism and implement in there company called kaizen to continually correct and improve there system and also have an incentive program to reinforce it. It's amazing how the japanese took a system from Ford like the incentive program and perfected it and got everyone in the company to get involved to help continuosly improve not only the Toyota company but people in general through there products and continue to do so with there ego put aside. I wish Toyota the best in there success and in everything they do and other companies like it!
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