Customer Reviews

Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Toyota Culture is the 5th book in "the Liker Toyota series". After Toyota Way, Toyota Way Fieldbook, Toyota Product Development and Toyota Talent, you would expect that there is less news to write about Toyota. Well, not true. Toyota Talent is the thickest book in the series with it's almost 600 pages of Toyota info.

Toyota Culture mainly covers HR practices and related policies. It describes this as "the people value stream". How does Toyota hire and train people (the detailed training processes are described in Toyota Talent). How do they grow inside the company. How does Toyota work with the local communities.

The book is separated in five parts:
- What is Toyota Culture?
- The Quality People Value Stream
- People Supporting Process
- Organizational Supporting Processes
- Learning from Toyota

The first part is some-of an introduction. It explores what "company culture" means by referring to the work of Ed Schein. Then it introduces "the people value-stream" which the rest of the book is organized around. Part 2 is about the value stream itself while part 3 and 4 are the supporting processes of the people value stream.

Part 2 talks about how Toyota does hiring and how they grow the people within the company. It starts with the hiring and from there onto the training part (which had some duplication with Toyota Talent) and then moved into problem solving, one of the essential parts of the Toyota culture. It ends with how Toyota builds its image and works with the local communities to improve the life of its employees.

The third part starts by looking at the Toyota organizational structure, work teams and the team leader role. From there it moves to safe workplaces and how the standard problem solving is also applied to workplace safety problems. The last 2 chapters are about visual management and servant leadership. How management acts as servants and teachers to the workers, enabling the value-added work.

The fourth part looks at organizational supporting processes and especially HR processes. Toyota still want people to have a job for life, even though this is not common outside Japan. It talks about how Toyota deals with ups and downs in resourcing and moves to HR policies and rewarding policies (an very interesting chapter!). Chapter 15 is a short introduction to Hoshin Kanri.

The last part is about learning from Toyota, the "what can you do" part which many books end with. The first two chapters describes a couple of Toyota Way implementations within Toyota itself, to try to learn from that. The last chapter (probably the best) looks at lean implementations and wonders why they fail. It tries to find general change recommendations to try to learn from Toyota while creating your own company culture.

Parts of the book were extremely good and, at other times, parts of the book were somewhat long and boring. I'd give it 4.5 stars if I had that possibility and decided to go to 5 stars since I felt the last chapter was really very good.

A couple of things that I didn't like. Most of the book talks about Toyota in the US and seldom talks about the Toyota culture in Japan. It's obvious the authors are most familiar with the Toyota US situation. Also, most of the book still has a manufacturing focus. There is very little about other functions (e.g. product development) within the book itself. The culture in the different functions is probably similar, but will also have differences. Things like organizational structures and teamwork will be different in the different functions and thats not covered.

All in all, another great Toyota book. Highly recommended for people who are interested in how Toyota works and why. I wouldn't recommend it as your first Toyota book, I'd probably then start with the Toyota Way book and move to this one after that.

Jeff Liker has produced another superb book in the Toyota Way series, this time with the help of Michael Hoseus. This volume is an even more Herculean effort at assembling detail than the last were. Every step of the process of recruiting, hiring, training, developing, integrating, and supporting the people who add the value to Toyota products is spelled out. It is amazingly content-rich.

And, once again Liker captures the essential message that what the management of Toyota does is not just a series of techniques, but rather a complex, interacting, systemic way of thinking. The attention to detail, the relentless, never-ending improvement and the ability to adhere to a basic set of values in the face of challenge after challenge is nothing short of extraordinary. Toyota deservedly sits on top of the competitive pile. No one does it better and, as this wonderful volume shows so clearly, it's damn hard work.

I have stopped wondering if America manufacturers will 'get it'. They won't. As much as The Toyota Way was a result of a particular time and a particular culture, our time (now) and our culture (just win, baby) preclude wide acceptance of these methods. Just read the book and imagine almost any of these management methods being adopted by American managers and you will see how wide the gulf truly is. And the unvarnished truth is that that gulf hasn't narrowed appreciably in the past 40 years.

But as a guide the book is extraordinarily useful. I would think it would be excellent reading for Human Resources professionals and Organizational Change and Organizational Development people.

It is a highly commendable effort and a very good book.

Lean is not sustainable without the culture to support it. This culture is a complex amalgam of leadership values, open communication, training and development, and measures to build trust. People are the key and, indeed, the early name for the Toyota Production System was the "Respect for Humanity" system. "Toyota Culture" describes how a supportive and continuously improving culture has been developed at Toyota's American plants. The book goes into considerable detail of the "People Value Stream" at Toyota and how it is sustained and developed. It is a long book packed with insights and case studies, but there are no quick fixes here - no "do this and you'll be sorted in a year" magic pills. It's a slow process of building trust and working together. That's what lean is all about and this book is essential reading for any manager aiming to build a continuously improving lean organisation for the long term. It is true that there are no quick fixes but surely the results, and the joy of working in such an organisation, make the effort worthwhile.

We are all very fortunate that one of our colleagues, Mike Hoseus, has filled an important void in the documentation of Toyota's total business system by recently co-authoring with Jeff Liker, "Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way". Mike has done a brilliant job of creating crystal-clear descriptions of the Toyota values and the culture that derives from those values, along with detailed explanations of how Toyota creates, sustains and continuously improves its culture and business processes through its people. Numerous quotes from the people who lived in this culture working side-by-side with Mike really bring life and meaning to this incredibly useful and valuable work. I truly think that this is the most important work ever on the real "secret" of Toyota's success, and recommend it highly. Every CEO and executive team should make this their bible to achieve global competitive advantage and build a lasting enterprise. ---Bob Bennett, Group Vice President (retired), Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc. and President, Lean Consulting Associates, LLC.Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way

This is the book that discloses the incredible amount of effort and time that Toyota invest in developing its people. The whole process is shown and commented with a lot of cases. I just started reading the first few chapters and can't stop. If you are asking how Toyota can afford to spend so much in developing its people the plain Toyota answer will be How can you not to? A new must read in the Jeffrey Liker work.

I am a 15 year veteran and an hourly worker at the Toyota plant in Kentucky. I found this book to be very truthful and honest. Toyota just like any company is constantly learning. Books like Professor Likers gives us all insight into the Toyota Way. Even as a TMMK employee I read his books as a reference tool and a learning opportunity.

Another review in this list mentioned the use of a temporary workforce that was found in chapter 12. I would also like to discuss this portion of the book. Of course a temp workforce is a difficult subject to discuss. Teamwork is built into the Toyota way and we all become a family of sorts. I actually have a cousin that is a temp at our plant and I hope he gets hired full time. Before the economic downturn a few years ago most temps were hired full time. They did work as temps for a number of years before they were offered a full time position. Please keep in mind that temp wages at our plant is still more than most people can make in our area working any where else. The benefits that these temps receive is also based on the temp company that our company uses. The previous reviewer also mentioned that the temps only get 4 days vacation time. While this is true it is also misleading. He failed to mention that the plant shuts down for one week in July and December for planned days. Basically the temps get 14 days vacation. Once again more than they would get working anywhere else. When TMMK began in 1988 they hired a lot of younger workers. Toyota also has a low attrition rate. Basically the majority of our workforce is still here after 22 years. This more than any other reason has slowed down the hiring of new people. One last thing about our temp workforce. We have a training that takes place in our plant that requires all temps to be trained and pass certain requirements before they go to the shop floor.

This provides security to our customers to know that our temps are at a level acceptable to Toyota before they even touch a car. They also go through a slow process of learning the jobs that they will be doing.

The previous reviewer mentioned never working for Mike Hoseus (co author). I on the other hand did have an opportunity to work for him He was the manager of my shop when I was hired. I remember the first speech I ever heard was from Mr. Hoseus about all of our key performance indicators and what the expectation was from all of us. While working at TMMK he truly lived the toyota culture and with the first speech I heard him give helped instill it in me. I have also had the privilege to meet Professor Liker on two occasions. He is an honest and fair man. He knows the Toyota way as well as anyone I have ever met and then puts it into words that allows the reader to learn about a difficult and complex subject.

As a Toyota employee I would urge everyone interested in learning about the Toyota culture to read this book and learn from it. If you are truly interested in creating a Toyota culture focus on chapter 11. The Toyota Way cannot be fully implemented without servant leaders leading the way.

Mike Hoseus, author of Toyota Culture and the executive director for the Center for Quality People and Organizations just presented at [...]. The presentation is archived now at the website.

I'm just finishing the book with 5 friends where we talk about the main ideas and how they are relevant and what we can do - we review one chapter per week. The author has a keen insight in viewing culture and breaks it down, at the lowest level to what we deeply believe in and act on. I characterize Toyota as designing their relationships with the detail that an engineer would bring. The way that Toyota aligns company goals with employee goals for long term mutual prosperity makes the horizontal nature of the organizational structure a reality.

Coming from a career working at Toyota in Kentucky, the author presents the ideas from the boot laces. He claims it starts at values and with servant leadership, putting the president at the bottom of the pyramid and the suppliers - team members - customers at the top.

If you and your team are already exposed to lean and have chosen this path, this is the book for you. It shows Toyota's detailed human value stream and demonstrates how to organize human resources to thrive.

For more information, watch the session with Mike Hoseus at [...]

Michael Hoseus did an exceptional job bringing his many years of experience into this book along with Jeffrey Liker. I am currently trying to adapt my own business to follow many of the methods that are discussed in this book, and I can see definite potential for not only improving efficiency but profit as well for my own firm.

Thank You

Steven Karcher
www.cnlexington.com

I read the book after attending a seminar that co-author Mike Hoseus presented. This is a good book that opens your eyes to the Toyota Culture. I have had the good fortune to work for an organization/plant that practiced a lot of the topics covered in the book. It is very enlightening and also very frustrating when I saw how far my current organization has to go.

What we all need to understand here Europe, US and so on that Lean is culture, quality is culture, improvement is culture. You need to have it in your head and your blookd: weake up and strive to get better, challenge life and problems, dealing with groups aiming at the same goal. It not (only) a matter of tools.