How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the World's Greatest Car Company (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "TOYOTA MAY BE the world's leading automobile manufacturer, but the company is about far more than cars..." (more)
Key Phrases: project genesis, fleet sales, largest automaker, United States, General Motors, Jim Press (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Magee, a columnistat the Chattanooga Times Free Press, ably chronicles the rise of leading auto manufacturer Toyota and the underlying principles that led to its ascendancy. From lean production to a long-term focus to specialized philosophies like kaizen (a system of continuous improvement in which instances of waste are eliminated one by one) and genchi genbutsu (a belief in practical experience over theoretical knowledge), Magee documents each contributing factor in Toyota's success. Going back as far as Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda's father Sakichi Toyoda, a successful inventor who inspired and financed the car company's first operations, Magee takes the reader through the company's current challenges and achievements. While he delivers some fresh ideas on how to foster innovation within a particular industry, his overwhelming praise for Toyota's methods reads suspiciously like hagiography, despite his frequent assurances that he wrote the book in complete objectivity with no involvement or influence from the company. Still, this work will interest those involved in the automotive world or similar industries. (Nov. 1)
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Review

“From its renowned production system to its unerring sense of customers' tastes, the factors that fueled Toyota's drive to the summit of the auto industry are all well recounted here.”
—Newsweek

“Magee runs through lessons in leadership and strategy, weaving in colorful snippets from Toyota's 70-year history.”
—Fast Company

“David Magee convincingly argues that the spirit of Toyota people, as much as anything, has determined Toyota's success.”
—BusinessWeek.com

“When it comes to Toyota’s success, Mr. Magee credits the company’s internal realities….he celebrates Toyota’s willingness to acknowledge production problems quickly, to adapt its methods to varying markets (thus defying a stereotype of management rigidity), and to ask for feedback from its workers—thereby ‘empowering’ them”
—Wall Street Journal

“Magee provides an excellent view of a shining business model that encompasses not only Toyota’s highly espoused lean production system but also its leadership values and unique corporate culture.”
—Booklist

“This inspirational book is essential reading for both human resource professionals and business executives”
—Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; 1 edition (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591841798
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841791
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #253,193 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

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

By	Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

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

6 of 7 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

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

4.0 out of 5 stars Inside look at Toyota's continuous improvement philosophy, February 19, 2009

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

David Magee does a great job of explaining the values that shape Toyota's corporate culture.
However, he portrays American auto companies as being a bit too venal and stupid, and depicts Toyota as being a bit too righteous. Still, Toyota is a great company and its American competitors do suffer, in part, due to the traits he describes. Magee keeps things going by introducing you to Toyota's major players past and present, as well as talking about big names in the U.S. auto industry. Many books describe Toyota's production system or the Toyota approach. getAbstract appreciates Magee's singular efforts to dig further into the company's core values and to explain how these values manifest throughout the company's operations.