TOYOTA, FROM THE CULTURE THAT ONCE SAID, "NO" -- TOO LATE SMART!

TOYOTA, FROM THE CULTURE THAT ONCE SAID “NO” -- TOO LATE SMART!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 2, 2010

Toyota is coming in for bashing, as well that it should, but what has happened to Toyota is endemic to our capitalistic system.

I wrote in WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS:A VIEW FROM THE TRENCHES (1990):

The General Motors assembly plant in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles instituted the Japanese approach to the team concept in 1987. Three years later (1990), an incident indicated how badly it was failing. Barry Stavro of the Los Angeles Times tells the story:

“It was only one of the 3,000 or so parts that go into a new Chevrolet or Pontiac Firebird. But Larry Barker, a welder, one part summed up all that is wrong with the way GM builds cars.

“One night last fall Barker, along with the rest of the shift was sent home early after GM ran out of a reinforcement panel that is welded next to the wheel near the motor compartment. The panels come in pairs, one for the right side, one for the last, and when the plant ran out of panels for one side, the assembly line stopped.

“A night shift supervisor came down and actually took one of the panels from the other (wrong) side and literally tried beating it into place with a hammer and then welding it.

“The Rube Goldberg-fix-it took so long, Barker said, that GM decided “it wasn’t worth it, so then they sent us home. But if the wrong part could have been forced into place faster, he believes, they probably would have run the assembly line." (WWMs, pp 145 –146)

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The United States hubris is classical while Japanese humility is also legendary. But in 1989, two Japanese executives decided Japan didn’t need the US anymore, that the US was holding Japan back. I write in SIX SILENT KILLERS: MANAGEMENT’S GREATEST CHALLENGE (1998):

A document surfaced in 1989, The Japan that Can Say ‘No’: The Case for a New US/Japanese Relationship by Akio Morita and Shintaro Ishihara, gives credence to the warning that Americans must understand the ‘Japanese Goliath’ better. This document passionately xenophobic, written exclusively for a Japanese audience, is tacitly nostalgic for the dominance of the Emperor and a return to the feudalistic consistency of such a society: “Our honest and sincere emperor is the tribal symbol within our national policy and our culture, indeed, he is like the father of our family.” (SIX SILENT KILLERS p. 77)

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In a short twenty years (1990 – 2010), Toyota, the giant of Japanese car manufacturers, has gone from value, safety, and profit to profit, profit, profit in the old GM formula.

We should not be surprised. The industrial paradigm is structured to support and only support such a system, especially when the drive is for industrial dominance. It is axiomatic that when you MUST be NUMERO UNO of anything, everything else not only is secondary but evaporates in the quest.

Now China and India are following the American paradigm. It appears the future is prisoner of the past.

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In 1990 I published my first book as a wake up call in this regard because I saw first hand on four continents over a thirty year career this fundamental organizational problem and corporate strategy. Subsequent books have been published, and disregarded with similar consistency. What I have written about has come from the trenches, not the boardrooms, and every worker knows of what I speak. Larry Barker is typical.

Incidentally, over 50 percent of Toyotas sold in America have been produced in America. One wonders if the GM syndrome has crept into the process.

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