Toyota's Success is No Secret

A colleague led me to this article in the The New Yorker online. It is one of the better "general" pieces that I've seen on Toyota and the core reasons for its success.

So how has Toyota stayed ahead of the pack?

The answer has a lot to do with another distinctive element of Toyota’s approach: defining innovation as an incremental process, in which the goal is not to make huge, sudden leaps but, rather, to make things better on a daily basis. (The principle is often known by its Japanese name, kaizen—continuous improvement.) Instead of trying to throw long touchdown passes, as it were, Toyota moves down the field by means of short and steady gains. And so it rejects the idea that innovation is the province of an elect few; instead, it’s taken to be an everyday task for which everyone is responsible.

As I've noted before, the culture of Toyota is its obvious secret. It's not the artifacts that we can see everyday in its factories and offices. It's a coporate culture that works in Japan and in Toyota's American factories.

Will we ever learn?

Well, USA Today, published another article on Jan. 5, 2007, that shows how little we understand the competitive advantage held by Toyota. GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner notes:

"I like being No. 1, and I think our people take pride in it," he told a small group of reporters at GM's headquarters. "It's not something we're going to sit back and let somebody else [Toyota] pass us by."

If Toyota does pass GM, Wagoner said he would not be pleased.

"It won't be a happy day for me, but I've lost basketball games before in my life. You get ready and you learn and you go back the next day, and that's what we'll do," he said. "We're going to fight to keep the position, and if one day we lose it, we'll fight to get it back."

Meanwhile, the Toyota spokesperson notes:

Toyota isn't concerned about becoming No. 1 globally, said spokesman Irv Miller. The company is working to keep its quality high, focus on customers and roll out its new Tundra full-sized pickup, due next week, he said.

"A perceived sales challenge for global leadership is not something we're even thinking about," Miller said.

Once again, Toyota clearly tells everyone who cares to listen that they have a strategic, rather than a tactical focus. Don't worry about the game when you can win the season. How much further will GM profits fall, just so that they can sell more cars than Toyota in 2007.

Toyota employees are proud of the fact that they continuously improve the quality or their cars and speed in which they produce them.