Information about the book

Title: TOYOTA CULTURE- The Heart and Soul of Toyota Author: Jeffry K. Liker and Michael Hoseus Book Detail: Chapters: 18 No. of pages: 562 Publisher: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Ltd. ISBN: 978-0070264502 Copyright: 2008 Price: Rs 565.00

Objective and theme of the book

The author tries to explain what is actually happening in Toyota, how do they treat employees and how do they are different from others. The author intention in writing this book is that an organisation should try to benchmark Toyota way and try to implement it to become a sucessful organisation.

What is Toyota Culture?

Culture goes three ways: Artifacts and behavior-what a new comer,visitor or consultant would notice(physical layout) Norms and values- what we would told is the reason why things are the way they are should be. Underlying assumptions: what they believe and act on. In Toyota collectivism is maintained. Toyota came into being in 1926, from a loom to power loom and then to automatic loom. Saki chi Toyoda sold his loom to help out his son to start a motor company. Toyota came to face crisis in late 1940 but at that time also, it considered it culture. Toyota beliefs in improving internal environment rather than hiring companies, Toyota view it as a mini society and strives for the prosperity of all members and partners.

The Quality People Value Stream

People value stream is organized around four stage attract, develop, engage and inspire. Toyota works on PDCA Theme i.e. PLAN DO CHECK and ACT. In Toyota attraction, selection and orientation of quality team member from production line to president is critical part of people value strem and growing Toyota culture. In Toyota, standards are made for training and development at every level. The training includes physical fitness, fundamental skills and finally the production process. In Toyota everyone is a problem solver, everyone believes on continuous improvement and hence work on it. Toyota just does not want to be a successful company but also a successful corporate society which is environment friendly means devote good to society. The company premises is green build, solar panels are set up on the roof, the vehicles are recyclable. It looks over each and every employee to develop the problem solving technique and those who develop try to benefit their family and society.

People Supporting Processes

Those who are willing and are able to continually improve the way work is done, are called people value stream. In Japan Toyota is known for its clean and safe work environment. Toyota is considered as the foundation of safety by keeping everything organized and in its place. Toyota interprets communication and its system in three ways: Formal communication, Informal activities, Visual communication. In Toyota leadership is given more importance as leader have followers and followers easily understand what leader say rather than argue with manager. Thoughtful leaders live the Toyota way values that are: Challenge- long term vision and meeting challenge with courage and creativity. Kaizen- improving the business continuously and always driving from innovation and evolution. Genchi Genbutsu- goingand seeing. Respect- taking responsibility of doing best to build trust. Teamwork- maximizing personnel and professional growth of individual and team.

Organizational Supporting Processes

For stable workforce flexible environment is required and Toyota always tries to retain its employees and it tries to give a supportive environment which suits them. A motivation theory termed as equity theory which says that your output should be divided by your input. Toyota emphasis on do the right thing you will get the right result Toyota believes that a person could get true quality of job if one sits on a single position for a long span of time. The western people donot agree with eastern people as they believe in individualism and Japanese believe in collectivism. Hoshin- compass and Kenri- control, also known as policy deployment it focuses on energy of quality people towards corporate objectives .Hoshin creates an organization of high performance, produce result by PDCA checks. Different factors are considered while looking over floor management development system, the vision of top management, the internal and external factors, the goals are takenby team members on floor.

Learning From Toyota about Growing a Lean Culture

Toyota is working to deepen the Toyota Way internally and partnership with dealers to deepen and strengthen the working and respect for people. Toyota business is stunning even if the market is going down, it is just because of the culture and people value creations. Reaching out to Toyota culture is not possible as all company has its own strength and values, and how to build people to live those values. There are many method to change but one method is tools approach which characterizes typical approach to lean six sigma with Toyota approach of building team and culture. The process is continuous journey of improvement of problem solving. Changing as a whole is a tough task for an organization working, but understand your strength and develop for future. Another aspect is respect for people and that can be developed by leadership stability. So, it could be said that if one decide to achieve anything than nothing is impossible.

Conclusion
Finally after going through this book, I came to understand clearly why Toyota is counted as a best organization. The care and consideration that they have for employees, society and the way they achieve their goal and why other companies fail to reach that height and why Toyota is benchmarked by other companies. The respect that Toyota have for employees and want to expertise all as it view the organization as society and want a long term relationship. Yet as said everybody is not perfect I think that they donot give promotion to employees, a person remain on a same post for thirteen years and after that a single promotion just to make an employee perfect. Some views that author expressed were fabulous as if an employee tells about the problem in the organisation at any level that employee view is considered and i appreciated.

Thank you