The DNA of Toyota lies in Its Culture

Allan P. Limin

I was puzzled by the wordings of Katsuaki Watanabe, the president of Toyota Motor Corporation about understanding the Toyota Way. I can’t help but to continue reading because my interest was captured by what he uttered about working in the company for 43 years and yet he has no complete understanding about the Toyota Way because he said that there is no end to the process of learning the Toyota Way.

The lecture boasts about what a deeply trained employee in the Toyota Production System would do if he visits a company using lean operations or six sigma systems; they would go straight to the gemba or the place where value is created to walk the process, look for interruptions in flow-waste, observe people doing the work using repeatable standard process, see people actively engaged in doing value-added work based on a defined pace, find evidence of visual management, witness people actively engaged in daily problem solving because all these things matters a lot in the Toyota Way. The leaders in Toyota believed that the key to success was investment in its people. The Toyota Way corresponds to the Toyota Culture that has evolved since the company’s founding and is the core competence of the organization. The Toyota Way is concern much about the way people think and behave which is deeply rooted in the company philosophy and its principles. Its core for the greatest part deals on respect for people and continuous improvement. The Toyota Culture is relatively engage in the sustainability of quality products created by people vigorously working on achieving the annual plan of the company. The Toyota Way equates, describes, and examines the DNA of the Toyota culture which defines the fundamental and distinctive characteristics or qualities of the company and its people that are unchangeable.

I am impressed by the observation of Mr Cho during the visit of the former Ford president Red Polling at TMMK of which Mr. Polling did not see the competitive advantage of the company; its intelligent, caring and highly successful team members. This is what the Toyota Way is all about. The company is proud to continuously produce great leaders. The Toyota culture is really marvellous and that they always share beliefs, values and assumptions about work and the organization because they believe that managers are leaders and leaders are teachers. It makes me feel proud that since I am a teacher I must manifest such an attitude in my workplace in order to sustain a lasting legacy in my present school.

My respect to the series of inspirational leaders outside the Toyoda family namely Taiichi Ohno, Tatsuo Hasegawa, Kenya Nakamura, Shotaro Kamiya, Fujio Cho who have maintained the core pillars of the Toyota Way; Just-in-time and jidoka ( intelligent automation) which are both technical concepts and focuses much on the people; their continuous improvement and the deep respect for them.

The Toyota Company’s emphasis on being the citizen of the world gains its honor by being not only strong but a universally admired company, winning the trust and respect of the world. Apparently as a teacher in my own rights, I am further encouraged to live the Toyota Way adapting its culture which is deeply rooted in respecting other people regardless of dialects, moods, attitudes, hobbies, interests etc. I am inspired to teach the Toyota Way in a sense of moulding the future generations of our country.

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The author is Teacher-III at Pampanga High School