If mothers ruled the automobile manufacturing world, car executives would have to eat their vegetables, would get timeouts to think about the consequences of their actions and would get a set allowance. No fancy planes to Washington, no emptying the piggy bank.
We can dream – because, instead, automakers live by management philosophies, the overarching beliefs they apply to designing, making and selling vehicles. Henry Ford Sr. captivated the world with his “everyman” philosophy and practice. Toyota’s philosophy called Kaizen drove improvements that challenged Ford Motor Co.’s market share.
Let’s peek into a few ivory towers to see what works, what doesn’t and why.
Toyota
If you want to succeed, monitor your work daily: That’s the not-so-secret secret of Kaizen, a Japanese philosophy for continuous small improvements resulting in success.
Mom would not like Kaizen because everyone under the same roof gets a say in it, identifying problems and offering adjustments as a team. There’s no “because I said so.”
Kaizen grew out of leadership ideas that consultants working for the U.S. government, such as W. Edwards Deming, brought to Japan to rebuild after World War II. It involves constant measurement of an operation against a requirement, adjusting and re-measuring.
The benefits? Experts have said Kaizen allows Toyota to thrive on teamwork, reflection and improvement. They’ve also said that, as Toyota expanded its manufacturing outside Japan, where its philosophy wasn’t well known, quality problems arose – which the company handled by establishing training institutes.