Page 170 - Toyota Under Fire

RESPONSE AND THE ROAD TO RECOVER Y

standards you have come to expect from us. I am deeply disap-
pointed by that and apologize. As the president of Toyota, I take
personal responsibility. That is why I am personally leading the
effort to restore trust in our word and in our products.”* Similar
statements were made by other Toyota executives in press con-
ferences and in their congressional testimony. There wasn’t an
explicit policy announced or memo distributed that laid out this
“don’t blame others” approach. Jim Wiseman explained that it
was simply an outgrowth of the existing Toyota culture:

In every aspect of our operations, from suppliers to our
production lines to dealers, we’ve always tried to live by
a “Customer First” mandate. I remember hearing that
phrase—“Customer First”—when I first joined the com-
pany 21 years ago. So once you live by that belief, it’s
really impossible to ever put the blame on the customer.
So each part of our organization arrived at that place—
not blaming the customer—in a natural sort of way.

Recognizing that the way the company had handled quality
and safety issues and concerns had abetted the crisis, Toyota also
quickly created a new position, regional chief quality officer. An
executive from each region (North America, Europe, Asia and
Oceania, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America) was ap-
pointed to take on this role. When the role was created, it wasn’t
fully defined, but the first priority of the chief quality officers
was taking ownership of any quality or safety issue and making
sure that it was being addressed quickly and getting the needed

* Akio Toyoda, “Toyota’s Plan to Repair Its Public Image,” Washington Post,
February 9, 2010, p. A17.

139