Page 238 - Toyota Under Fire

LESSONS

Genchi Genbutsu (Go and See to Understand)
The first written communication to the entire company from
Akio Toyoda after he assumed the presidency in 2009 was an ar-
ticle for an internal newsletter in which he wrote: “We managed
to create a culture . . . where those who learned the truth of the
gemba were the most respected. In this culture there is no such
thing as manager and subordinate. Job titles are unimportant. In
the end, who sees wins; and winning means being close to the ob-
jects, close to the gemba.”
The gemba is where it is happening—whatever it is. It could
be where a car is being built, where the engine is being tested,
where the car is being investigated by the dealer for problems,
or where the customer is driving the car. These are all gemba in
the Toyota culture. Genchi genbutsu is the value of going to the
gemba and trusting those at the gemba to make decisions.
This cultural trait manifested itself during the recession in
the number, variety, and autonomy of the kaizen projects and
quality circles that were launched to cut costs and improve pro-
ductivity. There is simply no way that senior plant managers
could have closely overseen, or even provided meaningful input
to, the vast number of projects going on. Those projects were
carried forward by the people at the gemba. In the same way, the
decisions on caring for customers during the recalls were left
to the dealers and the customer service representatives—they
were the ones at the gemba.
We’ve noted several times that not following through on
this value was one of the root causes of the severity of the re-
call crisis. Decisions on recalls and communication were not be-
ing made at the gemba; there was too little “going and seeing”
on the part of engineers. But it was the deeply embedded cul-
tural value of genchi genbutsu that allowed Toyota to muster the

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