Page 255 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

problems—I think that both of them need a diversification
of Toyota. And of course we need to globalize. It is a must.

Lesson 4: Globalizing Culture Means
a Constant Balancing Act

The strength of the Toyota culture is that it is shared. Developing
a shared corporate culture across varied national cultures is per-
haps the biggest challenge facing modern multinational corpora-
tions. It was Toyota’s biggest worry when it was expanding into
the United States, so much so that it formed the NUMMI joint
venture with its chief competitor, GM, to insulate the company
from the risk that the Toyota culture simply could not be trans-
lated into an American context. That worry was belied by the
immediate success of NUMMI and the continuing growth of a
strong Toyota culture throughout North America.
Its success in the United States emboldened Toyota to be-
lieve that the Toyota Way could be taught effectively anywhere.
The United States, with the strong value it places on individual-
ism and its tendency toward short-term thinking, was probably
Toyota’s toughest challenge in that regard.* It has taken differ-
ent approaches in other geographies, though. For instance, in
India, Toyota has founded its own high school next to an assem-
bly plant, following the model of Toyota’s technical high school in
Toyota City, Japan. The goal of the high school is to produce grad-
uates who have not only the technical skills, but also the Toyota
Way culture and approach to problem solving, so that they will

* For a comparison across different nations on the variables individualism ver-
sus collectivism and short-term versus long-term thinking, see Geert Hofstede,
Gert Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations: Software
for the Mind, 3d ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010).

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