Page 43 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

The Toyota Way 2001, as it is still called, is defined as a house
with two pillars—respect for people and continuous improve-
ment. Respect for people extends from the team members on the
shop floor to every one of Toyota’s vast network of partners and
out to its customers and to the communities in which Toyota
does business. Continuous improvement literally means continu-
ally improving products, processes, and even people at all levels
of the organization. Some versions of the model show respect for
people as the foundation of continuous improvement, since only
highly developed people who care passionately about their work
and about the company will put in the effort needed for continu-
ous improvement. The twin pillars of respect for people and con-
tinuous improvement rest on a foundation of five core values that
we summarize here.*
Spirit of Challenge

Toyota was founded on the willingness to tackle tough problems
and work at them until they were solved. That was Sakichi Toyo-
da’s approach to looms and Kiichiro Toyoda’s approach to build-
ing a car company from scratch. Like the two founding Toyodas,
every Toyota employee is expected not just to excel in his current
role, but to take on the challenges of making needed improve-
ments with enthusiasm. As The Toyota Way 2001 puts it, “We
accept challenges with a creative spirit and the courage to realize
our own dreams without losing drive or energy.”
Kaizen Mind

Kaizen is a mandate to constantly improve performance. Kaizen
is now a fairly famous concept, and the term will be familiar to
many readers. But the vast majority of people, we’ve found,

* The quotes in this section come from The Toyota Way 2001.

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