《How Toyota Became No 1》.pdf

Leadership Lessons from the World’s Greatest Car Company HOW TOYOTA BECAME #1 (David Magee/Portfolio Hardcover/November2007/256pages/$25.95) HOW TOYOTA BECAME #1 Leadership Lessons from the World’s Greatest Car Company MAIN IDEA In just 25 years, Toyota has gone from being a little known Japanese start-up to the world‟s largest auto manufacturer. In the process of achieving this impressive feat, Toyota has leapfrogged longtime giants General Motors and Ford who have been competing for the global number one and number two spots aggressively for more than 70 years. The popular wisdom has always been this meteoric rise is the direct result of Toyota‟s mastery of lean production but it turns out this is only a small part of the story. A much larger factor in Toyota‟s ongoing success in the marketplace is the impact of its deep-seated and unique corporate culture. Toyota‟s corporate culture encapsulates the company‟s unique approach to business and is the true driving force behind the company‟s competitive advantage in the marketplace “I was surprised at what I found as I interviewed key managers at Toyota. Despite the company‟s incredibly successful, even meteoric rise, it was nearly impossible to get anyone inside the company to talk about the numbers. The reason, I learned, was that the criteria and qualities leading to Toyota‟s rise to the top had little to do with sales results or profit margins. Numbers are simply by-products of daily work, and not the key to competitive greatness. The story lines of most importance in revealing the real nature of an organization lie far beneath the numbers. More than an automaker or manufacturing company, Toyota is a professional lifestyle – a proven and time-tested way of progression, improvement, ambi