The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker - Book Report/Review Example

The Toyota way In any consumer driven company, its key critical competence for success is its ability to come up with new and innovative products. In his book ‘The Toyota way’, Jeffrey Liker explains how effective the technique of product development has made Toyota a successful, forward-thinking automotive company. The Toyota Way provides a set of principles and behaviors that underpin the managerial approach and the production system of the Toyota Motors Corporation. The success in the product development of The Toyota way can be attributed to two main pillars namely; the continuous improvement and the respect for people. The principles underlying the continuous improvement include working on challenges, long-term vision, and continual innovation as well as going to the source of the problem. The principles that relate to respect of people are the ways of building teamwork and respect. Understanding of this book is enhanced by diving it into three sections. The first section introduces the history and success of Toyota which shows how new pattern of manufacturing that is, the Toyota way has transformed businesses across various industries. The second section explains the 14 principles that drive the management and the tools and techniques of the production system of the Company. The lat section explains how organizations can put the Toyota way in their production system as well the actions required in order to be a lean, learning organization (Liker, 2004). As Liker calls his book The Toyota way, he refers to a designed system that provides tools to people for continual improvement. From this view, Liker is seen to attribute the success of The Toyota Way through an effective performance management system by combination of two pillars: continual improvement and respect for people. In the first part which involves the present success, Liker explanation on the success of the company can be directly related to an effective performance management process for instance, the application of the Toyota way in successful development of automobiles such as Lexus (Aguinis, 2009). In the second part of the book, Liker organizes the 14 principles of The Toyota Way into four sections: long-term philosophy, the right process lead to production of the right results, the value of the organization is added by developing your people as well as partners, and finally, the organizational learning is driven by continual solving of root problems. In the first section which involves the long-term philosophy the company is focused on long-term thinking rather than short-term thinking. The principles in this section focus on long-term goals which can adapt the variations in the environment and ensure the survival of the company as a productive organization. The principles ensure possible learning and improvement of organization through involving people (Liker, 2004). In this section, the company’s goals are cascaded from the top management to the level of employee. This makes every employee to have a clear understanding of what is required for success (Aguinis, 2009). The principles in second section ensure that the right process will lead to production of the right results. These principles are focused towards quality outcome which involves redesigning of work processes in order to eliminate waste and ensure a continuous process of improvement. These principles recognize the value of employees where employee is empowered to control production while putting more emphasis on quality. Based on these principles, the employee has the authority t stop production in case of any signal of the issue of quality. This ensures that the employee plays a significant role in the company’s growth and improvement (Liker, 2004). Based on these principles, Liker demonstrates the effective of their performance management system through engagement of the employees. The level of engagement of the employees in the production system is very high which indicates active participation (Aguinis, 2009). The individuals and teams performance goals are clearly understood. This is explained through entrusting the employees in the growth and improvement of the production system (Liker, 2004). The principles in the third section ensure that the value of the organization is added by developing the people and partners. The sections put more focus on human development. Liker emphasizes on the need of the management and employees to embrace and promote the philosophy of the corporate. The company recognizes teamwork where it emphasizes on teams’ achievements rather than individual efforts. This section ensures development of wide range of skills as the employees work in teams. In addition, teams also serve as a way of making the employees more innovative through combination of skills (Liker, 2004). Thus, in this case, the efficiency of the Toyota way is enhanced by development of more skills through competency management. This ensures that the company maintains its continual improvement through development of more skills (Aguinis, 2009). The principles in the fourth section involve driving the organizational learning through solving root problems. These principles embrace the problem solving process that puts emphasis on understanding solutions that are based on consensus. The managers are supposed to evaluate the operations personally in order in order to have a firsthand understanding of the problems and situations. In addition, the company encourages that the managers and employees have a consensus understanding of the solution to the problem then to rapidly implement the solution after reaching to a decision. These principles also ensure that Toyota is a learning organization, a factor that is enhanced by allowing every aspect of critic in what one is doing. Based on the principles in this section, it is evident that the company is very effective in discussing feedback, an important tool in an effective performance management system. This is enhanced through implementation of a solution to a problem based on consensus. In addition, making the organization a learning environment is also through discussions on feedback where everyone is allowed to criticize anything that their colleagues are doing. This has led to continuous growth and improvement by actively involving the people. This is an indication of combination of the two pillars of the Toyota way (Liker, 2004). In the last part of the book, Liker explains how the Toyota way can be applied in organizations in order to improve productivity as well as becoming a leaning organization. The company provides suggestion on how the organizations can combine people, process, philosophy and problem solving in order to create a learning enterprise. From the Liker’s explanation, it is clear that for a company to ensure a continual growth and improvement, it needs to be a leaning organization. This is because leaning enhances innovation which makes the organization always ahead in terms of technology in production of new and effective products (Liker, 2004). Conclusion In his book ‘The Toyota way’, Liker explains that the success of the Toyota Company is enhanced through an effective technique of product development making it a forward-thinking automotive company. The Toyota way provides a set of principles and behaviors that underpin the managerial approach and the production system of the Toyota Motors Corporation. The success in the product development of the Toyota way can be attributed to two main pillars namely; the continuous improvement and the respect for people. From the Liker’s explanation of the Toyota way, it is clear that the success is attributed to an effective performance management system through combination of two pillars: continual improvement and respect for people. This is evidenced through active participation of employees where they are given the authority to make crucial decision in the process of production. In addition, every decision made in the company is based on consensus before implementation. This indicates a very good link between all the stages of the performance management system. References Aguinis, H. (2009). Performance management (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Liker, J. K. (2004). The Toyota Way, New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More

 

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