Toyota: A Contributive Giant

More than 50 years of consistency and endurance

Last week I had occasion to view once again, in the company of a client, the excellent little video, “Toast Kaizen,” produced by the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP)¹, and narrated by Bruce Hamilton. In that video, Hamilton takes a simple everyday process, that of making toast, and invites his viewers to study what he calls the current condition with a view to identifying nonvalue-adding activity or waste. Midway through the video, Bruce pauses and asks his viewers to begin contributing their ideas for improving the current condition.

Although I have seen this video many times, I was struck on this occasion by Hamilton's invitation to his audience to contribute their ideas. The concept of contribution, it seems to me, must surely lie at the very heart of an organization such as Toyota, where contribution through kaizen is a fundamental notion. However, what I am really interested in is, why do some organizations such as Toyota excel at eliciting contribution from all their employees, while many other organizations struggle, or perhaps even receive a negative contribution from their members?

When viewed through the lens of contribution, I consider Toyota to be a contributive giant. Toyota seems to have discovered a way of eliciting contribution from all its employees that is directed at furthering the organization’s achievement of purpose. In contrast, other organizations, such as General Motors Co., might be considered to be contributive dwarfs. Prior to its recent reorganization, GM was never able to attain the same levels of contributive response from its employees (the company often referred to its employees as “UAW members,” as if to suggest that somehow, because they were members of the United Auto Workers Union, they belonged to another organization), and its performance suffered as a result.

This is not to say that GM was any less adept than Toyota at making improvements. I have seen examples of continuous improvement work at GM that would make a Toyota man blush with envy at the rigor and depth of thinking employed. However, unlike Toyota, such improvement work at GM was left mainly to specialists, or special project teams, tasked with undertaking improvement projects. By creating such improvement silos, GM failed to elicit contribution for improvement from its wider base of employees, and the appetite and energy within the organization for improvement was diminished significantly as a result.

In my previous article on Toyota and the Toyota Production System (TPS), “Ten Common Misconceptions About Toyota,” I highlighted a common misconception that kaizen is not something one does; rather it is the outcome or result of a context or environment, which encourages contribution. Kaizen, in its deepest sense, is people contributing ideas for improvement. For this to happen, an organization must establish the necessary conditions, or context, which stimulates the flow of contributions in support of the achievement of organizational purpose. When this context is not established, contribution does not flow, and kaizen doesn't happen unless it is artificially stimulated into occurring.

At Toyota, kaizen is considered to be a daily activity. That is, there is no special time or place for kaizen. Nor is it necessarily considered to be separate from one’s job responsibilities. In fact, it is considered to be part of one’s job—as we shall see, it is the contributive responsibility that lies beyond the responsibility for mere job execution and performance.

Too often, in the lean press, kaizen has been portrayed as a tool. Kaizen, it seems, is a tool to be wielded and used, sometimes in orchestrated events such as kaizen blitzes, or through idea proposal and suggestion schemes. In these cases, kaizen is viewed as a participative activity—that if you put in place the right mechanism and infrastructure, employees will do kaizen. All too often these events and mechanisms are illusory and transitory in nature: unless a kaizen blitz is orchestrated by management, there is no daily improvement, and even when one is organized, little or no improvement occurs after the event is over. Similarly with employee suggestion schemes, once employees realize that their ideas and input are not always followed up on or implemented, the scheme loses its credibility and the flow of ideas stop.

I take a rather different perspective with kaizen. Rather than seeing kaizen as a participative activity, I view kaizen as a contributive activity: Kaizen represents a willingness to serve the organization—to help it achieve its purpose by contributing ideas and actions for the organizational good. Where there is no kaizen, or the wrong kind of kaizen, there is no frequent and regular contribution from employees to further organizational purpose and well-being.

Chester I. Barnard, in his groundbreaking work, The Functions of the Executive (Harvard University Press, 1968)², first published in 1938, noted that, “An organization comes into being when (1) there are persons willing to communicate with each other (2) who are willing to contribute action (3) to serve a common purpose.” Therefore, according to Barnard, the essential elements of an organization are first—communication, second—willingness to serve, and third—common purpose.

Organizations are cooperative systems. They depend upon cooperation and collaboration among all employees to advance and sustain themselves. For Barnard, the vitality and sustainability of an organization lies in the willingness of individuals to contribute to the cooperative system. What is this but kaizen? Toyota excels, not because it does kaizen, but because it creates the conditions or context that makes contribution to advancing organizational purpose more likely to happen.

Any organization exists because there is an objective or reason for its existence. This sense of purpose is vital and, provided it is accepted by those working within the organization, key for inducing people to communicate, cooperate, and contribute.

Willingness to serve, or contribute, is at the heart of kaizen. Employees within an organization really have two essential functions to perform that are directly related to helping the organization achieve its stated aims and goals: one is to execute their assigned job responsibilities and functions; the other is to contribute to helping the organization improve and better serve its customers. The contributive responsibility of employees is all too often overlooked by management, with undue emphasis being placed on job performance and execution.

Just recently, I received my latest issue of Club Toyota³, a magazine produced by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) for its Canadian customers. In the issue were two stories of interest. The first concerned quality circle work (called kaizen circles by Toyota) at the vehicle assembly plant in Cambridge, Ontario. The second highlighted Toyota’s heritage all the way back to the days of founder Sakichi Toyoda’s loom factory.

Concerning the first article on the Cambridge plant’s quality circle work, the story noted that last year some 1,958 TMMC team members participated in 394 kaizen circles—an activity that the company introduced in at Cambridge in 1990. The results of this circle work included significant benefits in cost and quality, along with improvements to ergonomic burden and waste sent to landfills.

Each year, Toyota’s kaizen circle activities culminate with the recognition of outstanding quality circles selected for showcasing at the company’s North American Quality Circle Conference. This year, a virtual conference was held using Web-ex technology. A selection committee is convened for the conference and this committee decides which circles will be spotlighted at the conference. For the Cambridge plant, the circle selected was the North Weld team, which demonstrated an efficiency improvement of 20 percent through its kaizen circle activities. In their presentation, the North Weld team cited that, for them as team members, the most rewarding parts of the kaizen circle experience were eliminating wasted motions, making their jobs safer and more comfortable, and establishing cross-functional relationships with other departments and shifts.

Looking at the scale of Toyota’s kaizen circle work, both at the Cambridge plant and elsewhere, it is evident that the company’s management has clearly established a context where improvement contribution work from employees can flourish and flow.

The second article in Club Toyota⁴ highlighted the original principles on which the company operated in the days of its founder, Sakichi Toyoda. Since then, these precepts have played the role of a spiritual guidepost for employees and principals of the company. Here are the original precepts, and readers should especially note the theme of contribution which weaves itself through all five precepts:

1. Be contributive to the development and welfare of the country by working together, regardless of position, in faithfully fulfilling your duties.
2. Be ahead of the times through endless creativity, inquisitiveness, and pursuit of improvement.
3. Be practical and avoid frivolity.
4. Be kind and generous; strive to create a warm, homelike atmosphere.
5. Be reverent, and show gratitude for things great and small in thought and deed.

As Barnard pointed out, for an organization to succeed, certain conditions must be brought about where it becomes more likely that employees will give forth, rather than withhold, their contribution. Without going into great detail, these conditions are intimately bound up with the net satisfaction that accrues from employees contributing to the organization. Significantly, Barnard held that financial rewards and incentives were low on the list of being helpful in creating a context where contribution could be elicited and induced.

The responsibility for creating the conditions under which contribution, or kaizen, can flourish is the responsibility of top management. Only top management can create the context which shapes thinking, behaviors, and responses which are truly contributive. More than anything else, it is the day-to-day thinking and behaviors exhibited by top management that establishes the context for contribution and kaizen. In short, top management must define the situation under which contribution will begin to flow. To begin setting an appropriate context for kaizen, top managers must begin to see how their own thinking and behaviors are aligned, or misaligned, with creating the necessary conditions for kaizen to occur.

How often have we seen the context for improvement contribution either ill-defined, or at worst, negatively defined? I know of two recent examples, in my own experience, where the very actions of top management served to send the wrong message and create the wrong context for kaizen.

In the first case, management ignored, despite having pledged itself publicly, to a fast turnaround of improvement ideas submitted for review. For these employees, this management behavior established right away, without any words needing to be spoken, the context of, “Your ideas are not really that important and our commitment to improvement is not credible.”

In the second case, some employees overheard the owner of the company berating other employees for doing kaizen activities with the remark, “How is this making me any money—we’re behind on our orders so get back to work.” What a terrible indictment on management and what a terrible context for contribution.

Where self-examination and reflection reveals management actions that are misaligned with establishing a good context for kaizen, top management must effect an alteration. This cannot be done, in my opinion, merely by trying to substitute a “better” way of thinking and behaving for the old one. Rather, the first step should be to inhibit, or withhold, the normal response. Inhibition is a conscious action—the withholding of consent—to the normal response pattern. Only when the normal pattern has been consciously inhibited can a new pattern be learned and laid down.

I don’t believe that it is possible to make changes in thinking and behavioral patterns merely by talking about them. Appropriate responses for eliciting contribution must be practiced and employed, day in and day out. People must experience inhibiting their normal responses and then, and only then, substituting a more appropriate response that has been learned. Of course, they must be open to the possibility that a different response is possible, and then learning what that response might be. They must also be willing to persevere and resist the temptation to revert back to old behaviors when confronted with pressing problems and difficult situations.

Furthermore, tools cannot be substituted for misaligned thinking and behaviors. Layering tools onto dysfunctional thinking and behaviors will only result in the dysfunctional use of tools. To truly change, top leaders must themselves consciously practice inhibition and substitution under the guidance of an expert coach or teacher. As the new thinking and behaviors take root, they may gradually be propagated throughout the organization, with tools only being introduced when the thinking and behaviors that support their good use are consistently evident.

Coming back to Toyota, what I find interesting about that company is not so much the thinking and behaviors that employees exhibit when responding to abnormalities or problems in a current condition. These are interesting in themselves, but represent only one of many such available responses that could be made. Rather, what I find more interesting is how Toyota has been able, over the years, to develop and maintain such homogeneity of response across a large organization. This speaks to a very strong capability in shaping and developing uniform and consistent contributions, achieved through effective coaching and teaching.

With Toyota, we are observing a mature system that has developed over the last 50 or so years. The thinking and behavioral patterns one sees at Toyota have been established through a context that has been set since the very existence of the company. The tendency of Toyota to promote top leaders from within has helped preserve this context over more than 70 years. Organizations wishing to emulate Toyota must strive for similar patience and endurance, suspending the Western tendency to rush for quick fixes and tools.

References:

1. Toast Kaizen, Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP)

2. Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of an Executive, Harvard University Press, 1968, p. 82

3. Club Toyota, Fall-Winter 09, p. 8

4. Club Toyota, Fall-Winter 09, p. 40

About The Author

Stewart Anderson is president of Kaizen Solutions Inc., a Toronto-based consulting and advisory firm in the areas of continuous improvement and business strategy. His expertise covers a range of areas, including process improvement, cost and inventory reduction, product development, productivity improvement, and supply chain management. He has advised companies in the manufacturing, service, and contract manufacturing industries. He is a certified trainer in lean manufacturing principles and techniques.