Okay folks, the word for today is “Toyota lean.” If you don’t know this phrase, well, get ready, because it’s coming at you from every direction. Toyota lean refers to a management philosophy that took the Toyota Corporation from a tiny little company to one of the biggest automobile manufacturers in the world.
This philosophy is not limited to manufacturing. It is being adopted by health-care providers (for more, read “On the Mend’ by John Toissant and Roger Gerard). More and more, in my travels as a speaker, I’m encountering companies that are incorporating this philosophy into their management approach.
If your company hasn’t adopted Toyota lean management philosophy yet, get ready, because they're probably going to. I’m not an expert on it, but you can certainly read up on it on wikipedia or by visiting lean.org.
The reason I’m mentioning it here is that I thought it might be interesting to add a little bit of personal perspective on the Japanese culture from whence it came.
Obviously, I’m not Japanese, but I spent two whole weeks there on a Pops tour or back in 1987. If you have never been to Japan, and if you’re into being in an entirely unfamiliar environment, I highly recommend it. Just a few notable items:
My first night there, I was in a taxicab stopped at a traffic light, and I noticed that the first few cars in the traffic line facing us all turned off their headlights. I could not figure this out. Were they signaling us? Was there something wrong with their cars? Were they parking? I asked the person I was with, who had been to Japan before. He explained: “they turn them off because it’s rude to shine your headlights in someone else’s eyes.” Sure enough, when the light turned green, all the headlights came back on, and we went on our merry way. I often think of this moment when I am sitting at a traffic light in America and some SUV with superduper halogen headlights is blinding me with their low beams. I have tried to create this tradition here, but all that happens is people flash their high beams at me at me or honk. Like me at that traffic light in Japan, the idea that I would be doing it out of courtesy to a stranger is incomprehensible to an American.
At the end of the Pops tour, the sponsor, Nikko Corp., threw a big party for us. As we were gleefully chowing down on the free food, I noticed that there was this elderly Japanese gentleman sitting over in a corner just sitting there staring into space saying nothing. I made some inquiries, and someone informed me that he was the president of Nikko Corp., and was largely responsible for all the fabulous fun I had just had over the last 14 days. Everyone else was ignoring him, so I took it upon myself to go say a personal thank you. I went up to him and offered my hand, and this major corporate president leaped to his feet and starts bowing to me like I was the King of Siam. Again, virtually incomprehensible to me at the time. The idea of an American CEO showing any such deference at all to an underlying… words fail me.
Then there’s the whole element of the public aesthetic. They smoke a lot in Japan, but you will not see any cigarette butts on the ground. Every square inch of every public space is tended by a professional gardener. The subways are spotless. At big sporting events, I am told there is no need to come through the stadium and clean it up, as the crowd picks up every stray bit of letter on their way out.
We can definitely learn a few things from the Japanese.
© Justin Locke
