What was the thinking that led up to the development of the Toyota Way in 2001? I asked my friend Mr. Isao Yoshino, a 40-year Toyota leader, this question and he shared his thinking with me (and now you) about why “continuous improvement” and “respect for people” became codified as the two pillars of the “Toyota Way” 15 years ago. Read on to learn more!

You can also CLICK HERE to get a curated PDF of the top 10 Toyota leadership lessons that Mr. Yoshino has shared with me over the past two years.

What was the thinking behind WHY Toyota codified these specific principles into the Toyota Way 2001?

This question came up in conversation with a colleague recently, so I decided to go to the source and ask someone who was there on the inside at Toyota for over 40 years.

I emailed my friend and mentor Mr. Isao Yoshino, who was one of John Shook’s first managers at Toyota, to see what insights he could share with me. Mr. Yoshino has given me permission to share his thoughts with you.

The post below highlights quotes from my email exchange with Mr. Yoshino and some of my reflections on his thoughts.

Mr. Yoshino began his thoughtful reply by writing:

Side comment: On one visits to Nagoya last year to visit Mr. Yoshino, I had an unexpected brief encounter with Mr. Fujio Cho, the former President and Chairman of Toyota, while departing the train station. This encounter prompted Mr. Yoshino to share with me a personal story about what an influential leader Mr. Cho had been for him personally.

Before getting to his hypothesis of the why Mr. Cho developed The Toyota Way 2001, Mr. Yoshino first described his personal experience of the historical context leading up to 2001.

In his email to me, Mr. Yoshino elaborated on the Kanri Noryoku Program (Kan-Pro, for short), that he wrote about recently with John Shook. The program, aimed at teaching managers A3 thinking and Hoshin Kanri, was implemented across Toyota in 1979 and 1980. Mr. Yoshino was one of a team of four on a task force in Nagoya City charged with creating and implementing the program across the company.

Mr. Yoshino explained that the Kan-Pro program of teaching A3 thinking more deeply to managers was implemented nearly 20 years after Toyota actually had “started learning Lean concepts from Dr. Deming in early ’60s.

This comment by Mr. Yoshino stands out to me as a reinforcement of what I recently wrote for an article in Planet Lean that lean isn’t inherently Japanese and that “Lean is – and always has been – a combination of the best management thinking from different cultures.”

Countermeasures to backsliding of quality improvement

However, just like everywhere, entropy rules and without intentional focus and old habits and preferences creep back.

Mr. Yoshino went on to explain that:

1980s – Toyota’s Global Expansion

In the 1980s, Toyota (and other Japanese car manufacturers) expanded into the global market.

I thought Mr. Cho must have thought that such elements as “show your respect” are conceptional and non-visual, while “kaizen” and other words are quite practical and they are visual.  People tend to focus on visual key words more.

Practical tools (such as kaizen) and conceptual elements (such as respect) are two wheels of a cart.  If one wheel is missing, a cart cannot move forward.

The Toyota Way was a countermeasure to make “respect for people” more visible

So just like the Kanri Noryoku Program was a countermeasure for the backsliding of key TPS practices in the late-1970s, codifying the “Toyota Way” was a countermeasure for the global emphasis on TPS as a primarily a technical system of “continuous improvement.”

As Mr. Yoshino shared:

I would guess Mr. Cho has had the similar thought (or concern) as Mr. Nemoto around 2000 when Toyota was expanding its business boundaries across the globe. …

Mr. Cho must have thought that it would be essential for auto-workers in foreign countries deeply understand the key concept of Toyota’s business principle including TPS or Lean.

In essence, Mr. Cho’s reason for codifying the Toyota Way in 2001 was to emphasize the less-visible, but equally important, part of Toyota – respect for people.

Respect at Toyota runs deep – a personal story

To highlight the Mr. Yoshino shared a personal story of how he came to deeply learn and understand how important the concept of respect was at Toyota and how even the most senior leader embodied the principle “respect for people”.

When I was in charge of Hoshin Kanri project in 1979, I was told to draft a new-year speech for our president, Mr. Eiji Toyoda.  At that time, it was our division’s job to prepare key speech drafts for our president several times a year.  I was so thrilled at my boss’s order to write a new-year’s speech draft for the top guy of Toyota.

First thing I had to do is to review the year’s business conditions and figure out the next year’s outcome and develop a draft.  The second thing we had to do is to meet with our president in his office and show our first draft and also ask his opinion on our draft.

My boss and I visited our president’s office and show our draft.  He glanced over my draft and said, “OK.  Roughly it may be something like this.”

Then Mr. Toyoda said, “I just want to add a short comment on ‘safety on the job site’.”

My boss and I were puzzled at his comment because the new-year speech of our president is just like the State of the Union Speech at US congress.  We thought that adding “safety at the work site” would be too low in level for a new-year speech by the president.  So, my boss hesitantly said to him, “Excuse me sir, I am afraid that adding “safety on the job site” might make your speech sound less refined.”

President said, “Guys, my new-year’s speech does not have to be high-toned.  I want to emphasize to all the employees that ‘safety is the first priority at the job site’.”

At that moment, my boss and I came to know that the highest-ranking guy at Toyota is always thinking about his employees’ safety.

Mr. Toyota did not say a word of “respect” at the meeting, but what he meant was definitely “respect”.

Respect for people is what makes Toyota Toyota

Mr. Yoshino closed his explanation of why he thought the Toyota Way was developed with the pillars of “respect for people” and “continuous improvement” with the following statement:

I believe the concept of “respect” has been passed from one generation to the next at Toyota.  From the top-ranking leaders like Mr. Toyoda and Mr. Cho to a small-time manager like me, every leader at Toyota put a high priority on “respect” to the people around us.

If I am asked what made Toyota one of the top-ranking auto makers in the world, I would say, “We make people while we make cars.  It’s our people who make cars, not machines.  That’s ‘respect'”.

Humble as always

I am incredibly appreciative to Mr. Yoshino for sharing his thoughts with me – and for allowing me to share them with you here. Embodying another core Toyota leadership behavior that he has emphasized in conversations with me – humility – Mr. Yoshino signed off his message by saying:

I am not sure whether I answered your question or not.  I hope the above comment might be a small help to answer your question.

What do you think?

What do you think about Mr. Yoshino’s explanation that the Toyota Way 2001 was written as a way to emphasize the importance of “respect for people” as an equal pillar (the other wheel to the cart) of Toyota’s system?

If writing the Toyota Way 2001 was a countermeasure to global emphasis of the technical “continuous improvement” tools of TPS, how successful has it been in influencing global understanding that TPS (or Lean) is a sociotechnical system (not just technical system with a lot of continuous improvement tools)?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.