This is the first in a continuing series of articles analyzing the Toyota Motor Company‘s disaster, brought to light by the recent recalls of just about every model made, and most recently the Toyota Prius, due to the failure of the breaking systems and a problem with the car suddenly accelerating.
When you’re looking at a situation in arrears, it’s easy to point out the mistakes and flaws. However, I do think it’s important to analyze what went wrong, or at least my perspective, before offering solutions.
If the news reports are true, that Toyota knew about the acceleration and break issues since at least 2002, then there’s a serious character flaw in the overall organization. We’re not just talking about an inconvenience. We’re talking about a life threatening situation.
The question should have been, how can we really fix the problem? Certainly, within ten model years, they should have been able to identify the root cause of the issues. From the outside, it looks like the issue was buried deep and far away. This isn’t a case of whistle blowing. Whoever identified the issue and connected the dots should have been heralded as a hero.
Each one of us, as managers, is responsible of fostering a climate where employees are encouraged and rewarded for identifying problems and solutions. If you haven’t already, take your organization’s pulse on open communications. Are you where you need to be? How could you do better?
Given an environment of open communications, how could you put together a quality task force that would include vendors, as partners, to attack issues as they arise? In this case, if there was such a body, reporting only to the Chairman of the Board, an entire team could have been assaulting the problems from the start.
Not to place blame, but to offer a solution that could have been deployed on the models affected and going forward. Perhaps a few lives could have been saved.
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