Toyota President Akio Toyoda shares a powerful leadership message: there is no “best,” only “better.” His reflections on sustainable growth, human development, and continuous improvement offer lessons far beyond the auto industry.
A number of people shared this message from Akio Toyoda that was posted online — and it's one of those leadership statements that feels even more relevant years later. It's not really about cars. It's about how leaders think, act, and invest in people when the future feels uncertain.
“Making Ever-better Cars and Human Resource Development: The Forces That Power Sustainable Growth“
What Akio Toyoda Learned from Crisis and Uncertainty
Toyoda starts by emphasizing a lesson that the company learned in the financial crisis:
“…rapid growth, if not built on a solid foundation, can ultimately fail to serve the interests of stakeholders when it leads to rapid downturn.”
Instead of blaming the economic climate or political circumstances, Toyoda takes ownership of his responsibility to navigate such waters so Toyota can be successful “in any environment.”
Listen to Mark read the post (subscribe to the podcast):
Leading When the Future Is Unclear
Many times in the past year, I've heard hospital leaders point to “uncertainty in Washington, D.C.” as a reason to delay investing in Lean and Kaizen capabilities. As if healthcare — or leadership — ever becomes less uncertain.
We have Congressional elections every two years. Instead of conserving and holding on to cash, maybe these hospitals should learn how to get more agile and nimble in these uncertain environments? If this isn't a good time to build a culture of continuous improvement, then when?
What does Toyoda mean by competitiveness?
Competitiveness Beyond Metrics: People, Passion, and Genchi Genbutsu
“By competitiveness, I do not refer only to quantifiable things, like costs and productivity. It is crucial that we improve the intangibles that make us competitive, by, for example, developing human resources who are passionate about making ever-better cars and making the world a better place and who work to make constant improvements based on Genchi Genbutsu (onsite, hands-on experience).”
It reminds me of what Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who was deeply influential at Toyota, said:
“It is wrong to suppose that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it – a costly myth.”
Deming often gets misquoted out of context as saying just “if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.”
Deming also said:
“The most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable.”
Can you measure “passion?” Can Toyota measure how the company is “making the world a better place?”
In his message, Toyoda encourages employees:
“… don't rely solely on data. I want you to take what you felt with your own senses, take the true essence of things, and use it to make ever-better cars.”
What Toyoda is reinforcing here is classic Deming: leadership is not about managing spreadsheets, but about understanding work, developing people, and improving systems over time.
Toyoda writes about a process of driving the actual roads, observing customers, understanding their situations and needs – a great lesson for any leader in any business. It reminds me of the “Lean Startup” admonition to “get out of the office” to go understand a day in the life of your customers and the problems they are trying to solve.
“The road teaches the people, and the people make the cars.”
Toyoda talks about the need for a “start-up mindset” in an 80-year-old company — not by chasing speed or disruption, but by staying grounded in purpose, learning, and hands-on understanding of the work.t
That's not surprising considering how Toyota has learned from Eric Ries and the Lean Startup movement, as discussed in the book The Startup Way.
Toyoda said:
“Today, we are faced with a number of new rivals. We share with them the start-up mindset of wanting to make the world a better place.”
Those new rivals include Tesla, a company that, if you believe recent news reports, is NOT much of a competitor when it comes to building in quality.
Toyoda ends his message with a few things he believes (and we've done a similar exercise to share our beliefs at KaiNexus):
Toyoda says:
- “I believe growth must be sustainable.
- I believe if you do the right thing, the money will follow.
- I believe we have to earn our customers' smiles every day and exceed their expectations.
- I believe there is no “best,” only “better.”
- I believe we are a company of dedicated, passionate people that can accomplish anything.
- And, I believe Toyota will continue to constantly strive to improve the lives of customers and society as a whole.”
“No Best, Only Better”: A Timeless Lesson for Leaders
If leaders wait for certainty before investing in people and improvement, what kind of organization are they actually building?
That's the heart of Kaizen and continuous improvement. There is no finish line, no moment when a leader can declare “we've arrived.” Especially in uncertain times, the real competitive advantage comes from developing people who can see problems, learn from them, and make things better — every day. There is no best. Only better.
That's another powerful message for startups, big companies, or health systems alike.
A Better Way to Lead in Uncertain Times
Akio Toyoda's message is powerful precisely because it rejects the false comfort of waiting for clarity. Uncertainty isn't a pause button–it's the environment leaders must learn to lead within. Toyota's insistence that there is “no best, only better” is not a slogan; it's a discipline that builds resilience, capability, and trust long before a crisis hits.
For healthcare leaders, executives, and change agents in any industry, the lesson is clear: cultures of continuous improvement aren't a luxury for stable times–they're how organizations earn stability over time. When leaders invest in people, learning, and daily improvement, they're not reacting to the future–they're shaping it.
LinkedIn Comment(s):
Andre DeMerchant
President, DeMerchant Healthcare Solutions Inc.
The comment about uncertainty resonates with me as it has such a paralyzing effect. On a business trip 3 weeks ago I sat beside an ED physician leader from a facility on the U.S. west coast and we discussed the current state of healthcare in that country. The plan that his organization had for facing the uncertain future: do nothing until the future becomes clear. Now, this wasn’t a small hospital, he was from a large, well-respected organization…….and the likelihood that waiting to do anything until the path forward was clear would then be way too late to do anything meaningful had never entered his (their) mind.
Thanks for the comment, Andre DeMerchant. Yep, that sounds like the dynamic I’m hearing. “Do nothing until the future becomes clear.”
Doing nothing is arguably not the rational thing to do. But, it’s understandable in the context of the “fight or flight” response that kicks in when individuals are scared. The same thing seems to happen at an organizational level, which probably isn’t surprising since organizations are collections of individuals.
But, what if that organization had a brave, articulate leader who could try to help others see that they should own and create their future instead of being passive victims of it?
Andre’s reply:
Yes, that is it exactly: shape the future or live the future that is thrust upon you. One thing missing is the lack of urgency……..in my experience leaders often don’t realize that the closer you get to the exact time that a change in your business is taking place, the fewer options you have to react to an manage that change. For example: financial insecurity can be managed by methodical waste removal—which takes time and preserves process integrity—or it can be managed by last minute FTE layoffs, which solves the problem only for the moment, leaves the waste in place and generates unsupported processes. As a leader, what type of legacy do YOU want to leave?
It’s tempting to roll one’s eyes at a re-org as a means for cost cutting, but I like what the Scripps CEO says here about creating their future:
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