Tag: Toyota

Toyota Thinking: Leadership, Systems, and Continuous Improvement

Toyota is often cited as the inspiration for Lean, but its success is rooted in leadership behaviors, management systems, and a deep commitment to learning—not tools or slogans. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on Toyota’s approach to quality, continuous improvement, psychological safety, and respect for people. Many of these posts explore what leaders outside Toyota often misunderstand—and what truly matters if they hope to learn from Toyota rather than copy it.

Why You Can’t Think Your Way to a Root Cause

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You know the feeling in the conference room when the team finally lands it. The fishbone is covered in sticky notes. You've worked through five...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: April 3, 2026

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Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly...

Toyota vs. Tesla: What Manufacturing Mindsets Reveal About Quality and Culture

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Tesla builds cars in what used to be the NUMMI factory, a joint venture between Toyota and GM (which meant it was run as a Toyota plant with "Lean" practices). Before that, it was a dysfunctional GM plant. Now that it's a Tesla plant, did they learn from Toyota or does it seem more like "the old GM?"

The Most Misunderstood Role in the Toyota Production System

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Jamie Bonini described a person who looks like 25% overhead to a finance team -- but without whom the entire Toyota Production System falls...

Problem-Seeing Eyes Are Everywhere. Problem-Speaking Mouths Are Rare.

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TL;DR: Organizations invest in teaching people to see problems and solve problems -- but skip the middle step: making it safe and worthwhile to...

Fujio Cho on Standardized Work: The Foundation for Improvement, Not Control

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TL;DR: Fujio Cho explained that standardized work is not about control or compliance--it's the foundation for learning, quality, and continuous improvement. When used as...

What Deming and Fujio Cho Agreed On: Stop Demotivating People

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TL;DR: Deming and Toyota's Fujio Cho asked the same uncomfortable question: why do management systems destroy motivation in people who started out wanting to...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: February 20, 2026

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This week's Operational Excellence Mixtape tackles the challenge of sustaining improvement amidst turbulence and change fatigue. We explore why values must act as your...

Create Your Own Lean System — But Don’t Lose Sight of...

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TL;DR: In a 1993 speech, Toyota leader Fujio Cho said organizations can create their own Lean systems, but success depends on three principles: leaders...

Before “Just Culture,” There Was NUMMI: Learning Instead of Blaming

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TL;DR: NUMMI proved in the 1980s what healthcare is still learning today: you can't punish your way to safety. Real improvement comes from mutual...

Long-Term Thinking: What NUMMI Understood and GM Struggled to Practice

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TL;DR: GM said it believed in long-term thinking. NUMMI actually practiced it. A 1987 GM executive summary admitted that short-term financial pressure drove decisions...

What Ford and the UAW Saw in Japan in 1981 —...

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In 1981, Ford Motor Company and UAW leaders traveled to Japan to study Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda -- and they came home with very...
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