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.

Lean and Deming’s Anti-Slogan Views

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Earlier leanblog.org post and commentLast week, I posted about Deming's 14 points and I got an interesting question from a blog reader, Brian:I found...

Chrysler matches Toyota in a Single Skew-able Metric – Who Cares?

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Chrysler matches Toyota in efficiency - Detroit NewsI didn't mean for this to become "beat up on the Detroit Three" week... this comes in...

Toyota Quotes That Reveal the Real Toyota Way (Not What Most...

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TL;DR: Toyota's leadership philosophy isn't about control -- it's about confirming processes, supporting people, and solving problems without blame. This quote from The Toyota...

Toyota to Pay for Kaizen OT in Japan

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asahi.com article - ENGLISHInteresting article from Japan...Toyota's 40,000 factory workers in Japan are all engaged in kaizen, or continuous improvement, as a core part...

Great Lean/TPS Overview in an Unlikely Place

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The Open Secret of Success: Financial Page: The New Yorker I'm not normally a reader of The New Yorker, but I thank Norman Bodek for...

Are We Cowboys or Not?

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Fixing East-West clash challengingProf. Jeffrey Liker keynoted a Lean event in Oklahoma and is quoted as saying:Maybe the cowboy and the samurai best illustrate...

"Just In Time Patients??"

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Medical Leave -- Offshore Medicine -- Fast CompanyInteresting read here in the latest issue of Fast Company about a hospital in Thailand and...

The Power of Asking "Why?"

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reportonbusiness.com: Asking 'why' again and again is harder than you think, but it works It's kind of neat to see a column about the "5...

How Toyota Develops Lean Leaders — Jeffrey Liker on Manager Development...

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Why do so many Lean efforts fail at the leadership level? Jeffrey Liker explains how Toyota develops managers over time--through stability, daily coaching, and...

The Dispersion of Toyota Talent

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One of the most fascinating trends out of there is the spread of Toyota folks into other old-line automakers or parts suppliers -- Gary...

Inventor-itis, Not Inventory-itis

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IndustryWeek Article about the Book | Subscribe to IndustryWeekAmazon Link: Overcoming Inventoritis: The Silent Killer of InnovationWhen I first read this headline,...

Why Lean Culture Is So Hard to Copy — Jeffrey Liker...

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Jeffrey Liker explains why Lean culture is difficult to replicate and why most organizations never move beyond tools and events. Sustainable Lean requires long-term...
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