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.

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: June 13, 2024

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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...

Lessons from Toyota Culture: Embracing Problems, Kaizen, and Psychological Safety

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tl;dr: Toyota's culture treats problems as opportunities for learning--not failures to hide. Lessons from Toyota leaders show how kaizen, psychological safety, and trust enable...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: March 8, 2024

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Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this... there's always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get...

Jim Womack on Lean’s Evolution, Boeing, Toyota, and the Future of...

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Jim Womack returns to the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast to reflect on how Lean thinking has evolved--and where it has gone off track. Drawing...

How Toyota Leaders React to Mistakes: Jeff Liker on Blame, Andon...

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Jeff Liker explains how Toyota leaders at every level are expected to respond when something goes wrong -- and why most other companies default...

From 2012: Kaizen on the Boeing 737 Line (Lean and Continuous...

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2024 Preface: I'm re-posting this blog post from 2012 about Lean at Boeing. The WSJ headline emphasizes "speed up," but that could be the...

No, You Can’t Have Too Much Psychological Safety at Work

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TL;DR: Claims that workplaces can have "too much" psychological safety are based on a flawed definition. Psychological safety doesn't eliminate accountability--it enables speaking up,...

How to Build a Culture of Learning: Reducing Fear and Futility...

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TL;DR: A true culture of learning doesn't fear mistakes--it learns from them. Drawing inspiration from Toyota's mindset, this post explores how psychological safety and...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: January 12, 2024

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Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this... there's always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get...

Mastering Mistake-Proofing: Insights from Toyota’s Poka Yoke Approach

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This post is built around excerpts from the book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. Read more about Toyota,...

Beyond Mistakes: Uncovering Toyota’s Approach to Success Through Learning

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This post is built around excerpts from the book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. Read more about Toyota,...

What Wolfgang Puck Teaches Us About Continuous Improvement and Lean Leadership

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Wolfgang Puck practices Lean and Kaizen without calling it that--by developing people, learning from mistakes, focusing on customers, and improving every day. This post...
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