The Contradictions That Drive Toyotas Success Stable and paranoid, systematic and experimental, formal and frank:

The success of Toyota, a pathbreaking six-year study reveals, is due as much to its ability to embrace contradictions like these as to its manufacturing prowess. by Hirotaka Takeuchi, Emi Osono, and Norihiko Shimizu Toyota has become one of the worlds greatest companies only because it developed the Toyota Production System, right? Wrong, say Takeuchi, Osono, and Shimizu of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. Another factor, overlooked until now, is just as important to the companys success: Toyotas culture of contradictions. TPS is a hard innovation that allows the company to continuously improve the way it manufactures vehicles. Toyota has also mastered a soft innovation that relates to human resource practices and corporate culture. The company succeeds, say the authors, because it deliberately fosters contradictory viewpoints within the organization and challenges employees to find solutions by transcending differences rather than resorting to compromises. This culture generates innovative ideas that Toyota implements to pull ahead of competitors, both incrementally and radically. The authors research reveals six forces that cause contradictions inside Toyota. Three forces of expansion lead the company to change and improve: impossible goals, local customization, and experimentation. Not surprisingly, these forces make the organization more diverse, complicate decision making, and threaten Toyotas control systems. To prevent the winds of change from blowing down the organization, the company also harnesses three forces of integration: the founders values, up-and-in people management, and open communication. These forces stabilize the company, help employees make sense of the environment in which they operate, and perpetuate Toyotas values and culture. Emulating Toyota isnt about copying any one practice; its about creating a culture. And because the companys culture of contradictions is centered on humans, who are imperfect, there will always be room for improvement. The Contradictions That Drive Toyotas Success by Hirotaka Takeuchi, Emi Osono, and Norihiko Shimizu The Toyota Production System (TPS) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Toyota's success. TPS is a radical innovation that has disrupted a huge market. However, without the "soft" factors that drive Toyota, they would still be just another auto company. This is also true of Scrum where the Scrum framework is a necessary condition for hyperproductivity but that alone will never get you there. The team must rise to the occasion, engineering practices must be extraordinary, and management must provide an environment that removes all impediments that stand in the way. You can only get high quality by going fast in the right way and you can only go fast in the right way by working less, not more. Failure of managers to understand these paradoxes will cause Scrum to fail and often the company along with it. This is natural in a free market economy where bad companies deserve to fail and the sooner the better as then improved companies, products, and services can emerge more quickly. Takeuchi wrote "The New New Product Development Game" which launched the first Scrum team and his work continues to be of high interest to the Scrum community. He and his colleagues have struggled to understand Toyota for decades and done many studies to try to get to the bottom of Toyota's success. Quite simply, TPS is a hard innovation that allows the company to keep improving the way it manufactures vehicles; in addition, Toyota has mastered a soft innovation that relates to corporate culture. The company succeeds, we believe, because it creates contradictions and paradoxes in many aspects of organizational life. Employees have to operate in a culture where they constantly grapple with challenges and problems and must come up with fresh ideas. Thats why Toyota constantly gets better.

The hard and the soft innovations work in tandem. Like two wheels on a shaft that bear equal weight, together they move the company forward. Toyotas culture of contradictions plays as important a role in its success as TPS does, but rivals and experts have so far overlooked it. Toyota believes that ef?ciency alone cannot guarantee success. Make no mistake: No company practices Taylorism better than Toyota does. Whats different is that the company views employees not just as pairs of hands but as knowledge workers who accumulate chiethe wisdom of experienceon the companys front lines. Toyota therefore invests heavily in people and organizational capabilities, and it garners ideas from everyone and everywhere: the shop floor, the office, the field. Perhaps the biggest contradiction has always been Toyota's mission - to make the world a better place. Therefore they do things no other auto company with do even if there is not an immediate financial return. Toyota Value, the document that outlines the companys beliefs, says it best: We are always optimizing to enhance the happiness of every customer as well as to build a better future for people, society, and the planet we share. This is our duty. This is Toyota. This focus captures the hearts of the people and their spirit of innovation. To execute it well requires great leadership and great leadership is servant leadership that listens to the people and changes their behavior to help the people. Senior executives constantly hammer home messages such as Never be satisfied and Theres got to be a better way. A favorite saying of former chairperson Hiroshi Okuda is Reform business when business is good, and Watanabe is fond of pointing out that No change is bad.... Toyota has a strict hierarchy, but it gives employees freedom to push back. Voicing contrarian opinions, exposing problems, not blindly following bosses ordersthese are all permissible employee behaviors. Watanabe, who recounts how he fought with his bosses as he rose through the ranks, often says, Pick a friendly fight. Book News Annotation: Drawing on their access to Toyota facilities and documents and on interviews, Osono and two colleagues (Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi U., Japan) analyze how the Toyota Production System, despite its contradictory nature, has driven the success of the world's #1 automaker. They conclude that this organizational model is successful because it reflects the paradoxes of everyday life: e.g., moving gradually yet taking revolutionary leaps, being frugal yet investing heavily in key areas, allowing employee dissent within its bureaucratic structure. Annotation 2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Synopsis: In 2001, Toyotas Executive Vice President in charge of overseas marketing and sales, Yoshio Ishizaka, granted all three authors rare access to the company. The aim was to understand the vital elements of Toyotathat make it unique as an industrial manufacturer. Toyotaagreed to a hands-off policy and gave the authors full access and complete editorial control. The central question was why does Toyotacontinue to outperform its competitors? What is the source of its capability for self-renewal? After six years of research, six case studies, and more than 220 interviews with Toyotaemployees, distributors, and dealers across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Japan, the authors have fascinating insights on the inner workings of this company and why it is so successful. The book offers the first peek at a unique global approach to organizational behavior in the era of the global knowledge worker. Toyotahas transformed an old industry for the new paradigm by learning to manage human creativity, which is always growing yet always incomplete and often contradictory. This will be the first book to argue that it is the way Toyotaapproaches the hard and the soft sides that allows it to continue outperforming its competitors. The human ability to create knowledge is the most valuable resource in the knowledge era. As Jim Press, the newly appointed American on the corporate board, says, Toyotashould always remain a green tomato. This is the first book to look at the big picture of Toyotafrom the inside, with all the companys contradictions, paradoxes, and opposites.

Synopsis: By almost any measure, Toyota is a model of extreme performance among the world's best manufacturers. The company is hugely profitable, known for strong engineering, durability, and reliability, and is on track to replace GM as the world's largest automaker. What explains this phenomenal success? Based on six years of research and unprecedented access to Toyota facilities, documents, and activities as well as hundreds of interviews with employees and leaders of the companyExtreme Toyota explains what makes Toyota great and what you and your business can learn from its success. Though Toyota is well known for its innovative production processthe Toyota Production System (TPS) there is much more to its success than just its nimble, cost-effective production practices. The authors of Extreme Toyota explain that the secret to Toyota's success lies in a series of striking paradoxes or contradictions that are actively encouraged by Toyota's management. For example:

Toyota cultivates frugality and thriftiness AND spends big to develop people and projects It is hierarchical and bureaucraticAND encourages dissent It aims for stability AND fosters a mindset of paranoia It moves forward slowly and gradually AND makes big leaps It is operationally efficient AND filled with redundancy

This creative clash of innovative production practices and traditional corporate culture not only works, it works extraordinarily well. Toyota manages to turn these seeming contradictions into unlimited growth and success. While most companies seek to stamp out internal contradictions and paradoxes, Toyota actively encourages them, resulting in continuous innovation and constant renewal. If you want to grow your own culture of contradiction and success, take a look inside the world's best manufacturer. Opposites are Attractive I am fascinated by the presence of intense contradictions in organizations. It may be possible that the highest performing, most innovative organizations are the ones that can manage the greatest degree of internal paradox, and not spin out of control, or lose their centre. In HBRs current The Contradictions That Drive Toyotas Success, for example, the authors observe that it is intense contradiction that fuels the success of the dogged innovator, the cost manager that places big bets, the frugal splurger, the hierarchical meritocracy. These ideas are very Japanese, and I have always thought that Japanese life and culture is made more interesting by its many simultaneous opposites: ancient and post-modern, tacky and stylish, faddish and timeless, loud and silent, totally over-stimulated and completely Zen. And why wouldnt this be a great way to run a company? Life is not black and white so why should we drive our organizational cultures, values systems and business practices into uniform mono-form? We all know how frustrating it is to work in or for organizations with the mono-form problem. Dominant paradigms wipe out innovation. Pervasive cultures create change-skeptics and the Company X Way becomes our way or the highway. Isnt this the innovators dilemma that Clayton Christensen is all over? Im working now with the astonishing University of Waterloo on a brand strategy and boy-o-boy is this a place of paradox. The number of opposites which are simultaneously true in this institution is truly incredible. It must be really hard to manage. Just resisting the temptation to clean it all up and make it look the same must be tough. And what has it got them? To being perhaps the most innovative and enterprising university in Canada, raring to take on the world. I suppose one way out of the paradox dilemma is through integrative thinking, or as Roger Martin would say, through the opposable mind. Would he and others - including George Stalk and David Pecaut who

wrote in HBR 12 years ago about breaking compromises - have you drive up the middle of paradox by integrating or finding a third way? When it comes to managing organizations, I recommend resisting the temptation. Let difference reign; in the right places. Question is, can paradox be present in your brand? Not so sure. Yes, your brand can represent complex ideas, and perhaps the brand experience can allow for some diversity, but Im sticking to my unifying idea theory when it comes to brand. Even Toyota manages to unify its external image around a few very coherent ideas about innovation, reliability and the intelligence of their system whether you are shopping for luxury, economy or carbon footprint. So, let opposites flourish inside your organization if they allow a healthy mix of control and chaos, change and stasis, hubris and calm. But dont let this seep out into a confused message of value to the outside world. Interesting, MJ. Youve expressed interest in your previous posts in the psychology of organizations. Lets throw this into the mix: it has been said that one of the measures of maturity is a tolerance for ambiguity (or, you might say, paradox.) So if nuanced thinking that can accommodate apparent contradictions is for grown-ups, all those pop business books promising simple truths for success are written for ? I wanted to explore your unifying brand idea. Because, though I think you are right that certain kinds of ideas, like brands, need a particular integrity, I also think there are examples of brands that are strong enough envelopes to contain not only paradox, but even contradiction. Think of the word democracy as a test case. I think that this brand of political ideal/system is sufficiently plastic that is has contained paradox and contradictions, both historical and conceptual, and yet retained a strong and resilient identity over time. I grant that it may prove an exception, but maybe theres something interesting we can learn from the exception? How about Canada as a brand? Quebec? I wonder if it may not be important in these cases to engineer a tolerance for tensions, political/cultural/linguistic, into their brand ideas. I guess I am wondering whether a brand can be both a unifying idea and pluralistic at the same time? HBO - Takeuchi Paper on Toyota I just read this on Jeff Sutherlands Blog and I couldnt help but compare my current employer (Intergen) to Toyota. Yea we are vastly different companies with Toyota being a far bigger company, but I found a few things that was really interesting for me to compare. We are trying to follow agile methodologies and in some teams, especially our product teams, it is working really well. The teams that struggle is were we have to convince clients to use agile methodologies to get their software produced, but we are getting there I think. What really stood out for me when I read this post was that we have the fundamentals right. We are never satisfied, there is always a better way, we not only push back to management, we also push back to clients. If we see a better approach or solution we tell everyone. We have a pretty flat hierarchy and contrarian opinions are expected, we also let people think for themselves and they are not expected to follow orders blindly. I like the last bit of the post "Pick a friendly fight", I believe we encourage this with open communication. Looking at all of this, I think we have a really solid foundation that we can build on, and as we grow even bigger this is going to differentiate us from our competitors. The Contradictions That Drive Toyotas Success by Hirotaka Takeuchi, Emi Osono, and Norihiko Shimizu Harvard Business Review, June 2008 (free online during June) The Toyota Production System (TPS) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Toyota's success. TPS is

a radical innovation that has disrupted a huge market. However, without the "soft" factors that drive Toyota, they would still be just another auto company. This is also true of Scrum where the Scrum framework is a necessary condition for hyperproductivity but that alone will never get you there. The team must rise to the occasion, engineering practices must be extraordinary, and management must provide an environment that removes all impediments that stand in the way. You can only get high quality by going fast in the right way and you can only go fast in the right way by working less, not more. Failure of managers to understand these paradoxes will cause Scrum to fail and often the company along with it. This is natural in a free market economy where bad companies deserve to fail and the sooner the better as then improved companies, products, and services can emerge more quickly. Takeuchi wrote "The New New Product Development Game" which launched the first Scrum team and his work continues to be of high interest to the Scrum community. He and his colleagues have struggled to understand Toyota for decades and done many studies to try to get to the bottom of Toyota's success. Quite simply, TPS is a hard innovation that allows the company to keep improving the way it manufactures vehicles; in addition, Toyota has mastered a soft innovation that relates to corporate culture. The company succeeds, we believe, because it creates contradictions and paradoxes in many aspects of organizational life. Employees have to operate in a culture where they constantly grapple with challenges and problems and must come up with fresh ideas. Thats why Toyota constantly gets better. The hard and the soft innovations work in tandem. Like two wheels on a shaft that bear equal weight, together they move the company forward. Toyotas culture of contradictions plays as important a role in its success as TPS does, but rivals and experts have so far overlooked it. Toyota believes that ef?ciency alone cannot guarantee success. Make no mistake: No company practices Taylorism better than Toyota does. Whats different is that the company views employees not just as pairs of hands but as knowledge workers who accumulate chiethe wisdom of experienceon the companys front lines. Toyota therefore invests heavily in people and organizational capabilities, and it garners ideas from everyone and everywhere: the shop floor, the office, the field. Perhaps the biggest contradiction has always been Toyota's mission - to make the world a better place. Therefore they do things no other auto company with do even if there is not an immediate financial return. Toyota Value, the document that outlines the companys beliefs, says it best: We are always optimizing to enhance the happiness of every customer as well as to build a better future for people, society, and the planet we share. This is our duty. This is Toyota. This focus captures the hearts of the people and their spirit of innovation. To execute it well requires great leadership and great leadership is servant leadership that listens to the people and changes their behavior to help the people. Senior executives constantly hammer home messages such as Never be satisfied and Theres got to be a better way. A favorite saying of former chairperson Hiroshi Okuda is Reform business when business is good, and Watanabe is fond of pointing out that No change is bad.... Toyota has a strict hierarchy, but it gives employees freedom to push back. Voicing contrarian opinions, exposing problems, not blindly following bosses ordersthese are all permissible employee behaviors. Watanabe, who recounts how he fought with his bosses as he rose through the ranks, often says, Pick a friendly fight.

Toyota's road to success examined, explained "Extreme Toyota -- Radical Contradictions That Drive Success" By Emi Osono, Norihiko Shimizu and Hirotaka Takeuchi, John Wiley & Sons, $27.95. Most believe that Toyota's lauded manufacturing model is its key to success. You don't run over the Big 3 just by being an efficient manufacturer. Its rise to the top of the auto world, explained in this book, gives

new meaning to, "This is the way we do things around here." Like successful people, Toyota's way of doing things constantly focuses on, "What's next?" The process of growth starts with setting impossible goals. It finds ways to get to Point B through experimentation. Its Prius model provides a great example. While the Big 3 unceasingly carped to Capitol Hill about rising fuel economy standards, Toyota set an internal goal of creating a car that improved fuel economy by 100 percent. The first prototype was rejected by management because it achieved only a 50 percent increase. The engineers returned to the drawing board. Using unproven technology, the Prius prototype had numerous bumps in its road to success -- its first engine wouldn't start and the battery pack shut down when exposed to high and low temperatures. The Prius example shows that Toyota ultimately succeeded by failing. How do you turn lemons into lemonade? Ask all employees to solve problems. Akia Matsubara, its senior human resources executive explains: "Up and until an employee's 10th year with the company, we repeatedly administer a training process designed to develop problem-solving skills." Toyota's eight-step problem-solving practice forms the base of this training: 1, Clarify the problem; 2, Break down the problem; 3, Set a target; 4, Analyze the root cause; 5, Develop countermeasures; 6, See countermeasures through; 7, Monitor results and processes; 8, Standardize successful processes. Knowledge sharing makes the problem-solving training work. Employees ask questions and share results (the good and the bad). Management, too, asks for and receives feedback from all levels. It listens, evaluates and tweaks. "How can we make it work?" is the first question. The second is, "How can we make it work better?" When it comes to ensuring quality, rank and title are irrelevant. Any line worker can pull the plug on the whole line if they see something that is not up to standard. Similarly, confronting superiors about quality concerns is encouraged. So is bringing bad news to the boss -- messengers aren't shot; they are appreciated. Toyota succeeds because it knows that its employees are its most valuable asset. Toyota culture-a peek behind Toyotas unique culture of contradictions that drives them forward Takeuchi,Emi Osono and Norhiko Shimizu have spent over six years studying the gigantic Japanese automobile corporation and have uncovered remarkable reasons for Toyotas success. Read further to have excerpts and interpretations of their ground breaking research. Toyota is a conundrum from the outside-it seems to be a staggering giant on the verge of collapse.It pays relatively low dividends as compared to its rivals and hardly lets go of employees(even if they grossly underperform) and scarcely welcomes fresh talent. Their dividends average only twenty percent of earnings as compared to rival Daimler-Chryslers 47.5%.On the other hand it has accumulated over $20 billion in cash. Toyota mangers also rise through the hierarchy very,very slowly-the average age of top cadre officials is 61 in Toyota,the age by which most officials in other corporates retire. Toyota encourages conflicts, opposition and contrasts-leading people to innovate and think of new solutions. Contradictions are imposed at every possible junctions so that employees are able to think of innovative ways and solution to go about the problem.People do not have to blindly follow the orders of higher authorities-they are given much freedom and liberty to follow any course of action. Learning from experience and mistakes is an integral part of Toyotas functioning. Hugemongous-thats how meetings in Toyota are held. Everyone from workers onwards to retailers are encouraged to discuss problems and even give constructive criticism without fear of repercussion.

Toyota sees employees not just as a pair of hands but as knowledge workers who accumulate chie - the wisdom of experience on the companys frontlines. Toyota sets near impossible goals to achieve and forces its employees to stretch beyond the maximum limit.It also successfully customizes itself to local standards and expectations. This also brings up the point of experimentation,another key feature that has made Toyota remarkably tolerant of failure and equally adept at innovation.

There are two contradictory forces at work here-forces of expansion that usher the winds of change to push the company forward and forces of integration which prevent Toyota from being blown down by the very same (winds of change). Here are a list of the key contradictions that drives Toyota forward. Toyota has a strict hierarchy,but it allows employees to push back. I have already explained this one,no need to go through it again. Now lets have a look at the others. Toyota moves at a snails pace,but at the same time manages giant leaps. For instance Toyota made a late,sluggish entry into American and European markets-its growth till date has been slow in those regions.But at the same time Toyota was the first company to come up with a truly eco-frindly,green car. Toyota is highly efficient yet uses its time in seemingly wasteful ways. Hordes of people,many of whom who do not even participate attend their regular meetings. Senior executives spend an unnecessary amount of time visiting dealers and use an unholy number of multilingual coordinators-a post most companies have stashed as it erodes communication between the offices and head-quarters.

Toyota is frugal,but is ready to splurge on key areas. In Japan the entire staff works in the same room,without even partitions or dividers as it occupies a lot of space and in Japan,space costs serious money. But at the same time we find that Toyota has invested over $22billion in research over the past decade and has spent over $170mn competing in the formula one circuit. A paradox : Simple communication co-existing with a complex social network As an unspoken rule,communication in Toyota must be as brief and simple as possible.At the same time employees must make sure that everyone knows what is happening and that each and everyone has a say.To ensure this there is a special A3 rule which states that any idea or plan must be conveyed on the briefest and simplest terms on a sheet of paper no larger than 11 inches by 17 inches,which is then put on display publicly for the benefit of all employees. It is not however work alone that creates strong communication links within the company. Toyota lays stress on building complex complex social networks where employees are encouraged to attend parties and join in any of the numerous available clubs. This is done to ensure that everyone feels at home,feels secure,does not feel neglected or shunned and most importantly is comfortable communicating with his coworkers openly.

3 Responses to "Toyota culture-a peek behind Toyotas unique culture of contradictions that drives them forward" Its an excellent article, but Toyota is the 1st manufacturing company in the world to start with oriental philosophical thoughts of Kaizen (Continuous Improvement). It is basically a Buddhist Philosophy, which is an out come of Hindu Philosophys as we all know that Buddhism went to Japan from India through the Silk route. It is basically Nirvana (Moksha) toward perfection, they practice Kaizen (little Improvement daily) in home and similarly that take it to the manufacturing shop floor of Toyota. Unlike American hire and fire systems that have a traditional conservative culture very much oriental. Japanese employers used to commit suicide and a Japanese employee can devote his whole life to his employers. The whole Samurai culture is basically an employee culture. These are embedded in Japanese tradition. As from your posting its very interesting to knpw that the culture is slowly changing. Dr Hammar wrote BPR after studying the process in Texas Instruments and aslo kept in mind Japnese competetion. The 3rd C ( Change) of Dr Hammers BPR is in practice. I confess that even I was not quite aware how much the Japs fused their philosophy and culture in their business. Your comment was very interesting,informative and helpful.. we sure do hope to hear from you soon. [...] Innovation is the key in times of gloom : A check on the auto industry Posted on August 16, 2008 by Chirag Jain In recent weeks, General Motors announced a $15 billion loss(read related article) while Ford suffered a $8.7 billion loss. Their Japanese counterparts Toyota and Maruti Suzuki experience huge drops in their profits, 39% and 17% respectively. [Note : Toyota beats everyone else because of their strategy based on contradictions] [...] Where People Fit in the Toyota Way A while back I wrote a series on the Toyota Way. Toyota is unquestionably one of the top manufacturing companies in the world producing high quality products at a very low cost. At the center of this is the Toyota Production System (TPS) which formalizes production structures throughout the manufacturing process. However, behind the scenes is a culture of innovation that permeates the entire company. Other companies can mimic TPS, but creating a culture of innovation continues to be their greatest challenge. Toyota believes that efficiency alone cannot guarantee success Whats different is that the company views employees no just as pairs of hands, but as knowledge workers who accumulate chie the wisdom experience on the companys front lines. Toyota therefore invests heavily in people and organizational capabilities, and it garners ideas from everyone and everywhere: the shop floor, the office, the field. 1 While wed often believe that Asian companies must be more hierarchical, at Toyota, the collaborative and innovative culture is actually flatter than in leading organizations in the U.S. Regardless of the actual organization structure, the ability to present any idea flattens out the company and allows innovations to happen more quickly and easily. We see the same type of thing at Google where employees can go work on whatever they want and Google will see which ideas eventually float. Toyota fosters a complex web of social networks because it wants everybody to know everything. The company develops horizontal links between employees across functions and geographic boundaries, grouping them by specializations and year of entry; creates vertical relationships across hierarchies through teaching relationships and mentoring; and fosters informal ties by inviting employees to join clubs based on birthplaces, sports interest, hobbies, and so on. 2

Ill be honest and state that I have no idea if Toyota has implemented any type of a social network technology, but this is basically what were talking about: something like Facebook. In Serena Softwares well known Facebook Fridays where employees are given an hour to network and collaborate each week, some of that time can be spent simply playing on-line scrabble across continental borders. This type of getting to know you activity eventually leads to better collaboration opportunities as you have made relationships and have an understanding about skillsets in other areas. We seem to be starting the processes of creating these networks in our own organizations, but adoption across the enterprise will be our greatest hurdle as some older employees are still wary of social medias and privacy. HBR goes on to outline some key characteristics of Toyota executives:

Willingness to listen and learn from others Enthusiasm for constantly making improvements Comfort with working in teams Ability to take action quickly to solve a problem Interest in coaching other employees Modesty
3

As I looked at this article from a Human Resources point of view, it became apparent to me that everything revolves around engaging employees in a culture of communications. This is not only laterally with a flow of ideas, but also up the management chain where receptivity to ideas is very high. We in HR have the opportunity to help create and implement these networks in our own organizations. We have the ability of providing employee portals that allow and facilitate communication and feedback. But while we sit around focusing on automating a performance process that is probably already broken, have we taken a look at engaging employees in an endeavor that will influence the productivity of the enterprise?

The Business of Contradictions Found this very interesting link by Jeff Sutherland, famed Scrum co-founder and trainer who I took my certification class from, on a paper published by Harvard Business Review. The paper is titled The Contradictions That Drive Toyotas Success. One of the papers authors is Hirotaka Takeuchi who co-wrote another famous paper in HBR that was the inspiration and impetus for the Scrum project management movement and which I wrote about before. As the paper states: Quite simply, TPS is a hard innovation that allows the company to keep improving the way it manufactures vehicles; in addition, Toyota has mastered a soft innovation that relates to corporate culture. The company succeeds, we believe, because it creates contradictions and paradoxes in many aspects of organizational life. Employees have to operate in a culture where they constantly grapple with challenges and problems and must come up with fresh ideas. Thats why Toyota constantly gets better. The hard and the soft innovations work in tandem. Like two wheels on a shaft that bear equal weight, together they move the company forward. Toyotas culture of contradictions plays as important a role in its success as TPS does, but rivals and experts have so far overlooked it. Toyota believes that efficiency alone cannot guarantee success. Make no mistake: No company practices Taylorism better than Toyota does. Whats different is that the company views employees not just as pairs of hands but as knowledge workers who accumulate chiethe wisdom of experienceon the companys front lines. Toyota therefore invests heavily in people and organizational capabilities, and it garners ideas from everyone and everywhere: the shop floor, the office, the field.

At the same time, studies of human cognition show that when people grapple with opposing insights, they understand the different aspects of an issue and come up with effective solutions. So Toyota deliberately fosters contradictory viewpoints within the organization and challenges employees to find solutions by transcending differences rather than resorting to compromises. This culture of tensions generates innovative ideas that Toyota implements to pull ahead of competitors, both incrementally and radically. I think much of Toyotas ability to understand and overcome contradictions is due to the cultural roots of Eastern thinking, which really never viewed contradictions like the West did starting with the Greek thinkers like Aristotle. His legacy of the Law of the Excluded Middle permeated the whole of Western thinking and much of the reductionist, logical system on which the sciences and systematic process thinking that industry still drives on. The Japanese on the other hand do not view contradictions as things to avoid, but rather like the Yin and Yang, as just different manifestations or phenomenon of the natural world which when viewed as a whole, is really just a unity of oppositions. Thus, this thought process would enable the company culture of Toyota to embrace, temper and balance opposing contradictory forces. The paper found 6 ways Toyota unifies contradictory tendencies: 1. Toyota moves slowly, yet it takes big leaps. 2. Toyota grows steadily, yet it is a paranoid company. 3. Toyotas operations are efficient, but it uses employees time in seemingly wasteful ways. 4. Toyota is frugal, but it splurges on key areas. 5. Toyota insists internal communications be simple, yet it builds complex social networks. 6. Toyota has a strict hierarchy, but it gives employees freedom to push back. Traditional Western management practices would consider a company running under such an ideological platform as a badly managed company, but that's exactly why Toyota succeeds, because embracing and unifying such contradictory tendencies acknowledges first, that contradictions are a natural way of life (which it is), and that second, adopting such a mindset would allow a corporation to manage their organization in a more dynamic and fluid way. This will prevent complacency and continuously challenge an organization to push it self, whereas most enterprises stop growing because they stick to processes and practices their past successes have generated. But one may mistake such a notion as giving a company license to dispense with all systematic and rigorous processes in favor of chaos, when on the contrary companies must teach employees how to deal with problems rigorously and systematically, or they wont be able to harness the power of contradictions. Again, thats to embrace, temper and manage the rigorous process and creative fluidity. Summary of Toyotas approach: Three Forces of Expansion Three forces of expansion lead the company to instigate change and improvement

Impossible goals Local customization Experimentation

Three Forces of Integration Three forces of integration stabilize the companys expansion and transformation

Values from the founders Up-and-in people management Open communication

Characteristics of Toyota Executives

Willingness to listen and learn from others Enthusiasm for constantly making improvements Comfort with working in teams Ability to take action quickly to solve a problem

Toyotas innovations, by contrast, have [focused] on process rather than on product, on the factory floor rather than on the showroom. That has made those innovations hard to see. But it hasnt made them any less powerful. At the core of the companys success is the Toyota Production System, which took shape in the years after the Second World War, when Japan was literally rebuilding itself, and capital and equipment were hard to come by. A Toyota engineer named Taiichi Ohno turned necessity into virtue, coming up with a system to get as much as possible out of every part, every machine, and every worker. The principles were simple, even obvious - do away with waste, have parts arrive precisely when workers need them, fix problems as soon as they arise. And they werent even entirely new - Ohno himself cited Henry Ford and American supermarkets as inspirations. But what Toyota has done, better than any other manufacturing company, is turn principle into practice. In some cases, it has done so with inventions, like the andon cord, which any worker can pull to stop the assembly line if he notices a problem, or kanban, a card system that allows workers to signal when new parts are needed. Very true, except one thing. Toyotas innovation is not limited to process and execution. Toyotas long term vision results in very dramatic innovation (that granted is not getting the press today - check back in 20 years, I think you will be reading about it then). A company truly driven by a focus on continual improvement, respect for all employees and reasonable executive compensation might be a company serious about adopting Deming and Toyota management principles. It is hard for me to imagine such a situation that doesnt truly seek, as the primary aim of the organization, to benefit many stakeholders (workers, owners, suppliers, customers) not just executives (or just executives, board and owners). Idle Workers Busy at Toyota Instead of sending the workers home, as the Detroit makers often do, Toyota is keeping them at the plants, though. The employees spend their days in training sessions designed to sharpen their job skills and find better ways to assemble vehicles. At its Princeton plant, by contrast, Toyota is using the down time to hone its workers quality-control and productivity skills. The company has pledged never to lay off any of its full-time employees, who are nonunion. Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales, the companys U.S. sales unit, said the company believes keeping employees on the payroll and using the time to improve their capabilities is the best move in the

long run. It would have been crazy for us to lose people for 90 days and [then] to rehire and retrain people and hope that we have a smooth ramp-up coming back in, Mr. Lentz said. In Princeton, senior plant manager Norm Bafunno said he can already see the benefits of the training. Mr. Bafunno cites a Teflon ring designed by an assembly worker during the down time that helps prevent paint damage when employees install an electrical switch on the edge of a vehicles door. Mr. Mason, a 40-year-old former firefighter, added: One of the major things that everyone is grateful for is that they thought enough of us to keep us here. Toyota continues to show intelligence, long term thinking, respect for people in their management decisions. I worry they may capitulate and make explanations about how the economy forced them to abandon their principles. I hope they prove that cynical fear in me to be wrong, in their case. Webcast on the Toyota Development Process

Kenji Hiranabe talks about Toyotas development process (webcast). Kenji shares a presentation he attended earlier this year by Nobuaki Katayama, a former Chief Engineer at Toyota, and the lessons he learned from him. The webcast takes awhile to get going. If you are impatient you might want to start at the 6 minute mark. Some thoughts from the talk:

Voice of the Customer is diffuse. A strong concept (for a project - new car for example) is very important to focus thought, listening to voice of the customer is important but must use strong concept to avoid losing focus (due to diffuse customer feedback). Honest face to face communication is important. Bad news first - present bad news first [don't try to hide bad news - my thoughts in brackets, John Hunter]. Everyone must think about cost reduction, many efforts add up to big impact [the importance of reducing waste everywhere]. benchmark, not to copy others, but to learn from what others do well.

The webcast includes a nice (though short) discussion of agile management in software development and lean manufacturing (the different situation of manufacturing versus software development). Kenji Hiranabe has also translated several agile and lean books into Japanese including Implementing Lean Software Development. New Management Truths Sometimes Started as Heresies New management truths sometimes started as heresies by Cecil Johnson The most effective management ideas follow a life cycle from heresy to outlier (championed by a small group of people) to ingrained practice to conventional wisdom, Kleiner writes. In the process, if they are genuinely powerful management ideas, they distinguish the organizations that adopt them. One of the management heresies focused upon by Kleiner that has morphed into accepted management wisdom of the highest order is the Toyota Production System, which embraces much of the thinking of heretical quality advocate W. Edwards Deming. That system, Kleiner reminds the reader, entrusts teams at each station in the assembly process to control their local operations. Performance is not evaluated on a predetermined numeral basis. I agree with this idea except the implication that these ideas are accepted now. To the extent they are excepted it is only a surface understanding of a couple of tools and concepts. The true power of the new ideas are still adopted in a very small number of organizations. Thankfully small initial steps are being made but there is much more to be done, before we can think of these ideas as accepted.

Which of Dr. Demings seven deadly diseases of western management have been effectively addressed in several decades? My opinion? Zero. Granted 2 are probably closer to economic failures (political issues that management could have spent time trying to fix but not really in the control of a single company): excessive medical costs and excessive legal damage awards. Excessive legal damage awards was the one disease most business school graduates would have agreed was a disease decades ago, and they still do. They have spent a great deal of effort to reform the legal system, but have not been effective. Many now agree the health care system is broken. But I would say less than 50% understand this, even decades later, even after the situation has deteriorated much further. And certainly little effective effort at improving the health care system has been made. At least in the last 5 years some real efforts are being made by senior executives as some companies. And I strongly believe Dr. Deming would see the current unjustified taking of companies resources by CEOs for their own use, in ludicrous pay packages, as a new disease. If these new (the system of management ideas are at least 30 years old, as a system, and it has been 60 years since Dr. Deming present them in Japan after World War II) management ideas were common, such horrible behavior as we continue to see would not be tolerated. Toyota has a long term vision. The population of Japan is aging rapidly. Toyota has invested in personal transportation and personal robotic assistance for quite some time. I must admit this new Winglet doesnt seem like an incredible breakthrough to me (their earlier iUnit seems much better to me - though I am sure much more expensive too). The interest to me is in their continued focus on this market which I think is a smart move. The aging population worldwide (and others) will benefit greatly from improved personal mechanical assistance. The Winglet is one of Toyotas people-assisting Toyota Partner Robots. Designed to contribute to society by helping people enjoy a safe and fully mobile life, the Winglet is a compact (you stand just above the wheels and it reaches about the level of your knees) next-generation everyday transport tool that offers advanced ease of use and expands the users range of mobility. The Winglet consists of a body that houses an electric motor, two wheels and internal sensors that constantly monitor the users position and make adjustments in power to ensure stability. Meanwhile, a unique parallel link mechanism allows the rider to go forward, backward and turn simply by shifting body weight, making the vehicle safe and useful even in tight spaces or crowded environments. Toyota plans various technical and consumer trials to gain feedback during the Winglets lead-up to practical use. Practical tests of its utility as a mobility tool are planned to begin in Autumn 2008 at Central Japan International Airport (Centrair) near Nagoya, and Laguna Gamagori, a seaside marine resort complex in Aichi Prefecture. Testing of its usefulness in crowded and other conditions, and how non-users react to the device, is to be carried out in 2009 at the Tressa Yokohama shopping complex in Yokohama City. Toyota is pursuing sustainability in research and development, manufacturing and social contribution as part of its concept to realize sustainability in three areas and to help contribute to the health and comfort of future society. Toyota Partner Robot development is being carried out with this in mind and applies Toyotas approach to monozukuri (making things), which includes its mobility, production and other technologies. Toyota aims to realize the practical use of Toyota Partner Robots in the early 2010s. On a personal note, I bought some more Toyota stock two weeks ago. The stock had declined a bit recently. Toyota is one of the companies in my 12 stocks for 10 years portfolio.

How to Develop Thinking People

Toyotas Top Engineer on How to Develop Thinking People

Hayashi says, Developing people requires physical endurance. Frequent follow up is necessary, in person. It is not acceptable to give an assignment and follow up or scold only after three months, during a progress report meeting. Specific actions and detailed follow up are necessary. Excellent advice. Also, when we are required to deliver results with speed, we only give our subordinates small projects so that even if they fail they have time to recover. In the end, we give them the solution. We must firmly carry on the practice of developing thinking people. Mr. Ohno often said to us, Dont look with your, look with your feet. Dont think with you head, think with your hands. He also taught us, People who cant understand numbers are useless. The gemba where numbers are not visible is also bad. However, people who only look at the numbers are the worst of all. And more wisdom. Great stuff from Taiichi Ohno, Nanpachi Hayashi and Jon Millers translation and great blog. Druckers Ideas at Toyota The Drucker difference and Toyotas success by Ira A. Jackson, dean of the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management, the business school of the Claremont Colleges. Because of this core belief in the power of people, Toyota invests in people. And at the same time, the company has come to realize that when people grapple with opposing views Embrace contradictions as a way of life. Sticking to old practices can lead to rigidity. Be fluid. Develop routines to resolve contradictions. As the authors note, Unless companies teach employees how to deal with problems rigorously and systematically, they wont be able to harness the power of contradictions. Toyota has a number of tools including the well-known ask-why-five-times practice and the Plan-Do-Check-Act model. Encourage employees to voice their opinions even if they are contrary. The people in top management must be open to hearing critical comments from employees and listening to opposing views if they want to engender new ideas and new ways of doing things. The Contradictions That Drive Toyotas Success An interesting article in this months Harvard Business Review looks at the seeming contradictions at Toyota - The Contradictions That Drive Toyotas Success by Hirotaka Takeuchi, Emi Osono, and Norihiko Shimizu Many of Toyotas goals are purposely vague, allowing employees to channel their energies in different directions and forcing specialists from different functions to collaborate across the rigid silos in which they usually work. For example, Watanabe has said that his goal is to build a car that makes the air cleaner, prevents accidents, makes people healthier and happier when they drive it, and gets you from coast to coast on one tank of gas Zenji Yasuda, a former Toyota senior managing director, points out the wisdom of painting with broad strokes. If he makes [the goal] more concrete, employees wont be able to exercise their full potential. The vague nature of this goal confers freedom to researchers to open new avenues of exploration; procurement to look for new and unknown suppliers who possess needed technology; and sales to consider the next steps needed to sell such products. A good explanation of how Toyota avoids the trap of arbitrary numerical goals (Innovation at Toyota). Toyotas eagerness to experiment helps it clear the hurdles that stand in the way of achieving nearimpossible goals. People test hypotheses and learn from the consequent successes and failures. By encouraging employees to experiment, Toyota moves out of its comfort zone and into uncharted territory.

This is another key point often overlooked. Experimentation is key to gaining knowledge and improving. And they have steadily improved their method of experimentation building on the PDSA/PDCA cycle: Toyota organizes experiments using strict routines, as is widely known. It has refined Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), the continuous-improvement process used throughout the business world, into the Toyota Business Practices (TBP) process. The eight-step TBP lays out a path for employees to challenge the status quo: clarify the problem; break down the problem; set a target; analyze the root cause; develop countermeasures; see countermeasures through; monitor both results and processes; and standardize successful processes. Similarly, the A3 report forces employees to capture the most essential information needed to solve a problem on a single sheet that they can disseminate widely. Outsourcing To America Toyota (TM) began operating in North America in the mid-1980s. It currently operates seven automotive plants there, four of which are in the U.S. A fifth plant is under production in Mississippi. Toyota employs 40,000 manufacturing employees in North America. In addition to the manufacture of cars and trucks, Toyota runs four unit factories in the U.S., where they produce such parts as engines, transmissions and wheels. Toyota also has a wholly owned subsidiary, Bodine Aluminum, an aluminum casting company, which operates three factories in Tennessee and Missouri. BMW began operations in the U.S. in 1994, when it opened a plant in Spartanburg, S.C. Some natural hedging was always a part of the long-term strategy, but also we have a corporate strategy of having production follow the market, says Robert Hitt, BMWs manager of public affairs. Our original plan was to have about 2,000 workers here by the year 2000. We are now at 5,400 people here on the site. Besides the actual manufacturing of their cars and trucks, Toyota and BMW are using domestic suppliers to provide parts and services for their operations. BMW has over 200 suppliers in North America, 52 of which are located in South Carolina, and 41 of these are new companies started for the purpose of supplying the plant. In South Carolina alone, suppliers of BMWs Spartanburg plant employ over 14,000 people. Toyota uses roughly 500 major suppliers in North America. Weve always had the philosophy that we should build vehicles where they are sold, so it makes sense to have suppliers close to your manufacturing operations, says Mike Goss, external affairs manager for Toyotas engineering and manufacturing division in North America. Foreign production in the U.S., however, is not limited to the automotive industry. In fact, almost 1 million Americans get their paychecks from Mexican companies, says Ton Heijmen, senior adviser for outsourcing and offshoring for the Conference Board. Whats driving Toyota Canadas success? - CIO reveals all for Hao Tien, chief information officer (CIO) at Toyota Canada Inc. those two Japanese phrases Genchi Genbutsu (go and see) and Kaizen (continuous improvement) really capture it all. the innovation wasnt in the technology, but in the way the various partners were brought together to agree upon processes, which were then consistently executed. CustomerOne is only project of its kind in the Toyota empire. A computer system links activities across multiple customer touch points, and analyzes data from the more than 13,000 daily service visits to Toyota dealers across the country. The system flags major repeat problems and Toyota Motor Corp. head office in Japan is informed so engineers can be assigned to make repairs to designs or manufacturing, if necessary. For instance if a call comes into us at Toyota Canada, the dealer knows about it. So if they go back to the

dealer for services, everyone offers the same resolution of the problem. In the four years since its launch CustomerOne was has been a runaway success. Tien cites some of the more tangible benefits this initiative has brought about. They include: * Cutting down the customer problem resolution from weeks to an average of three days through this initiative alone; * Early detection of customer dissatisfaction in services * Reducing detection of product defects (from months to days). The Toyota Canada CIO talks about the tremendous business benefits from this seamless freeflow of information. When a defect is detected at the dealership, the next day it would up to our engineering department. The speed at which information traverses is of immense value especially when new vehicles are launched. Tien cited an example. We recently launched a new Toyota Corolla [model]. If there were a problem with a door knob of the vehicle, the plant would know about it and a fix would be put in place. Weve received reports that on a small number of model-year 1995 to 2000 Tacomas, excessive corrosion of the frame has caused perforation of the metal. The reason for this, it appears, is that the frames of some of the 813,000 vehicles built during this time-frame may not have adequate corrosion protection. Because of our oft-stated commitment to standing behind our products, were extending the rustperforation warranty covering these trucks for a period of 15 years from each vehicles original date of purchase, with no mileage limitation, for corrosion damage that results in perforation of the vehicles frame material. Owners of these Tacomas need not be the original owners. Even if you bought your Tacoma second- or third-hand, its covered by this extended warranty. Once again Toyota shows what it means to go beyond the traditional way of thinking (where often MBA bean-counters and lawyers decide what should be done) instead of someone interested in having the company actually live up to a higher mission. From a previous post on their blog: The Toyota Way is a management philosophy involving 14 principles that is the essence of the DNA of our organization and really all those who make up the company. In its basic form, the Toyota Way boils down to two fundamental practices: Respect for People and Continuous Improvement. Enrich Society Jim Press and Toyota, Setting Sights on No. 1 former president of Toyota Motor North America The Toyota family, very strongly, still has their name on the building and [have] a big influence in the company. The original founding [principal] of the company was to enrich society. The Purpose of an Organization as stated by W. Edwards Deming described the purpose of an organization in New Economics, on page 51, as: The aim proposed here for any organization is for everybody to gain - stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment - over the long term. This is obviously not the view most people have, but I believe Dr. Deming was right. Deming Companies I get asked for examples of Deming managed companies fairly often. And recently I have had a number of such requests. So I figured I would provide an answer as a blog post. First, Dr. Deming would respond to such questions by referring to the theory of knowledge and the fallacy of trying to learn via examples. So remember to read up on why learning from examples is dangerous before taking to much from this.

I see Toyota as the best example of a Deming company. Dr. Deming did not propose a cookbook to follow. Instead he proposed a theory that requires learning and application within the specific institution. Toyota has created a management system that is based on Dr. Demings ideas and then they have evolved that over 60 years into something that is consistent with Demings management philosophy and has new ideas Deming did not mention. As odd as it may sound that very act of developing new concepts that were not mentioned by Dr. Deming is exactly what makes them the company that most exemplifies Demings management system. Other companies that have also done a great job applying his ideas. Peaker Services has done great things. Ian Bradbury is the President and a friend. He spoke at a seminar I co-presented and I included links to a couple documents of his in a blog post. He worked at GM Power System when Dr. Deming was working with GM. Richard R. Steele founder and also serves on the Deming Institute board of trustees. Hillerich & Bradsby Company has been following Dr. Demings ideas since 1984. John A. Hillerich is President and Chairman of the Board of Hillerich & Bradsby Company and serves on the Deming Institute board of trustees. The companies brands include: Louisville Slugger and Powerbuilt.A couple of good books explore companies adopting Dr. Demings ideas: Free, Perfect and Now by Robert Rodin (a great book by the CEO of Marshall Industries), highly recommended). Unfortunately the company was bought by a larger company and I do not believe the Deming philosophy is alive and well (but I could be wrong). Always Think Big by Jim McIngvale is by the CEO. Mattress Mack: One man, one store, one of a kind. Omnilingua has had amazing success applying Dr. Demings idea and I am proud to call Eric Christiansen their president a friend. Lean Blog Podcast with Eric Christiansen A Deming Company. In a previous post I recapped another example: Dr. Demings Ideas at Markeys Audio Visual. Companies awarded the Deming prize can also provide good examples. Four subsidiaries of the Rane Group in India has received awards in the last few years. Numerous people have done great things within companies - creating pockets of Deming practice. Some great examples include Steven Prevette - see some of his articles on Deming. David Anderson has incorporated Deming ideas within Microsoft and then Corbis - see his Agile Management Blog. William Bellows has a long term effort at Boeings Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power business unit. They offer conference call study sessions on Demings ideas for those within Boeing and also allow outside participation. He is also a member of the Deming Institute board of trustees. This is just off the top of my head so I am sure I have left off many good examples. Also, for me the company needs to have an understanding what they are doing evolved from Dr. Demings ideas to list them (many companies have practices which are Deming based but they do not have an appreciation for Demings system of management - I think that appreciation is needed to be a Deming company). Many companies that truly and deeply practice lean manufacturing are applying many of Demings ideas. However to me if they do not understand the roots of the ideas from Dr. Deming I dont consider that a Deming company. But that label is not all that meaningful anyway - so this just explains my thinking. People are Our Most Important Asset One of the beliefs I try and get the organizations I work for to adopt is to truly value excellent people. The costs are challenges of hiring great people, to me, makes it critical to do what you can to keep your exceptional people. I probably havent written about this because it can conflict with my advice against performance appraisals. I do actually believe it is possible to know certain people are great and contribute greatly to the success of your organization. I also believe many (a majority) organizations do such a bad job of identifying those people they shouldnt even try. But if you can identify some people that seem to be positive special causes of success there is a good argument for making sure they are happy. I dont believe you should try to pay these special employees fairly. Overpay them. I would much rather waste (10-20% on extra pay) than pay them fairly and make it easier for them to switch to another job. Talk to them and make sure they are doing what they want and making the progress they want. I find (I dont have enough data to know if this is generally true) that the best people complain the least and so you need to make extra efforts to find out what they might like to see improved.

Dont focus all of your energy on putting out fires and expect those that keep their areas of responsibility in decent shape without your intervention to just cope on their own. Since many managers adopt this only dealing with the squeaky wheel strategy (without saying that is what they do, of course), force yourself to spend time coaching, learning, helping the most successful - as well as others. I want to have employees delighted (all of them ideally, but at least those that are most critical). As Deming said it is easy for competitors to take away satisfied customers - it is not easy for a competitor to take away delighted customers. The same holds for employees. If you are concerned that this is in conflict with some of Demings ideas I think you are right. Ideally the entire company would be optimized so that all employees were delighted (as much as that is possible obviously even delighted employees might not love everything they must do or prefer to be at the beach some days) within the context of the best overall management system for the organization (improving employee satisfaction is part of the system needed to optimize results for all stakeholders). So ideally the organization would be providing all employees excellent coaching opportunities, all employees would be paid more than fairly, all employees would have the opportunity to develop along their desired plan, all employees would have great leadership, all employees would not be subject to continually annoyance of management system failures, all employees could count on the support of the system when needed But in organizations that I have worked for we are have not reached that point. So while working to move the organization closer and closer to that goal, I believe making some extra effort to focus on those people that are helping move the organization in that direction. But it is risky if done without an understanding of systems, variation, psychology, etc. Providing extra coaching, advice and attempting to protect people from the management failures you cant get fixed seem like pretty safe methods. Learning what goals the person has and helping them get there is also important (which is a big part of coaching - giving them opportunities to develop and grow with support). Without this effort what I have noticed is that you lose the people you most want to keep to new opportunities. In my opinion, it is critical, in order to do this well to apply all the management improvement understanding to this effort. I put a huge focus of the coaching on getting them to understand management improvement ideas. My efforts in this vein are focused on two things: building organizational capacity (and their individual capacity) and attempting to move them from dissatisfaction, or satisfaction, to happiness (delight so far has not really been a reasonable aim). Along these lines improvements in the system often have the dual benefit of improved performance and increased employee satisfaction. At the worst (if they leave) I hope they can carry some of the management improvement ideas to future jobs and find more success and happiness due to the knowledge and experience they gained working together.