Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way (BUSINESS BOOKS)

Libro molto interessante. Chiarisce bene i concetti della lean e la loro origine. Inoltre tratta con attenzione le differenze tra la cultura occidentale ed orientale rispondendo alle naturali obiezioni che si trovano in azienda.Il libro è in inglese ma sembra non essere difficile. Peccato non averlo trovato in Italiano.

No entiendo un sistema que no te permite reclamar un producto que has pagado y nunca ha llegado a tus manos... alguien debería decirme porque?O darme la oportunidad de explicarme antes de escribir aquí!! No existen números, nada???

Toyota Culture is the 5th book in "the Liker Toyota series". After Toyota Way, Toyota Way Fieldbook, Toyota Product Development and Toyota Talent, you would expect that there is less news to write about Toyota. Well, not true. Toyota Talent is the thickest book in the series with it's almost 600 pages of Toyota info.Toyota Culture mainly covers HR practices and related policies. It describes this as "the people value stream". How does Toyota hire and train people (the detailed training processes are described in Toyota Talent). How do they grow inside the company. How does Toyota work with the local communities.The book is separated in five parts:- What is Toyota Culture?- The Quality People Value Stream- People Supporting Process- Organizational Supporting Processes- Learning from ToyotaThe first part is some-of an introduction. It explores what "company culture" means by referring to the work of Ed Schein. Then it introduces "the people value-stream" which the rest of the book is organized around. Part 2 is about the value stream itself while part 3 and 4 are the supporting processes of the people value stream.Part 2 talks about how Toyota does hiring and how they grow the people within the company. It starts with the hiring and from there onto the training part (which had some duplication with Toyota Talent) and then moved into problem solving, one of the essential parts of the Toyota culture. It ends with how Toyota builds its image and works with the local communities to improve the life of its employees.The third part starts by looking at the Toyota organizational structure, work teams and the team leader role. From there it moves to safe workplaces and how the standard problem solving is also applied to workplace safety problems. The last 2 chapters are about visual management and servant leadership. How management acts as servants and teachers to the workers, enabling the value-added work.The fourth part looks at organizational supporting processes and especially HR processes. Toyota still want people to have a job for life, even though this is not common outside Japan. It talks about how Toyota deals with ups and downs in resourcing and moves to HR policies and rewarding policies (an very interesting chapter!). Chapter 15 is a short introduction to Hoshin Kanri.The last part is about learning from Toyota, the "what can you do" part which many books end with. The first two chapters describes a couple of Toyota Way implementations within Toyota itself, to try to learn from that. The last chapter (probably the best) looks at lean implementations and wonders why they fail. It tries to find general change recommendations to try to learn from Toyota while creating your own company culture.Parts of the book were extremely good and, at other times, parts of the book were somewhat long and boring. I'd give it 4.5 stars if I had that possibility and decided to go to 5 stars since I felt the last chapter was really very good.A couple of things that I didn't like. Most of the book talks about Toyota in the US and seldom talks about the Toyota culture in Japan. It's obvious the authors are most familiar with the Toyota US situation. Also, most of the book still has a manufacturing focus. There is very little about other functions (e.g. product development) within the book itself. The culture in the different functions is probably similar, but will also have differences. Things like organizational structures and teamwork will be different in the different functions and thats not covered.All in all, another great Toyota book. Highly recommended for people who are interested in how Toyota works and why. I wouldn't recommend it as your first Toyota book, I'd probably then start with the Toyota Way book and move to this one after that.

Lean is not sustainable without the culture to support it. This culture is a complex amalgam of leadership values, open communication, training and development, and measures to build trust. People are the key and, indeed, the early name for the Toyota Production System was the "Respect for Humanity" system. "Toyota Culture" describes how a supportive and continuously improving culture has been developed at Toyota's American plants. The book goes into considerable detail of the "People Value Stream" at Toyota and how it is sustained and developed. It is a long book packed with insights and case studies, but there are no quick fixes here - no "do this and you'll be sorted in a year" magic pills. It's a slow process of building trust and working together. That's what lean is all about and this book is essential reading for anyone aiming to build a continuously improving lean organisation for the long term. It is true that there are no quick fixes but surely the results, and the joy of working in such an organisation, make the effort worthwhile.

Very well done and you understand how this company has become so big and respected in the world : making big investment in people's skill !