I received a copy of the recently published book Toyota Under Fire by Jeffrey K. Liker and Timothy Ogden and was asked to write up a short review of the contents. In interests of full disclosure I am of course a former employee of Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan having worked in engine manufacturing. Also I have known Jeff Liker for over a decade and jointly participate with him and other authors at the LeanEdge.com website.
Overall I thought that this was a very well researched and detailed book pertaining to the various problems and recall incidents that plagued Toyota the past couple of years. Unfortunately in today’s media the newsroom lives by the mantra “if it bleeds it leads”. As a result sensational highlights with accusations instead of objective facts are the norm instead of detailed investigative journalism. That unfortunately is a sad commentary on the state of the news media today and our apparent appetite for that style of reporting.
Instead of relying upon the superficial media reporting done by organizations like the Los Angeles Times and other news agencies Liker and Ogden practiced their own form of “genchi genbutsu” and worked to get to the bottom of the all the conflicting stories about the recalls and sort out the basic facts. The result is an excellent story of what actually occurred and it is told in five roughly chronological chapters:
1. The Most Admired Company in the World
2. The Oil Crisis and the Great Recession
3. The Recall Crisis
4. Response and the Road to Recovery
5. Lessons
I thought that the clear strength of the book was in its investigative reporting of the actual problems that Toyota was facing and how they responded. This was all jumbled in the media and poorly communicated but at various times Toyota faced the following problems: Petal entrapment by unsecured or incompatible floor mats, Sticking accelerator petals, Electronic throttle control systems failure, and the 2010 Prius ABS problem.
I won’t spoil the fun in reading about what really transpired in each of the cases. Separating the facts from the myths and highlighting the errors in the media is the most interesting part of the book in my opinion. On the most serious accusation (Sudden Unintended Acceleration) I will point out that the NHTSA has issued a report authored by different scientists and lead by NASA that there is no finding of electronics based caused for unintended high speed acceleration. That was always the million dollar question in my mind compared to the other topics. As this book and other reports show Toyota’s incidence rate for this problem is not significantly different from other manufacturers and there is still is no documented case of SUA that has ever been established for any manufacturer. If that seems impossible to believe then you need to read the book to understand the testing that goes on and what has been established so far and why.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in the facts of what transpired on the various “problems” and how Toyota reacted to those problems. You’ll see the pattern of sensational reporting by the news media and the overly slow and caution approach of Toyota which exacerbated several of the problems. Throw in language and location problems between Toyota engineers in Japan and sales in the Unites States and you can see why the cases unfolded the way they did.
If there is a section of the book that could be improved I think it is in the latter section of Lessons Learned and what the company is doing to improve and prevent these sorts of problems again. Some of the Lessons seem like more like “Observations” and I could not link them directly back to the overall problems that occurred for Toyota.
For example Lesson 2 is that “A culture of responsibility will always beat a culture of finger pointing”. In the end I agree but as shown in the Toyota case finger pointing grabs the headlines and puts the company on the defensive and in a negative position very quickly unless they are careful and more proactive than Toyota was. I am not sure how Toyota would handle this differently today or tomorrow. I presume they learned but the key action items of the lesson are not clear to me in this case and in one other.
That minor nitpicking aside I honestly enjoyed reading the book and found it to be very good reporting – the type I wish the news media would engage in. You won’t learn the overall facts of the case anywhere else yet in this convenient of a format. If getting the facts organized and straight matter to you then this book is the place to start. For general information about Toyota the early chapter covering some of the history of the company is very useful as well.
I also admit to knowing Art–great student of TPS. As for the culture of responsibility, we agree that in the short term there was pain as a result of apologizing and taking responsibility as the U.S. press misinterpreted what was going on. But the long-term benefit was this culture avoided placing blame externally and forced all team members to look in the mirror at themselves. What Akio Toyoda and the leadership team wanted was for all team members globally to look at the recall crisis and ask: “What could we have done better for the satisfaction and well being of our customers?” That type of reflection was done by each and every part of Toyota and they all came up with problems, root causes, and countermeasures, whether they were directly implicated in the recall crisis or not. For example, manufacturing had nothing to do with any of the problems yet they concluded they are the last line of defense against defects, subjective or objective, getting through to the customer and have to take the final responsibility taking action even if it is shaking up engineering to make changes. Throughout the crisis in different phases and different ways Toyota’s policy of not pointing the finger at others, and taking responsibility, served them well and was a key reason that they will emerge as a stronger company.
Thanks for taking the time to read and review Toyota Under Fire. Jeff and I are very hopeful that the book will help set the record straight on the recall “crisis” but also give readers a view of how Toyota operates in difficult times.
If you’ll allow me, I’d like to clarify the point that Jeff and I were trying to make on Lesson 2 that you discuss in your review. As you note it’s true that finger-pointing can get headlines and cause damage. But I don’t think that means that finger-pointing wins unless your perspective is just short-term gain. As you know, that is not Toyota’s perspective, and not the perspective we were emphasizing. Thus, the lesson we see from Toyota’s experience in the crisis, is that they could have taken a more finger-pointing approach and averted some short-term damage. But if Toyota had done this, they would have lost the opportunity for reflection and improvement–and they would have not been any better off in the long-term (nor would customers have benefited). In fact, we contend they would have been much worse off by minimizing the short-term damage but failing to avail themselves of the opportunity for improvement. Thus, we do think a lesson from the final outcome of the Toyota crisis is that a culture of responsibility does always win from the perspective that truly matters.
Thanks again for your thoughtful review.
Best Regards,
Tim Ogden