Toyota has been one of the most successful global corporations for a generation. So we feel that it must be doing something innovative to continue to thrive when the environmental forces continue to challenge even the most successful corporations. Toyota as a company is traditional, bureaucratic, male oriented, seemingly mechanistic organization. Peel back the visible corporate physical evidence and you find a thriving internal culture that is the hallmark of innovation, adaptability and continual change.
1. Would you consider Toyota to be an innovative organization? Why or why not?
2. Do you think Toyota’s potentially inbred leadership hinders, or explains, its successes?
3. In 2011, Toyota’s profits and production fell as a result of the tsunami that hit Japan in March of that year. Do you think that given its culture, Toyota will find it difficult to bounce back from these challenges?
4. The new president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda (grandson of the founder), has said, “Everyone says Toyota is the best company in the world, but the consumer doesn’t care about the world. They care if we are the best in town.” What do you think he means by that?