TW Chapter 2: Define your company's purpose and begin to live it Flashcards
What is the foundational question of Toyota Way?
Why do we exist as a company?
What is a foundational question for building a learn learning enterprise?
What is it worth investing to achieve the purpose of the company?
What is a sense of purpose in business?
Its effect on people and its effect on business, internally and externally.
Short-term goals within a commitment to long-term thinking
What is the philosophy behind lean systems (internal, business processes)?
It may be necessary to introduce short-term inefficiency or waste (Capable Processes) to achieve long-term reduction in waste (Value Stream Improvement)
The philosophical focus is necessary if there is to be a lean system that does more than merely reduce obvious waste.
What is a learning community (internal, people processes)?
A company where lean systems make problems obvious and force people to think. This requires investment in learning systems that capture the knowledge that arises from innovative countermeasures, so the knowledge can be used again.
This starts with people who have the capacity to learn. Then comes reciprocity: the individual has a commitment to the company, as the company has commitment to the individual. So, the company invests in the people.
Toyota sees people in terms of a long-term investment
What is Lean Enterprise (External, people processes)?
The process of investing to develop external partners that provide lean service too, since the purpose of the company is dependent on those partners. Saying, “They did it, not us,” is no comfort to those who are the victims of bad outcomes.
What are Value-Adding Contributors (External, business processes)?
People who believe the company’s purpose, so they will sacrifice to make it work.
How might a company develop a Toyota Way style philosophy?
1) Get together and take stock of the current situation. What is our current culture? What are its roots? What is the gap between our stated philosophy and its real culture? How do we know; have we gone and seen (genchi genbutsu)?
2) What is the vision of the future state we wish to achieve? What do we want out philosophy to look like? What do we want to look like internally and externally, in people and business?
When developing business philosophy, what is an essential element?
The broader corporate strategy. Strategy is choosing a unique and valuable position rooted in systems of activities that are difficult to match.
Strategy states what businesses will do, and what they will not do.
Once a business strategy is in place, what else must be developed to create a company purpose?
1) What lean systems are required to satisfy the strategy’s outside business purpose?
2) What kind of people are needed to support this vision inside the company?
3) What kind of people are needed to support this vision outside the company in our partners?
Once a philosophy is developed, what is the vital next step?
Living the philosophy; a major commitment to sustained and consistent action that aligns with philosophy. It is commitment to a “Way.”
All leaders must be engaged in such a belief. Training should be developed to teach it and reinforce it.
What must occur to develop a long-term learning community among the people of the company?
A social pact must be formed between employees and partners. What kind of a social pact?: One that develops a long-term commitment that people who do good work will not be disposed of or cast away. People who do not do good work will be warned, and trained to improve.
How is the company purpose made permanent?
With Continuity of Purpose.
Start with Culture Change: establishing a SHARED set of values, beliefs, and assumptions. This culture must be strong among the leaders, and must survive one particular person.
Thus, leaders must have continuity as well. Leaders are grown from within, in accordance with the common vision for the company. There is a succession system in the company.
Leaders who are brought from outside do not begin at the top, but must be carefully developed and nurtured over the years in the company’s way.
