Quality above all else
Football star Joe Montana once said, “Confidence is a very fragile thing.” The Toyota Corporation is knee-deep in crisis. After over 75 years since its founding, Toyota struggles to maintain the “Toyota Way 2001,” the management credo that stakes company values on two principles — Respect for People and Continuous Improvement.
Six million drivers in the U.S. alone have had their automobiles recalled for safety issues. Mr. Toyoda, President of Toyota, made steps to repair the broken relationship between the corporation and its customers by starting with an apology.
“At his news conference…Mr. Toyoda lamented that an overzealous pursuit of growth had led Toyota to lose sight of its commitment to quality. ‘We so aggressively pursued numbers that we were unable to keep up with training staff to oversee quality. We were also somewhat slow in collecting, analyzing and acting on complaints we received from our drivers.’” (New York Times, “Toyota Takes New Steps to Restore Confidence,” February 17, 2010)
The difficulties of the world’s biggest automaker reminds us that profit is always one goal of business but never the single driver.
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