Finally, there are vice presidents and one president.
This may seem like quite a bit of management, but in actuality the quantities
of leaders at higher levels diminishes rapidly (about one upper leader to three to
five lower leaders). This leadership structure supports several thousand associates.
The Georgetown facility had nearly 7,000 total employees at one time, the
largest facility in North America. This organizational structure was not in place
from the beginning. When the plant was started there were fewer layers. There
were no assistant managers, and no layers between the manager and president.
Most likely this was done to allow the development of high-level leaders from
within the organization, and to add responsibility as the plant grew. During the
plant start-up, each member of the leadership team had a Japanese trainer
assigned to support and teach them the Toyota Way. Upper level managers each
had a Japanese peer who shared in the decision-making responsibility. As the
ability levels grew, the need for continued Japanese support diminished, and
after several years the number of Japanese managers permanently assigned had
fallen to less than 2 percent.
Toyota Georgetown Staff Leadership Structure
The office staff or engineering position structure is similar to the production
structure, except there are usually no group or team leaders. This structure is
also similar to that used by many companies, though there are few position
titles. The office staff includes “assistant staff” and “associate staff,” who have
responsibility for nontechnical jobs, and “specialists,” who have specific techni-
cal skills and are responsible for production engineering, facilities maintenance,
safety and environmental compliance, accounting, human resources, and other
assignments requiring a technical degree.
Small teams of assistant staff and specialists report to an assistant manager,
and several assistant managers report to a departmental manager. In the case of
a production department, the manager can have responsibility for both pro-
duction and staff employees. Some departments with a great deal of technical
support may have a separate manager for the staff employees.
Requirements for Leaders
Toyota borrowed some of their philosophies on leadership from material origi-
nally developed in the United States by the War Manpower Commission.^1 Many
of the skills that were taught by Toyota were specifically mentioned throughout
the Training Within Industry (TWI) material on Job Relations, Job Methods, and
Job Instruction (see Chapter 11). TWI identified five characteristics necessary for
224 THETOYOTAWAYFIELDBOOK
(^1) Training Within Industry Service; Bureau of Training, War Manpower Commission, Washington,
D.C., 1944