Companies that have made this next big leap forward from tools and tech-
niques to a management philosophy and a system start shifting attention to cul-
ture change. What do we mean by culture? It is a sharedset of values, beliefs, and
assumptions. The key is that it is shared. And strong cultures last beyond partic-
ular leaders. Constancy of purpose comes from having a strong company culture
starting at the top leadership level, and sticking with it across generations of
leaders. Arguably, Toyota’s basic management culture began when Sakichi Toyoda
started Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1926. Since then, the management
principles of the Toyota Way have evolved, but have not deviated in any funda-
mental way from what Sakichi believed. We are talking about almost 80 years of
an evolving culture—of constancy of purpose. In historical terms that still is a
tiny slice of time. But it beats most companies that turn over leadership every
one to three years, and with each new leader comes a new philosophy.
So how can you get what Edward Deming called “constancy of purpose”?
The answer is simply that it has to come through continuity of leaders. You
need a set of aligned leaders who truly believe in a common vision for the com-
pany. You need to act on it in a consistent way over time. Eventually, if you do
this, it will become your culture. Then, to keep the culture going, leaders who
live the culture must be grown from within. This requires a succession system.
Any leaders brought in from the outside have to start somewhere below the
top of the company and be carefully developed and nurtured over years in
your way.
What if you do not have committed leaders? You have to start someplace.
And the best place to start is through actions that improve processes and deliver
bottom-line results. Use that to gain management attention and start building
support from the grass roots level up. If you do not succeed in changing the
thinking of top leaders at least you will have some improved processes, and you
will have learned a lot.
28 THETOYOTAWAYFIELDBOOK
TRAP
Faking a Valiant Purpose
Many companies have off-site meetings where they proclaim
motherhood and apple pie mission statements—satisfying cus-
tomers, empowering employees, continuous improvement, and on
and on. While a good first step, the second step is to take the mis-
sion statement seriously. Behavior that is contrary to the mission
statement immediately signals to the ever weary employee that the
commitment is not real. Credibility is lost and the mission statement
is worthless... actually doing more harm than good to morale.