What Follows

Our purpose is to help companies that are serious about operational excellence understand the deep and patient process that is required to develop lean leaders. We will do that largely through telling stories about how Toyota developed American leaders. We will begin in Chapter 1 with an overview of the values that Toyota follows for all its operations and the leadership development model that it has evolved from these values. The chapter will offer an example of how a traditional Japanese Toyota leader experienced that model, and how the model helped Toyota define what it was looking for in its American leaders.

Chapter 2 will follow the parallel development of Gary as a Toyota leader and Toyota in America. In 1984, Toyota launched its first largescale assembly plant in North America, NUMMI. The venture was established in a former GM plant, which Toyota faced the challenge of transforming from an environment noted for its antagonistic labor-management relations into the best auto plant in North America, with a labor relations climate based on mutual trust. Gary was hired away from Ford into the role of plant manager for NUMMI; this is where Gary was coached by Toyota leaders who helped him get started in “self-development.”