John Shook the former Toyota sensei and deeply knowledgeable teacher of the Toyota Production System published the following blog which describes what happened and the lessons we all need to take away from Toyota's misfortunes.
Curious that politicians had little comment regarding the study that was published last week on Toyota, this according to John Shook: "The ten-month study by 30 NASA engineers found "no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large unintended accelerations," according to Michael Kirsch, principal engineer and team leader of the study. This means that the reports of SUA were caused by "pedal misapplication," otherwise known as driver error".
John goes on to say however, that Toyota, by their own admittance, had lost their way by trying to be bigger not better. Focusing on the fundamental principles of the Toyota Production System creating improved customer value year over year rather than trying to become the biggest car company would have probably averted this disaster. John indicated it will take years for Toyota to reverse in misfortunes related to this blunder but they undoubtedly will with their renewed focus on customer value.
I visit with many hospital senior teams and go to the gemba many places around the world each year. The message from the Toyota story is pretty clear to me and I hope hospital and health system executives take this to heart: It only takes one leader to steer an organization drastically off course even if the organization has a deeply rooted culture of improvement. The other observation is that when the facts don't bear out politician's accusations they don't have to be concerned about being held accountable for being dead wrong.
To read the article, click here - Shook email
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