Reviewed by: Tan Chee Teik

AFTER the success of The Toyota Way, this book delves into more detail about the human systems at Toyota. It covers how Toyota selects and develops people and gets them committed to the mission of the company. It looks at the human resource systems for health and safety, planning to ensure stable employment, and how management policies and goals are deployed through the organisation. The reader will learn about teamwork, leadership, and communications.

The Toyota Way is about culture: the way people think and behave is deeply rooted in the company's philosophy and its principles. At the core, it is about respect for people and continuous improvement, and this has not changed since the founding of the motor company in Japan in 1926. When Toyota sets up shop in a new country, they carefully study the local community and determine how best to develop the Toyota culture in that environment. From experience, they have learnt that it requires both time and patience. It took almost 15 years at Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Georgetown, Kentucky-the first wholly owned Toyota assembly in the United States.

One must not presume that Toyota has perfected developing a uniform culture even within a given operation. There are subcultures that form naturally in a plant. For example, the subculture of plant managers is different from that of the human resource managers. Managers have a different subculture compared to production operatives.

Toyota works hard to develop a common culture across the company, even between the shop floor and the office. As the company expands globally, it is a difficult process to achieve strong alignment among the different levels of culture. The company begins by selecting employees and partners, and then expands to maximising every opportunity to reach and socialise the team members into the organisational way of thinking.

Early Toyota leaders established the goal that they must transfer the essence ofthe Toyota Way to North America regardless ofthe culture. Through debate, discussion, and experimentation, and with the aid of the Americans, they began to find out what parts of the culture needed to be transferred. There were modifications, such as small individual rewards, but no great change in the basic values. Leaders among the Americans were intensively interviewed for their "character", and extensive evaluations identify team-oriented employees. Once people are brought into the cultural values of the Toyota Way, it is drilled into them all the time, much like a boot camp experience. In time, they become Toyota team members who then transfer this culture to the next generation of employees and so on.

This book will help readers to encourage problem-solving at all levels of the organisation; make management accountable to employees; inspire other workers to be committed to the company, family and community; and turn the HR department into the arbitrators of fair and consistent daily practices.