Toyota vs GM: just for laughs

[Franck_Qc]

A Modern Parable.

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (GM) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practised long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and cancelled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.

The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, the End.

Here's something else to think about: GM has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while GM racked up over 20 billion in losses.

GM folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses... and now wants the Government to 'bail them out'.

IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY

[Kal-El]

An oldie, but so true.

[toyo]

god damn what an awesome read!!

[staticorex]

Nice.

[AlexNet0]

LOL epicness

[GeneW]

Here's something else to think about: GM has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while GM racked up over 20 billion in losses.

GM folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses... and now wants the Government to 'bail them out'."

Ever talk to a GM R&D person? Politics. Good ole boy networks. Top down management.

GM made money for many years in spite of itself.


The real irony is that Japanese culture seems to thrive on group consensus, or "The Nail that Stands up gets hammered down". Yet they seem to empower their employees far far more than GM will do for their's. Decision making is pushed down. Executive salaries at Toyota are not as high as at GM. There isn't an adversarial relationship between rank 'n file and management at Toyota, if anything it's a common effort.

[detroiter]

I think it's safe to say though that given that much empowerment in whatever position it is...the typical Japanese would respect it and stay within reason of the powers, not getting too greedy. Typical American would see how far they could push it and what they could get away with all for personal gain.

The typical Japanese mentality is when they all do a good job, the company does a good job and that's what makes them proud. The typical American mentality is how much you going to pay me and IF I DO A GOOD JOB, THEN HOW WILL I BE REWARDED FOR IT?

It's easy to see the group mentality of the Japanese as compared to the "it's all about me" individuality thought process of alot of Americans.

I was staying with my friend in Japan for about a month, a few years ago and they worked rediculous hours. And they were not the only ones, most everyone I met there who was a worker for a halfway decent job, worked LONG hours. 10-12 hour work days for 5-6 days a week were normal. I wonder how many people I know here in the states could hack a schedule like that.

[GeneW]

A Modern Parable.

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (GM) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practised long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing. The Americans at first denied that this difference in rowers mattered, if only because "we're too big to fail".

Performance monitoring showed that at times the American canoe came close to a halt while the rowers wrangled over issues. One of the rowers wanted better working conditions so they waged a slow down until they got what they wanted. The other rower wanted to give orders and sometimes refused to paddle, saying it wasn't their job. The steering crew told both to get back to work and ignored their concerns.

The ones steering the American canoe sometimes spent time discussing the weather, the water conditions and other tangential crap instead of steering. At various points in time factions of those who steered the canoe fought each other instead of doing their jobs, especially those who had graduated from a different school or who were friends with a high level steering person.

When the Japanese canoe went out further ahead instead of helping to row the ones steering started yelling at the rowers to "work harder". At one point one of the steering people even threatened to "outsource" the rowing in order to frighten the rowers. In response to this latter "motivation" both rowers slowed down in order to conserve their strength.

On the Japanese Canoe one of the rowers discovered a more efficient stroke because they reasoned that it would work better in local water conditions. The other rowers copied this rower. When it seemed that the Americans were gaining on them the person who was steering helped to paddle. Everyone encouraged each other to work harder to gain more distance. Not content to beat the Americans the Japanese worked to beat their own previous times, reasoning that they were competing against themselves. Seeing the steering person row motivated the rowers to work harder because they recognized leadership when they saw it.

All of these insights were given to the managers of the American canoe team.

Rather than adopt the Japanese system, or just make the steering group more flexible so it could help pull the load during crisis times the Americans concluded that Japanese are "different" and they needed "help", so they petitioned the government for an outboard motor.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by detroiter

I was staying with my friend in Japan for about a month, a few years ago and they worked rediculous hours. And they were not the only ones, most everyone I met there who was a worker for a halfway decent job, worked LONG hours. 10-12 hour work days for 5-6 days a week were normal. I wonder how many people I know here in the states could hack a schedule like that.

They're not always efficient, though. A lot of Execs in Japanese firms also party with their people, sometimes late into the night. They're back at work the next day.

A LOT of Americans work fifty hour weeks. I am averaging about forty five hours a week, plus more during crunch times. I'm heading to work today to do some reports and gather data. We also help each other out a great deal and don't sweat our money since times are tough right now.


Where Toyota does well is in their sense of team. They don't indulge non-sense like class struggle, either from below or from above. You don't see Good Ole Boy networks above wanting to control every little thing, making gigantic salaries and lording it over the peasants. You don't see people from below playing haves vs have nots with "Troublemaker's Guides" and other cute non-sense. You don't see that "I'll grab what I can get from the company... f' em" either in the form of bloated pensions or insane bonuses for antics like chopping head count. You get recognized for doing more with what you got, not doing more by beating on people.

Probably the biggest thing I've noticed from the literature is that Toyota doesn't pay people not to think or not to care about what they're doing.

Gene

[frownonfun]

Originally Posted by detroiter

I was staying with my friend in Japan for about a month, a few years ago and they worked rediculous hours. And they were not the only ones, most everyone I met there who was a worker for a halfway decent job, worked LONG hours. 10-12 hour work days for 5-6 days a week were normal. I wonder how many people I know here in the states could hack a schedule like that.

i think many people in the states DO hack a schedule like. matter fact i think we are one of the most over worked countries in the world personally. i have been with the same company for 3 years now and a 10 hour day is the norm and a 6 or 7 day work week is not at all uncommon. that's what you call blue collar. i don't know how schedules are for those in more professional positions but to say the US doesn't have people who work their asses off is kinda insulting. the problem isn't that americans are lazy or don't care it's that too much money goes to the people on top.

[detroiter]

I see where your coming from, I guess I can't put my thoughts into the right wording. I heavily agree that Americans are overworked and do NOT get enough vacation time like most other countries citizens typically recieve.

[Kal-El]

I work from 8 am-9:30 pm 5 days a week and still can't pay all the bills.

It is true that Americans actually work among the most amount of hours per year.

In many European countries, such as Germany, they work only 32 hours a week (that's full time for them) and have like 6-8 weeks of vacation.

Many Americans are lucky to get 1 week off a year.

[frownonfun]

Originally Posted by Kal-El

I work from 8 am-9:30 pm 5 days a week and still can't pay all the bills.

It is true that Americans actually work among the most amount of hours per year.

In many European countries, such as Germany, they work only 32 hours a week (that's full time for them) and have like 6-8 weeks of vacation.

Many Americans are lucky to get 1 week off a year.

yeah i don't wanna turn this into a me complaining about my job thread, cuz i like my job. but i don't get any paid days off. nada. vacations i take cost me not only for the vacation but for the time i miss from work. something is wrong with that. who does get paid vacations though? the people on top. the ones getting rich off the peons like me.

also when i lived in england... it seemed that people never worked. shops closed at like 2 or 3 in the afternoon and restaurants were open only during evening hours. finding a 24 hour store seemed like a rarity. it was weird to me. it's like no one worked that long at all. yet the uk seems to be managing just fine. or no worse than us anyway.

it seems to me we lag behind other countries in many many ways these days yet we work more than anyone else in the world. what's up with that?

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by frownonfun

it seems to me we lag behind other countries in many many ways these days yet we work more than anyone else in the world. what's up with that?

We have military personnel in over 100 nations, a thirteen carrier group Navy, thousands of warheads, two small wars and millions of people under arms.

Being the Planet's Policeman is not cheap.

Gene

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by Kal-El

I work from 8 am-9:30 pm 5 days a week and still can't pay all the bills.

It is true that Americans actually work among the most amount of hours per year.

In many European countries, such as Germany, they work only 32 hours a week (that's full time for them) and have like 6-8 weeks of vacation.

Many Americans are lucky to get 1 week off a year.

Germany's economy contracted last year and will contract still further in 2009. Their "social welfare" system is VERY expensive. We'll see how long they keep on getting those two months a year off for "holiday" while people in Asia work seven day weeks, live in dormitories and eat two meals a day until they burn out, get fired and are replaced by eager people from the countryside.

Gene