Top Management Books

3

The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer

This book teaches readers in all industries ways to improve quality, reduce costs and accelerate business processes, based on Toyota’s consistent and superior high-quality products in light of less on-hand inventory, less man-hours and less real estate as opposed to its competitors.

The Toyota Way explains Toyota’s 14 management principles and philosophy for quality, reliability, cost and productivity. The 14 principles of the Toyota Way, described in the book, are as follows:

  • Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals
  • Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface
  • Use pullâ systems to avoid overproduction
  • Level out the workload
  • Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time
  • Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment
  • Use visual control so no problems are hidden
  • Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes
  • Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy and teach it to others
  • Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy
  • Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve
  • Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation
  • Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement rapidly
  • Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement

Through the book, future managers in all industries will learn about other organizations that successfully follow Toyota ways; key takeaways, however, business process improvements in quality and reliability both cost-effectively and productively while empowering employees to become partners in the transformational journey to The Toyota Way.