What does Toyota’s halting of sales and production of cars in the US have anything to do for anybody in career transition and seeking a job? Everything if you are trying to chase dollars and jobs at the expense of career longevity. Toyota North America decided to halt manufacturing and sales in the US today because they were “chasing numbers” and “grasping for salvation” according to New York Time’s Hiroko Tabuchi today. The recent recalls on the popular models signaled they are not working for the right reasons. Some are saying the drastic move will hurt Japanese automaker by shaking the confidence of consumers.
The andon board that lights up when the cord is pulled to halt the assembly line.
Pish-posh is what I say. Toyota will come out better because they are returning to their core values. Toyota has an industry unique manufacturing process. Anybody on the manufacturing line has the power to stop everything at anytime for any reason. One lowly worker putting on the Toyota decal can shut down the plant if the decal has a defect by pulling the Andon cord. The decal is not a critical part of the car, but it represents quality, a core value of Toyota.
Here is Toyota’s reason for giving so much power to someone in a lowly position. Taiichi Ohno created the Toyota Production System and had a great ha-ah moment in his career. Give workers the ability to take control and the factory stops producing unnecessary items. Before workers where told “just do this job, and focus on productivity.” But what they produced was lots of unwanted products.
I’ve seen a lot of job hunters strive for productivity (money) and end up making themselves into a product nobody wants to buy. “ I don’t need to worry about what I do, I must just do a job.” Even in their job search they will take quantity (any job) over quality (a fitting job). The reason for falling into this trap is they have lost touch with their core values, or possibly never knew what they were.
How do you get back to quality? Pull the Andon Cord in your life and stop everything. Stop trying to grasp for salvation and the instant fix by chasing numbers. Ignore the experts who say stopping and changing directions is a fatal drastic move. Remember and/or find out what you do best and return to it. If you don’t know start by taking the DISC profile test (ask me) and get a copy of Strengths Finder 2.0 from Amazon. Ask your friends, past colleagues and family what you do best. You might be surprised to hear what you are good at seems almost common place to you. We often overlook our best gifting. Then start doing again what you do best.
Give yourself the power to control the assembly line of your life and say I’ve got a problem here and I can’t go forward until it is fixed.
Toyota is doing what they do best, stopping everything until it is fixed. This time it is the whole US division. Here is an interesting fact: each year when the North America Toyota plant’s quality dropped to the bronze level as judged by JD Power Awards, the next award Toyota received improved to gold. In 2009 they received only bronze. Want to take a bet on what award they will earn in 2010?
Now, go do like wise.
