Elec2017 booklet isao yoshino - manager's role and responsibility at toyota

Managers’ Role &
Responsibility
at Toyota
Isao Yoshino, Nagoya Gakuin University
Masterclass, November 9th 2017
HAN University of Applied Sciences

Managers’ Role & Responsibiilty at Toyota, Isao Yoshino
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Introduction
Enclosed the slides used by professor Yoshino in his keynote at the fourth European Lean Educator
Conference (ELEC2017) in Nijmegen. Professor Yoshino describes the roles and responsibilities of
managers at Toyota. He specifies four main elements. First of all, the role or the manager is to set and attain
smart targets for his/her group, in line with higher level goals and the mission of the company. It is a main
task for the manager to motivate & develop people and to create a comfortable work environment for working
on the targets. The second element of the role of the manager concerns the work attitude. He/she needs to
be closely connected to the gemba, where it happens. His/her focus should be to understand what happens,
analyzing problems and searching for counter measures. He/she should be eager to find problems and
challenges at the gemba. The third element of the role and responsibility of the manager is to embrace
kaizen, putting forward the need for continuous improvement. The manager should be action oriented. The
fourth element of the managers’ role and responsibility concerns his/her task to be educator. The
development of the members of his/her team is a major, perhaps the most important, task of the manager.
There are many linkages between the four roles and responsibilities of the managers at Toyota. I
believe that it is worth for all managers (and other educators!!) to read the presentation of professor Yoshino
carefully and to reflect to all elements mentioned in the slides. Next: let’s go to the gemba to practice and
learn.
Jannes Slomp, Professor World Class Performance and Chair of ELEC2017
November 9th, 2017
(ps At the end of this booklet, you find part of an e-mail communication between Yoshino San and me about
his view on the role and responsibilities of managers at Toyota. It was clarifying for me.)
Isao Yoshino is a 40-year Toyota leader and spent a total of 14 years in the United States working on various
projects; manufacturing, locally in Florida, water-ski boats equipped with Lexus engines, market research on
stationary fuel cell equipment, etc. In 1979 and 1980, he became in charge of “Manager-Development
Program”, which was a two-year company-wide program (called “Kan-Pro” in Japanese) for all the back-
office managers at Toyota HQs in Japan. All managers created their own Hoshin Kanri documents using an
A3 and went through a presentation two times a year (in June & December) with the officers attending for Q
& A sessions. Through those two years, he witnessed all the managers reconfirm their roles &
responsibilities and also relearn the importance of Hoshin Kanri. Yoshino believes the “Kan-Pro” campaign is
one of the key practices that made Toyota what it is now.
In 1983, he was assigned to the manager of a newly-established training section for NUMMI’s shop floor
leaders. He hired John Shook from outside and other staff members from within to develop a hands-on
training program for American shop floor group/team leaders who travelled from Fremont, California. In
June, 1984, Yoshino and his team started training American shop floor leaders for three weeks at Toyota’s
plant. He saw some changes emerging in the US trainees’ mind and their attitude.

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Questions and some answers from Isao Yoshino
Yoshino San and I communicated through e-mail about his slides for the keynote at ELEC2017 through e-
mail. It was clarifying for me and also brought new questions. I suggested Yoshino San to put our
communication in this booklet. This was fine for Yoshino. I hope you enjoy the communication and that it
may lead to further discussions about the role and responsibilities of the manager (and educator).
My comments/questions are in black, Yoshino Sans’ answers in red.
Jannes Slomp
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First mail + answers from Yoshino San.
I went more carefully through your slides for the keynote at ELEC2017. I very much enjoy it. Each time that
I go through the slides, I discover new elements. No need to change anything. It will lead to good questions
and a meaningful discussion. I like the way you have clustered the 25 slides in four clusters. I’ll mail you
some of my thoughts.
Your first cluster is: ‘Establish & attain a target’. It is so in line with what Mike Rother calls ‘Toyota Kata’.
Setting targets is motivating and offers the means for discussion among managers in order to become
collectively focused on the same goal, the purpose of the company. I think that the pyramid in your first
slide (the slide: Management by Objectives) is important: it is essential that workers and managers in an
organization understand that they have to advance together toward the same goal.
Yes, it is very important for the top management (like chairman or president) to establish the company's
goal, first. Then each division (like "technical division" or "production division" or "sales & marketing
division", etc.) sets its own goal to get in line with the top management's goal, only focusing more on their
own segment they are in. Then, general managers of each department establish their own goal that
matches the division's goal, this time focusing more on their own area. By this way, top management's goal
is broken down from top to the bottom with the key direction clearly shared by all the people involved. In
other words, the lowest-ranking manager (such as an assistant manager of each section) can feel that
his/her own goal is a part of the company's goal. Hoshin activity helps to creat this kind of sense of unity.
I.Y.
Last week I read a page from the book of Ohno. He writes: “I frequently say that management should not
be done by arithmetic, but by ninjutsu, the art of invisibility”. Do your know what he means? He also
wrote that “management by ninjutsu means acquiring management skills by training”. I am puzzling about
what he exactly means with both sentences. Is it the continuous puzzle of managers ‘when to be there’
and ‘when to disappear/being invisible’ and that managers need training to learn this art? In your slides,
you suggest that managers should ask for detailed implementation plans (being into control) and on the
other hand only have to set targets (management by objectives).
I have read Ohno's book long time ago and I could understand most of what he says. Sometimes, he uses
incomprehensible expression just like prominent monks. I now remember he once talked about arithmetic
vs. "ninjutsu". Ninjutsu is a special strategy or tactics of unconventional warfare introduced in feudal Japan,
in Edo Era. Ninja is a person who uses ninjutsu skills. They are highly trained in techniques such as stealth
and secrecy. In ninja movies, they jump as high as 4 or 5 feet from the ground and get on the roof of a

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house easily. They can disappear when they are cornered using smoke balls. They throw shurikens
(throwing star) from a distance to defeat an enemy. As ninja is required to do these inconceivable things,
they need to go through a huge amount of training to master the technique. They cannot gain those
incredible ability and techniques overnight. They have to go through an extremely hard training for a long
time until it has become their second nature. I.Y.
So, I believe what Mr. Ohno meant by "management should be done by ninjutsu" actually means that you
have to go through a training over and over again, just like ninja have to go through to master ninjutsu,
until you believe you have acquired the habit of doing those practices without even noticing it yourself. In
order to attain a certain high level of management goals, you need to acquire this type of ability. Ohno
believes, on the other hand, that it is no good to make decisions only by looking at the data (from
computers or reports) or even assumption, which Mr. Ohno calls "arithmetic". He is suggesting that a
decision based on an experience after a lot of training makes more sense than a decision based on
arithmetic, which is made by data/information from desk theory. I.Y.
As to the expression of ‘when to be there’ and ‘when to disappear/being invisible’ , I have no idea what he
meant in what context. Can you tell me on which page is that expression presented? I.Y.
In my slide, I have suggested that managers should NOT give their subordinates too detailed instructions on
how to attain the goal. I would, rather, recommend that manager should leave more freedom to their
subordinates on how to attain the given goals. By doing so, you can give your subordinates more chances
to contemplate how to attain the goal. This is a good way to train your subordinates for establishing their
goal as well as the action plans to attain the goal. I.Y.
I enjoy your slide 6: the formula for group performance is nice. Few weeks ago, I spoke with a manager and
I asked him: “why do you employees like to work in your company?”. He told me that he once asked an
employee, and the employee told that it wat important for him that the company was clean and not too
noisy. Environment, part of the group performance, is important. It is a good formula and it would be very
well possible to spend a whole lecture on it… Also interesting and good that you stress the serving role of
the manager (taking care of motivation and environment). Linking this to your first slide: setting targets is
especially important for motivation purposes? It is not good to set targets which are not motivating?
I am glad you enjoyed my slide on page 8. We, at Toyota, believe "people make cars, not machines make
cars.". It means that, if workers are happy with what they do and how they are treated by the company
(means their direct bosses), it greatly helps workers to feel happy and positive with their work. Suggestion
System which Toyota has introduced so many years ago (actually copied from Ford Plant in Michigan) is a
good example. If each employee finds any kaizen items (to be improved) on their work or even on
somebody's work, he/she can put it on a Suggestion System Format and send it to the committee. Then
the committee evaluates it and make a decision whether the idea will be implemented or not. They also
evaluate how much reward money will be paid to the person who submitted the idea. Main focus of this
idea is to encourage all employees to look at their work, environment, whatever it is, and if they find
anything to be improved to be better or more efficient, they can bring it up by filling an idea on the format.
Minimum reward money is just 500yen (just 3.8 Euro), but key purpose is to encourage employees to come
up with any suggestions to make our job easier, safer,, more efficient, with less cost. It focuses on motiving
employees to participate in the improvement of our work. I.Y.
Your second cluster (Attitude Towards One’s Work) is also good. Basically, this attitude (which probably
needs training) means that the manager has a deep interest in what is going on at the workfloor. Also here,

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the art of management means, probably, that he/she has to search where (and when) to be, and where
(and when) to disappear.
That is right. "Having deep interest in what is going on at the workfloor" is very important because cars are
manufactured at the shop floor. So, managers need to come down to the shop floor if he/she wants to
know exactly what is happening at the Gemba. They can see things far better and far more exactly on the
Gemba than checking regular reports on the computer screen or paper. This kind of concept can be applied
not only to the manufacturing area, but also to any other division. As I mentioned in the power point on
page 9 through page 12, you can get true facts only through direct contact or Go-to-Gemba attitude. As
long as you keep this attitude, you can reach the real root cause of the problem. Without this attitude, you
might end up with wrong information and, as a result of this, with a wrong or irrelevant action plan. I.Y.
I enjoy your slide about collaboration. How is this formalized and organized at Toyota, through meetings?
Or is it part of management attitude? Are managers assessed, by managers higher in the hierarchy, about
their collaboration with others? How is consistency realized/monitored in Toyota? Or does it in a natural
way happen, because of the process of collaboration?
Yes, meeting is always a good method for all the people involved to be on the same page. Every time we
have a (big) problem, people from different sections are asked to get together to share the problem and to
come up with a solution. If the problem is a small one and limited to a certain segment and easy to solve,
maybe we don't have a meeting, but just discuss over phones or video communication. But if it is a big
problem with a certain kind of complexity, we quickly get together to solve the problem. It is quite time
consuming for all the busy guys to get together during their busy time, but bringing all the opinions,
comments, wisdom and viewpoints together is so important in order to make a good sound decision.
Besides these unexpected meetings, we have regular meetings for updates and other reasons. Yes,
collaboration with other people from other divisions/departments is so important as car manufacturing
business extends wide range. So, managers who are good in collaboration with other divisions are basically
assessed more highly than managers who are not. More importantly, managers who are good in
collaboration are respected highly due to his/her wider human network and information resources. One of
the key skills/capabilities that were evaluated in our company-wide "Kan-Pro" Project held in 1979 & 1980
was "persuasive ability", "negotiation force", "presentation skill". These abilities help managers to do
better collaboration with other departments. I.Y.
I am puzzling about the sentence: “The ‘preceding process’ is regarded as “a god”, which controls FATE,
while a “following process” is regarded as “the customer”. What does this exactly mean? We normally say
that the customer is “god” who need to be obeyed. Your third cluster (Kaizen Mind) is also informative. I
especially like the example of the pencil.. You stress cost consciousness in this slide. Many small companies
have to deal with ‘time-based competition’. In our research team, we also study ‘Quick Response
Manufacturing’, which is more ‘time consciousness’. Is ‘time’ and ‘cost’ similar at Toyota?
I know the expression of "god" would be confusing to the reader, particularly to people in Western
countries. We, at Toyota, often quote this expression just to show that Toyota's worker at a certain
process has a lot of respect to the preceding process. As long as the preceding process people deliver "a
good (means 'defect free') product to the next process, then workers at the next process can also make a
"good product" and deliver it to the next (following) process. To the workers at their own process, the
preceding process is indispensable for their work. They have to trust the preceding process people to do
their job right and deliver only a good product to the next process. "FATE" in the power point means that
the worker has no way to control the work of the preceding process. It also means that workers at each

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process should appreciate the good job which the workers at the preceding process do. Under the same
context, "the following process is a customer" means that the workers at the process need to do their job
right so that the workers at the following process feel happy to receive a good product. As the expression
of "god" might be confusing, I have revised this page as attached. Please look at page 16 for the latest
version. I.Y.
Slide 19 about the problem solver and diagnostician is also intriguing. We always say to our students that a
good diagnose is essential (A3); don’t jump to conclusions. Should especially the manager have the ability
to propose counter measures?
Yes, the manager should have the ability to think of a good counter measure for the problem. However,
he/she is not supposed to give their idea to their subordinates right away. It is important for managers to
let them think of a counter measure themselves. Managers can give them some hints that might lead to
the right countermeasure. If manager gives the countermeasure right away, subordinates don't have to
work hard to generate countermeasure themselves. As a result, subordinate lose a chance to learn how to
think very hard. Managers need to be patient when developing their subordinates. I.Y.
The fourth cluster (develop people) is good! It also fits nicely in the conference: the manager is also an
educator. In our last phone talk, you said that managers at a higher level need to be more serious. They
have to give the example of being more focused to the purpose of the company?
I agree. I personally believe Toyota is one of the most prominent companies in Japan that put big emphasis
on "people development". I.Y.
I enjoy the word ‘interdependence’ on slide 25. I believe that ‘creating and developing interdependencies
in a company’ is a key element of world class companies. That was also the topic of my inaugural speech,
some years ago.
I am little puzzling about who the manager is in slide 25. He must be the sandal producer? Serving workers
to enable them to do good work? But, I assume, he also is important for giving direction?
I don't know why I put this slide at the last page of the document. Maybe I was trying to emphasize the
importance of the role of managers who sometimes don't look like they are working very hard on the
surface, but they actually working very diligently behind the screen. I am that type myself, to be frank with
you. As to who is "the manager" in this slide, I have the same opinion with you. Without a good pair of
sandals, palanquin carriers cannot do their job, passenger inside the palanquin cannot visit his/her
destination. Some of my friends said "palanquin manufacturer". There would be several answers to this
question. But I just wanted to raise a question and see what kind of opinion people will come up with. Just
for the fun of it. I.Y.
So far some comments. It is a learning exercise for me to go through your powerpoint. I think that it is an
excellent powerpoint which will lead to several good questions and a good discussion at ELEC2017.

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Second mail from me (Jannes) to Yoshino San.
This mail was send short before ELEC2017, too short for getting feedback from Yoshino. But I’ll include it
here, because it gives my answers on some of the questions Yoshino San asks. Perhaps it may also open
new discussions.
I went through all your answers and it helps a lot to understand things better. Let me give you my thoughts
when I read all your answers. Of course, I have some new questions. Hope that I don’t make you tired…
It is interesting how you describe the goal-setting process in a company: starting with top management
who establishes the company’ goal. Then all divisions setting their own goal in order to get in line with the
top management goal. It is interesting that you say that each manager has to set his/her own goal so that it
is in line with a higher-level goal.
Although managers have to set their own goals, the way you describe it is a top-down process. It starts at
top management. Is there at Toyota also a bottom-up process with respect to ‘setting the compass of the
company’? I told you earlier the story of an engineering department of a small company which invites
customers to promote one of their new designs. This without approval of top management to launch the
new design. I also know an example of a larger company, where the R&D department did not get a budget
for developing a completely new product. The R&D department then, independently, decided to use hours
available for another project for the development of the new product. It became an enormous success.
Sometimes, workers/managers at lower levels have ideas with a strategic impact for the whole company.
So, is there a bottom-up hoshin development process at Toyota? Or is the Suggestion System used for it?
Are there examples at Toyota where the Suggestion System has led to changes in the strategy of Toyota?
Thanks for explaining what is meant by Ohno’s words “management should be done by ninjutsu”.
Management needs a lot of training in order to possess the art of making good decisions. The expressions
“when to be there” and “when to disappear/being invisible” are not from Ohno. These were my thoughts
when I read Ohno’s words “management should be done by ninjutsu, the art of invisibility”. A manager
should be there, when he/she is needed. Otherwise, it is better for him/her to be invisible, but probably
somewhere. This is what I thought. I imagine that it needs a lot of training from the manager to
understand when he/she has to act. A manager has to be able to weigh up the abilities and learning needs
of his workers in order to decide whether or not he/she is needed. This is what I thought. Otherwise, for
which activities of the manager is training needed (not arithmetic skills)?
It is nice how you explain the purpose of the Suggestion System. It is important to motivate employees to
help their company to improve. Is the Suggestion System used for all employees? For workers as well as
managers? To promise rewards for good idea’s may also be risky: employees may not share, or discuss
ideas with colleagues before they have entered it in the Suggestion System. But perhaps, this is a
European, of US, thought…
Good to read about the way Toyota stresses the importance of collaboration in the company. I think that
lack of collaboration could be one of the reasons why many western companies have difficulties to gain
success with their lean efforts. I think that we should value collaboration, and the skills you mention, more.
You changed page 16 and removed the expression of “god”. It is now less confusing, but I also liked the
confusion…… (Therefore, I include the ‘old slide’ here). The preceding process, our supplier, deserves
respect and admiration when providing us with good products. Good to express our gratitude toward our
good suppliers. We forget that easily and are just focused on the bad suppliers.

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You wrote that managers should have the ability to think of a good counter measure for a problem, but
he/she is not supposed to give their ideas to their subordinates right away. By writing this, you stress the
‘educator’ task of the manager. He/she needs to be able to solve problems, but his/her main task is to
coach his/her subordinates to come up with solutions. I think that this is difficult for people getting
promoted to manager functions. Is ‘worker development’ an explicit objective of Toyota managers?
It is good to give the puzzle in your last slide. It gives also food for discussion among the attendees of
ELEC2017.

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HAN Lean-QRM Center
The HAN Lean-QRM Center (HLQC) at HAN University of Applied Sciences is the center of
excellence on Lean and Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) practices and techniques. The
Center’s main purpose is to discover, develop and share knowledge about Lean and QRM.
The Center closely cooperates with many manufacturing and service organizations. The
HLQC has over 60 partner companies participating in projects.
The team of the HAN Lean-QRM Center is devoted to creating links between practice, higher
education and applied research on lean and QRM. Over 120 students participate in the
minor World Class Performance at the HLQC and are carrying out improvement projects at
partner firms. In addition, the HLQC is in-volved in many (applied) research projects, funded
by companies and/or government.

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Elec2017 booklet isao yoshino - manager's role and responsibility at toyota