Envy Toyota. It's back.

Think Toyota and it comes to you

By the way, do you believe in synchronicity?

I do. 

Synchronicity, as you know, is first introduced by the psychology guru Carl G. Junk.

I simply understand it as a meaningful event to happen as a result of series of seemingly unrelated/meaningless events.

For instance, the moment you just have had your ex-girlfriend in mind, she just has called you.

My recent synchronicity is this.

I just have Toyota production system in mind for these days. 

In the process, I have come up with several articles about the system. 

You think about something, and you get what you think about. 

This is synchronicity, I guess.

The idea from those articles, Japan Nikkei Shimbun, Wallstreet Journal and BusinessWeek is helping me to make up a HRD lecture for Iranian executives which is still in the air.

I wonder synchronicity comes real when one is in deep think about something.

HRD, Human Resource Development, is also the most urgent agenda for  Japanese companies. 

Japan still as No.1 in production

Former editor in chief of the Economist Bill Emmott says in the Nikkei Shimbun recent articles that Japan falls behind U.K. in human resource development mainly because women being cared less in Japan in their career development. 

I quite agree.

But aside from gender issue which is a weakness of Japanese companies, strength does exist.

The BusinessWeek of Sep 2, 2021 says GE envy Toyota because Toyota managers focus on efficient operation.

 GE, which is moving toward across-the-board innovation, is in earnest seeking outside talents who are operationally minded.

GE’s intention, I gather, should want to copy the way Toyota built up its one and only lean production method which is equivalent to Kanban system.

Although some are criticizing the Kanban system as an old regime because businesses all over the world are suffering from the lack of semiconductors. They say time is for stock. No time for less stocks, they insist.

Lean production fights back

I still believe less is more which is the core of Kanban system. 

According to the Sep.2 Businessweek article, GE sees managers should be operationally focused, in other words, lean production minded.

The essence of Human Resource Development should lie in the mind of a company.

The company ethos for lean production is it.

                                                                                                   Ichiro Noro

                                                               Professor , Seiwa University, Japan           Visit the blogger for the same copy because no one clicked my article. (please!)

Ichiro's view on Japan and the world

Blogger