President Sato
Two years have passed since I was appointed to serve as president of Toyota Motor Corporation.
Even now, I am still in the baton handoff zone, each day desperately trying to figure out how to stay true to the Toyota-style management built up by our previous president, Akio Toyoda.
As we tackle many different areas, I think the most important thing for us is to continue upholding our unwavering core concepts.
This means, as we have heard in previous questions today, maintaining both a product and regional focus in our operations.
Since our vice presidents have already talked about the company’s region- and product-centered approach, I would like to speak a little about what I personally have observed.
Among all the many things we tried to do, what affected me most of all was the certification issues.
Those issues came at a time when we were constantly trying different ways to reach out through messaging and action, driven by a sense of obligation to keep doing new things.
When the issues arose, Chairman Toyoda gave me a single piece of advice. He said, “Sato, in times like these, the president must go to the genba.” That simple advice really changed what I was doing with my time.
Day after day, I toured the genba and gained a sense of what was troubling people, what was on their minds.
I had thought I understood the genba, but that wasn’t the case at all. I came to realize that, although our frontline staff were all working hard, their efforts did not always yield results, yet still they battled on silently.
Being a large company, our work involves many people. There is a limit to what the president can do alone.
The most important thing I realized while going around the front lines is that, to fully harness the energy of our genba, the job of Toyota’s president is to enable the genba to do what it wants to do.
A company where the president tries to throw their weight around can only run at one horsepower. At Toyota, we have 380,000 colleagues around the world. I feel that my role is to create an environment in which these employees can unleash their full potential.
Chairman Toyoda spent 14 years laying the groundwork, and it is this foundation that allows us to take on certain challenges.
To give everyone the freedom to tackle these challenges, I will continue to personally visit the genba and, trusting in my fellow Toyota leaders here today, will keep working hard to manage the company as a team.
While this may not be a direct answer to your question, I wanted to share my honest and sincere thoughts.