Toyota has established themselves as a world-class company and a leader in the development of high-quality vehicles. They revolutionized the manufacturing world with their unique approach in the Toyota Production System and continue to remain on the cutting edge of technological advancement.

Entire books and courses have been devoted to all of the intricacies contained within their production mindset, so I don’t want to go into too much detail, but one particularly simple value in their approach is worth quickly touching on; the desired for Toyota to hear “bad news first.”

When things go wrong, our natural tendency is to sweep the issues under the rug and try to fix everything ourselves. The embarrassment associated with admitting our mistakes is uncomfortable, so we tend to do whatever we can to avoid it.

But Toyota’s approach is the opposite.

They don’t want any individual or supplier hiding mistakes and trying to figure things out on their own. They want the mistakes to be brought to light as soon as possible so the right people have visibility and are able to help to make sure that the damage is limited.

If a part is going to late, they want to know about it as soon as their supplier does so Toyota has the opportunity to assess the situation and make informed decisions about how to proceed.

It isn’t a natural way to respond to a crisis, but it’s quite effective once everyone buys in.

Obviously the approach can apply to much more than the production of cars.

-Brandon