Jeffrey Liker

Many companies profess a desire for continuous improvement, and a belief that leaders need to be coaches. But what does that mean? How do you develop those capabilities? Toyota has an answer. They have been developing people to be exceptional since the founding of the company and argue that “Before they can build excellent cars they must develop exceptional people.” The obsession with managing from the gemba, with a deep understanding of what goes on in the workplace, is mainly so managers can practice on-the-job development. And the core skill they are developing is problem solving, through a scientific thinking mindset. When asked how many industrial engineers a plant had the Toyota plant manager said, “we have 2200 team members so we must have 2200 industrial engineers.” This talk will focus on how Toyota develops managers at all levels to be leaders of continuous improvement drawing on The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership.