It only makes sense that Toyota wouldn't mess with success--and that Chrysler should be swinging for the fences with new ideas. Just look at their respective sales and market share. But both companies are undergoing a shakeup in their own ways that reflect cultural differences, even national differences.
"BusinessWeek" reports that Toyota has launched what seems to be a mini-Maoist cultural revolution, sending managers back to assembly lines, initiating various re-education programs and bringing back retired company brass to watch over the shoulders of new hires. Why? Toyota is afraid of losing its DNA. An entire generation of top managers is poised to retire. And as the company becomes a global force, it has hired 40,000 new workers, many of them (gasp!) foreigners, who haven't been indoctrinated in the principles of frugality, discipline and constant improvement.
Over at Chrysler, private equity has made management changes more secretive and harder to discern. But desperation is clearly the name of the game. Old-guard managers are getting sacked as executives poach top talent from other car companies. Not days after Cerberus's new management team settled a kissy-face labor contract with its workers, it announced the elimination of 12,000 jobs. And Chrysler has finally dumped several dogs from its lineup. As "Forbes" points out, the company's dealer network is still a basket case and marketing has failed the company entirely. Obviously, more work needs to be done.
What are the cultural differences between these companies? Read after the jump.
Both approaches are ruthless in their own respective ways. Chrysler has made personal accountability company dogma: Perform or lose your job. But as assembly line workers have learned, maybe you'll lose your job anyway. Thousands of families will find themselves in financial straits because they were sent to build automobiles that were poorly conceived, marketed and sold. Never mind--personal accountability gets quick and decisive results, which Chrysler needs. The danger is that it will alienate the very workers (including managers) it depends on for a turnaround.
In Japan, where layoffs are rare, company managers spend enormous time and resources getting everyone on the same page. Instead of firing you for bad performance, Toyota's management will teach you to perform better--even if humiliation and pointless, time-wasting indoctrination exercises are part of the process. Toyota's track record suggests that there's greater wisdom in this than the experienced managers now glueing dash panels into Tundras might believe. The danger for Toyota is that the principles that made it a market leader may not extend its success. It might be that Toyota is staring in a rear-view mirror.
