For my international readers, on Sunday night, an improbable team won the National Football League (NFL) championship. The winning coach, Sean Payton, successfully executed a strategy that applies to business, life, and just about all endeavors.
If the situation or opponent is better than you, then don't play an ordinary game or strategy. Play with higher risk, but with substantial return on that risk. In his book Axiom, Bill Hybels advises against 'betting the farm'. Eventually, you will lose the farm. Instead, assume risk that will hurt if realized, but survivable. And only take on that risk, if the payoff is extraordinarily high.
That is what happened Sunday night. The winning coach understood the New Orleans Saints were not going to win if they simply matched the Indianapolis Colts play-for-play. To win, Sean Payton made two risky calls. The first did not turn out so well, but not disastrous. The second turned out to be the game-breaker.
Toyota management is being trashed by the business periodicals as Toyota Owners Pack Dealer for Fixes. The automaker has 4.5 million vehicles recalled for accelerator malfunctions, and before those were fixed, another problem surfaced with brakes on 270,000 technologically-advanced Prius.
In Toyota Mess, Lesson for Japan, the New York Times suggests that Toyota became too arrogant with its success and forgot about its customers. Mmm. I think that verdict is too simple. I do believe Toyota stretched itself in the shadow of Honda. The Prius hybrid is an amazing piece of engineering, but it was several years before Toyota began to even make money on the model.
Is Toyota's double or triple whammy due to realized risk? - I don't think so. Product manufacturing is tricky - things that you would never expect can aggregate into huge problems. Other elements such as quality and testing can be identified and controlled. So was it the "Toyota Way", the culture of the automaker? Or was it simply several bad things happening in succession? (Other automakers have endured large safety recalls as well.)
The president of Toyota, Akido Toyoda, has revealed Toyota's Plan to Repair Its Public Image. He confesses that the company has disappointed its customers. Akido acknowledges that the number one requirement for a Toyota vehicle should be safety. That is a lesson for all engineers and designers, one easily forgotten in our zest for technology. The Toyota president identifies another lesson for engineers - when field reports are hinting of failures - investigate them!
The New Orleans Saints and Toyota provide two examples of leadership. We can learn from them.
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