Creative Execution: What Great Leaders Do to Unleash Bold Thinking and Innovation

Life at the Top: Toyota’s Creative Execution Struggles

When Toyota finally passed GM as the world’s number one carmaker in 2008, the company’s former president, Katsuaki Watanabe (now vice chairman), wisely played down the milestone’s significance. Instead of fireworks in Toyota City, Watanabe warned his employees that “the change in the world economy is of a magnitude that comes once every hundred years.”⁴⁵ Toyota was quickly revising sales forecasts as the global recession dampened global car demand, and recorded its first operating loss since opening shop in 1938. Although Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu managed a reasonable 4 percent increase in global sales in 2009, Toyota sales in Japan and around the world dipped by 5 percent. As traffic through ...