 |
You Got It, Toyota:
Unleashing Performance Mastery
In 1999, Mike Morrison became Dean of Toyota Motor Sales, USA’s newly-created University of Toyota. As head of the learning organization at Toyota world headquarters, Morrison was seeking a way to reinforce the mandate and expand the capabilities of the University. With the help of Advantage Southern California partner Mike Castling, he discovered Real Learning Company’s Performance Mastery programs, tools, and outcomes. The search was over.
Today, Morrison and the University of Toyota are intent on helping Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) become a true learning organization. Morrison’s partners are a team of highly collaborative and imaginative learning experts who include Castling, Real Learning President Richard Hodge, Real Learning Vice President Tim Blakesly, and University of Toyota Associate Dean Will Decker.
Previous TMS manager/supervisor training had been long on theory but short on ways to put learning into practice. Real Learning’s initial solution was Tools for Great Managers (Tools), a program based on principles and processes from their best-selling Symphony and Conductor learning systems. (The program’s genesis is a story in itself: a Herculean effort by Real Learning to create a fully customized, case-rich, three-day annual meeting curriculum, in an experiential format, for 250 operations managers from across the U.S. Real Learning met the extreme 12-week time crunch, and participant feedback showed the program was a winner. Morrison said, “I was hoping for a double on this, and I got a home run!”)
Tools for Great Managers
Tools gives managers a process for planning and exceeding individual, team, and corporate goals. Each program module is customized to the critical business issues and strategic goals of participants’ actual work environments. A companion desktop toolbox, containing index reference cards to use for reinforcement, was created to keep new skills alive. This, combined with a rich set of Web tools, makes the learning easy to apply back in the real world.
“The reaction to Tools has been remarkable,” says Castling. The modular version was piloted for Toyota’s huge parts facility in Ontario, California, which will run an expanded curriculum this year. Several other divisions have also expressed interest and are in the early stages of implementation.
Tools for Great Managers training is delivered by Blakesly and his team of internal and external facilitators. Toyota is so committed to the program’s success that Blakesly occupies an office at Toyota part-time. He acts as a full-time business liaison on behalf of the University, working with Castling to connect the needs of TMS business units to Real Learning solutions.
 Demand for Performance Mastery Grows
Based on the success of Tools, Toyota University added Real Learning’s Dress Rehearsal program to their curriculum. Hodge explains, “Toyota is steeped in a rich culture of unexcelled quality. The challenge is to sustain that quality with the speed and flexibility required by the new economy. Toyota recognizes that the only way to achieve this is for leaders to trust teams to make the right decisions, and then empower them with skills, knowledge, and authority. That experience is what Dress Rehearsal delivers.”
The University then developed a video introducing Dress Rehearsal to business units. All University staff, all corporate lawyers, 100 managers from Toyota Financial Services, the entire Financial Services Customer Services division, and all Lexus field service staff have gone through the program. Participants report valuable results such as increased cross-team communication, better team focus on finding solutions, and more supportive team members.
Next, Toyota University turned its attention to Audition, a Real Learning program that helps interviewers and managers select the right candidates for corporate positions. Audition is a natural choice for an industry leader such as TMS that is committed to choosing, aligning, and retaining the right talent. This program has been fully customized around the talents and competencies Toyota has found important to exceptional performance. Audition will be rolled out in Spring 2001 to 250 participants.
And there’s more on the way. As a Japanese organization, TMS is already very good at process. APG /Real Learning is crafting an entire development program that will help employees build on that expertise by learning how to accomplish goals even more quickly and efficiently.
What Performance Partnership Is All About
Obviously, this partnership is working. What’s the secret? Toyota University has said that they value having access to a partner that can do things so quickly and efficiently; that no matter what their internal customers need, Real Learning can build it; that programs are tailored to exact business needs, enthusiastically received, and achieve results for diverse audiences and groups. There’s also personal chemistry and trust between all of the partners.
Moreover, this performance partnership goes beyond specific solutions to today’s business needs. Toyota has shared long-term strategic plans with Real Learning, even inviting Hodge to facilitate an executive offsite that included the President of Toyota Motor Sales, North America.
This kind of true collaboration, innovation, and commitment is what performance improvement partnership is really all about. It’s also how true learning organizations are built. Our guess is that this partnership will only get better.
|
|
Audition is a natural choice for an industry leader such as TMS that is committed to choosing, aligning, and retaining the right talent. |
|
