“We can’t be arrogant and say everything we do is right.”

Toyota's freshly-minted CEO breaks cover in a Detroit News (DTN) profile with a home-town friendly headline: "Criticism shadows Toyota's success." The DTN repeats the charges: environmental insensitivity (for fighting higher CAFE standards) and quality control problems (that led to the Camry's ejection from Consumer Reports' recommended list). The blows go lower. "Unusually for Toyota, its U.S. sales growth for 2007 is running behind its forecasts, and its new Tundra's slow start in a slumping pickup market is viewed as further evidence of the automaker's fallibility." Rubbish. Along with every other U.S. automaker, Toyota has revised its forecasts to account for a shrinking new car market– but it still predicts market share growth. And while the Tundra's first year sales target of 200k units looks a bit dicey (unless they REALLY blow-out the price), they've sold 162k year-to-date. More importantly, check out Lentz 'tude: "What has always made Toyota strong is this sense of kaizen," Lentz said, referring to a tenet of the Toyota Way that means continuous improvement. "We have to use whatever shortcomings or criticisms we have as a way to re-energize that kaizen within our culture, to make sure that we fix issues that we have before they become targets of our critics." Are you listening Mr. Lutz?

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Source: “We can’t be arrogant and say everything we do is right.”

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