The Toyota scandal has seen much blame heaped on the corporate behemoth for its lack of honesty with the public over a series of faults with its cars. From failed gas pedals to potential computer system malfunctions, all has come to a head for the once dominant Japanese automobile giant. Even its most glorious item, the once solemnized Prius, has hit the skids due to braking failures.
But Toyota was not always like this. It was once the efficient counterpoint to American profligate giants like GM and Ford. Toyota, while large, was considered to be the pinnacle of automotive success, churning out win after win while not wowing anyone with its style. Instead, it was about reliability, simple cars that would last and do the job. Now it is a case study in how bureaucracy can fail.
The sort of simplistic, efficient approach Toyota went with for years is not too far removed from a system of soccer called Catenaccio. Designed by Italians who mimicked the Swiss, the system focused on close man-marking and allowing the fewest goals possible. It was not about style. It was about results. And the system has countless adherents that can point to years of 1-nil victories and titles as a result of its stinginess.
Jose Mourinho's Chelsea could be considered a prime example of this system. Designed at Porto, where Mourinho won the Champions League, this 4-3-3 system stymied the more aggressive Arsenal and Manchester United, which had come to dominate the Premier League with a passion for passing and scoring. Mourinho came in with his strict formation, and Claude Makelele shaped the side stealing the air out of his opponents lungs. Instead of the breathless attacking play which had dominated the Premier League for more than a decade, Jose's Chelsea produced a boring show of how strength and tidy defense could halt even the most high-scoring adversary.
But like Toyota, Mourinho's side became mechanical, boring and dry. Then mistakes started to occur. The once impenetrable Chelsea back four started to ship goals. The team allowed just 15 all of the championship winning 2004-2005 season, but allowed 6 goals in their first 6 games of the 2007-2008 season. Instead of winning games by 1-nil score lines, Chelsea were tying or even losing.
A lot of this can be explained by bureaucratic problems. The club's owner, Russian oil tycoon Roman Abramovich, had become tired of being known as the owner of a boring side. He wanted more goals. He bought players like Andriy Shevchenko without the manager's approval and told him to fit them in the team. The bureaucracy was losing balance. Fault lines started to appear, and before you knew it, Mourinho was gone after failing to win a Champions League.
He was replaced with Chelsea insider Avram Grant, the bureaucratic response to such a failure. Less than a year later, Grant was replaced by an outsider, Luis Filipe Scolari, then another Guus Hiddink, and still another. Chelsea, the once exceptional machine of efficiency, had lost their theme.
But now it seems back. New manager Carlo Ancelotti, once of the notoriously defensive AC Milan, is in charge and he has brought back much of the physicality and simplicity of Mourinho's approach, albeit with slight tactical changes. Most of the players are the same, the style is similar, and Chelsea is now succeeding again, sitting top of the Premier League.
Toyota might do well to learn from the failures of Chelsea's attempted organizational changes. Instead of trying to change what you do by bringing in an outside mindset, it might be best just to freshen up your organization with a not so bureaucratic external equivalent. Perhaps, rather than targeting the leader of GM or BMW, Toyota might do well to look at Nissan's leadership who are doing much the same thing they did so well before. Certainly the stale company needs to change their ways or they are going to keep shipping goals, or in this case, lemons.
Follow Gregory M. White on Twitter: www.twitter.com/WhiteGM
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