Toyota as an Innovation Maverick

Sometimes the smartest thing to do is the hardest thing to do. Who else will have the commitment and persistence you'll show to deliver your innovation? What I like about this story is the it makes clear that sometimes the little things are harder than the big things.

The New Yorker: The Open Secret of Success, 2008-May-12, by James Surowiecki

In the nineteen-nineties, a McKinsey study of companies that had put quality-improvement programs in place found that two-thirds abandoned them as failures. Toyota’s innovative methods may seem mundane, but their sheer relentlessness defeats many companies. That’s why Toyota can afford to hide in plain sight: it knows the system is easy to understand but hard to follow.