"Question everything"

Euripides said: "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing."

Not too long ago I had the great pleasure of participating in a Toyota Business Practices (TBP) training. It was an eye-opener. That a division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was able to reach such market dominance internationally was in no small part due to the guiding principles of its founder Sakichi Toyoda and his successors (notably Kiichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno) that revolve around the simple ideas of designing out overburden (muri) and inconsistency (mura), and to eliminate waste (muda). That is, whatever the established work process is, look at it as a possible target for improvement by altering it in ways allowing more streamlined operations (eliminating any unnecessary or unproductive activity). "Question everything." Just because it has always been done this way does not mean this is ultimately the best way of doing it. And if it not, let's fix it. "Question everything" is also a foundation to agile thinking.

My kind of philosophy. Looking at things with critical eyes but not for the sake of criticism itself but with the mind of continuously making things better (kaizen).

Inspiration can be found everywhere. Interestingly, the inspiration for the Toyota Production System (TPS), did not come from within automotive industry, but from visiting a Piggly Wiggly supermarket (incidentally, during a visit to Ford in the United States in the 1950s). The delegation was impressed by how the supermarket only reordered and restocked goods once they'd been bought by customers. This lead to the application of this practice in the automotive manufacturing process resulting in what has become known as the Toyota Production System, a system admired around the world for quality and efficiency.

Questioning everything has become a motto for my work at Toyota Canada Inc. I have been looking at business applications, processes (manual or automated), any activity with a mind that continually challenges: can it be done even better? Not every time the answer will come at the moment the question is raised. But when observing the way things are done (genchi genbutsu = go and see for yourself), and allowing the impressions sink in, inevitably ways of improvement will emerge. Maybe just very small improvements. But that's not the point. The point is the focus on making things better. For you, for the company and for the society within which the company operates.