Quality Road Dogs

"Our need is to create infrastructures to network support of failure...infrastructures which bring people together to talk about what they don't know." I heard Paul Batalden, MD., say that at 17 years ago. He's now at Dartmouth still looking to create those networks in healthcare. Given the current state of affairs in "national health"... he's the epitome of the proverbial guy at the bottom of the mountain.
I guess you could say that Toyota has created some of that infrastructure he's talking about...sort of. They seem to have embraced their failings in the ways they're dealing with their "quality" imperfections. Although you'd never believe it if you only read the media coverage. The feeding frenzy of American negativity rumbles on.
But, let's look at failures...they're easier to talk about than the declining state of our existence.
If you want to do something fun, go find some business books from the '80's and '90's and look at some of the companies cited as successful in them. Then draw some trends as to where they are now.
Ask yourself, why do bad things happen at good places, even when their programs focus some much on quality? Ask yourself, why have "quality" programs at numerous organizations failed? Then pull some thoughts and threads to together and come to understand "why" Toy-oater" dropped their pedal, so to speak.....
The short answer:

• They started to believe their own press.
• They lost focus on improving quality. They focused on the process, not the result.
• They were driven for immediate gratification.
• They were compromised by the need to drive profit and cut costs.
• They only read the first of Deming's 14 points...and can't even come close to understanding his concept of "profound knowledge".
• They thought if they did the same thing everyone else was doing, they'd be successful
• ---------- but they also thought they were unique.
• Their motto was: "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" (look it up..) and lemmng'ed their way over the cliff.
• They failed the first rule of Road Dog: Use your head for something besides keeping your ears apart.

By the way, I drove the pictured '84 Toyota SR5 4X4 for many years and it was THE Road Dog truck.... .