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Mr. Toyoda, just tell us what went wrong
By Lauren | February 25, 2010
Today’s Congressional hearings about Toyota’s safety problems were deeply disappointing to those of us who hoped that the company would put its ongoing troubles to rest. Toyota’s President, Akio Toyoda, appeared in person to apologize to American consumers for the quality control issues that have dogged his company. It was a defining moment for Toyota - but not in a positive way.
My regular readers know that I think effective apologies can resolve almost anything. But let’s be clear - before an apology can be made, everyone involved has to understand what went wrong in the first place. That just isn’t true here. Even after hours of testimony and brutal questioning from frustrated legislators, it’s still not clear what caused the acceleration problems that allegedly killed 34 people, or whether the fix Toyota proposes will successfully solve them.
When things go wrong, it’s important for companies to admit to error and apologize. Toyoda said his company is sorry and made general promises to do better going forward. But anxious American consumers still don’t know if the cars they bought from Toyota are safe, and it appears that Toyota isn’t going to tell them any time soon. Toyota’s U.S. head, Jim Lentz, said that Toyota is working on greater transparency, which suggests that its internal communications are probably clear as mud right now. Toyota executives say that they know they need to communicate better - now would be a really good time to start.
Enough with the elegantly-phrased generalities, Mr. Toyoda - just give us a dose of unvarnished truth. Your employees deserve better, and so do your customers.
Topics: Apologies, Business Ethics, business communications, customer relations, ethics |
February 26th, 2010 at 3:37 am
Lauren,
Straight-talking is not exactly a strength of the Japanese, but it is exactly what is needed at Toyota now. The company needs to be frank and clear not only about its apology but also about where they are at now (in terms of diagnosing the problems) and what specific assurances the general public will have that problems like these will not re-occur.
Customers and employees do deserve a lot better as you say.
February 27th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Good business ethics should be a part of every business, business ethics is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that helps to find out ethical principles and moral problems that arise in a business. Business ethics is not only how to cooperate with the world, but also to dealings with their single customer.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Very well written…
Hopefully Toyota will learn from this and never try to undermine the intelligence of others in the future. Storytelling doesn’t solve problems-it merely creates bigger problems.
Maxwell Pinto, Business Author
http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/Management-TidbitsForTheNewMillenium.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34hB50lv-8