I’m excited that we all made it to the end of this course and learned
some great things about change management and how to implement
it within an organization.
An example of a situation where I have experience change in an
organization is actually my entire career with Toyota North America.
In 2017, Toyota moved their corporate headquarters from Torrance
California to Plano Texas. This new move was called “One-Toyota”
and was combining Engineering, Finance, Marketing, Sales, and many
more departments for both Toyota and Lexus under one roof. At the
same time, our global president Akio Toyoda announced that we
would be transitioning from a vehicle company to a mobility
company. These two MASSIVE changes left a lot of departments,
leaders, and employees wondering how these would take place and
how long it would take. Well, 5 years later and the changes are still
developing as the understanding gets more concrete and as we figure
out how to apply the new principles in our daily work.
What I learned from this experience along with what I have learned
in this course is that,
1. There is no “one-size fits all” approach. Organizations differ in size
and the reasons for change are different company to company.
2. A company does not have to be failing to introduce change
3. Companies that constantly encourage change, transformation, and
improvement will adapt more quickly to large changes. One of
Toyota’s philosophies is called “kaizen” or “continuous
improvement” and this is baked into every process at Toyota.
4. Change happens both at the large macro level, as well as the micro
level (small teams of 3-10 people) all of it is important.
After what I have learned I don’t think I could recommend a different
approach from what my company is doing, my biggest sign of this
massive change being successful is that I still love my work, I love
what the company stands for, and I love the teams and projects I
work on, on a daily basis. I would consider that a successful change
on Toyota’s end.
