????豐田公司在危難時機的指導原則之一是genchi genbutsu，即“親自到現場查看”。我追蹤豐田公司已有20余年。因此，為了親自了解這些變革對于豐田的意義所在，我赴加利福尼亞和紐約采訪了數位豐田公司高管，隨后又飛赴日本。

????豐田經歷的所有困境中，沒有什么比2009-2010年的召回危機更嚴重的了。當時有報告稱，由于汽車失去控制、剎車失靈而引發駭人聽聞的事故，其中有些事故甚至造成了人員傷亡的慘劇。最終公司召回了800多萬輛豐田車和雷克薩斯，相當于公司一年的產量。獨立調查結果最終顯示，豐田汽車并不存在機械或者電力方面的缺陷，只有一些地墊放置錯誤、加速器踏板粘滯以及駕駛員操作失當方面的原因，但調查結果也暴露了公司文化上的重大缺陷。豐田公司的管理依然沿襲了上世紀五十年代的模式。日本總部嚴格掌控著公司的每一個決策；美國市場就如同附屬國一般毫無自主權。如果美國的經理人發現汽車存在缺陷，他們不得不沿著一條復雜的官僚主義路徑來向日本總部反映問題，但在總部，他們常常遭遇到的是懷疑和提防。豐田一直擔心患上“大企業病”，但最終它還是沒能逃脫這樣的命運。

????消費者對豐田汽車的信心大降，公司上層也深受震動。負責豐田汽車北美市場銷售和管理的稻葉良睍告訴我：“我們意識到，公司并非如我們所想的那樣，遠遠超越我們的競爭者。過去我們有些太自以為是。”豐田開始建立更迅速的反應機制。當時，雷克薩斯多功能車中發現了一處缺陷，豐田在短短八天之內就組織召回。但豐田對于向美國市場授予更多管理權限仍比較猶豫。豐田沒有指派一人全權負責北美市場的運作，而是依然保持了傳統的匯報制度。公司在加利福尼亞南部的大規模銷售業務以及在肯塔基州的大型制造總部仍然要向日本總部的相應高管匯報。

????正當新的管理層試圖走出召回危機的陰影之時，豐田在3月份又經受了一次艱難考驗。當時，日本發生的強烈地震和大規模海嘯使得公司生產陷入混亂。這場災難破壞了日本北部的工廠，500多個零部件的供應受到嚴重影響，而豐田公司又無法找到替代產品。位于豐田市（Toyota City）附近的一級準時制供應商并未受到直接影響，但位于北部的二級和三級供應商情況如何，公司并不清楚。

????豐田章男召集了位于日本的車身工程和動力系統等部門總經理，指示他們立即恢復生產，無需浪費時間向上匯報。這一舉動非同尋常。供應商恢復生產之前，公司派出了一支由兩名工程師組成的團隊奔赴各個供應商工廠，以確定所需備用部件的類型和產地。根據萊克的統計，到4月份，供應缺失的零部件數量下降到了150個；5月份，全部500個零部件中只剩下30個供應不足。 豐田只用了計劃時間的一半，就解決了問題。但是萊克指出，公司損失的產量任然高達800,000，相當于年產量的10%。公司本來計劃通過加班加點來彌補大部分差額，但泰國10月份的洪災影響了約100家供應商的生產，推遲了這一目標的實現。因此，公司在北美的存貨要到3月份之后才能補足。

????One of Toyota's guiding principles in times of crisis is genchi genbutsu, or "go and see." So to find out for myself what the changes meant for a company I had been covering for more than 20 years, I interviewed Toyota executives in California and New York, and then flew to Japan.

????Of all the woes Toyota has suffered, none has stung like the recall crisis of 2009-10. Ignited by reports of horrific accidents, some fatal, caused by cars that ran out of control and couldn't be braked to a stop, it eventually involved the recall more than 8 million Toyotas and Lexuses -- equivalent to a year's production. Independent investigations turned up no mechanical or electronic defects -- only some misplaced floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals to go along with driver error -- but exposed major flaws in the corporate culture. Toyota, it turned out, was still being managed the way it had been in the 1950s: Every decision was tightly controlled in Japan; the U.S. was treated like a vassal state. When American managers found defects in vehicles, they had to follow a tortuous bureaucratic process to register their complaints in Japan, where they were often met with skepticism and defensiveness. As it had long feared, Toyota had succumbed to "big-company disease."

????Consumer confidence in its cars plummeted, and Toyota's higher-ups were shaken. "We learned we are not so ahead of competitors as we might have thought," Yoshimi Inaba, who heads sales and administration in the U.S., told me. "We were a little complacent." Toyota began to develop quicker reflexes. When a defect was identified in a Lexus SUV, Toyota organized a recall in just eight days. But it balked at delegating more executive authority to America. Rather than designate one person to head all of its North American operations, it maintained its traditional silo structure. Its giant sales operation in Southern California, and its equally large manufacturing complex headquartered in Kentucky, continued reporting to different executives in Japan.

????Just as it was trying to put the recall crisis behind it, the new management was tested again in March, when an earthquake and massive tidal wave disrupted production. The tsunami damaged plants in the north of Japan, disrupting the supply of over 500 parts, and Toyota couldn't find replacements. Its first-tier, just-in-time suppliers near Toyota City were not directly affected, but up north were second- and third-tier suppliers that Toyota did not know much about.

????Akio assembled general managers of departments such as body engineering and powertrain in Japan, and took the unusual step of instructing them to restore production and not waste time reporting upward. They sent two-man teams of engineers to visit each supplier plant and to identify and locate backup parts until the suppliers were running again. By April, unavailable parts were down to 150, and by May, according to Liker's count, all but 30 of the 500 parts were available. Toyota solved the problems in half the time expected, but Liker figures the company still lost 800,000 production units -- 10% of its annual output. Plans to make up most of the shortfall through overtime work were pushed back by October floods in Thailand that affected about 100 suppliers. As a result, inventories in North America won't be completely replenished until March.