Case Study of Toyota Kata: Flexibility, Rigidity, and Adaptation

This case study examines the Toyota Kata, a set of routines and patterns that drive continuous learning and adaptation within Toyota. It explores how Toyota's structure enhances organizational behavior, balancing flexibility and rigidity through the implementation of improvement and coaching katas, which emphasize in-depth learning and leadership coaching. The analysis delves into the Toyota Production System (TPS) and how it fosters innovation from all levels, ensuring customer satisfaction and adapting to market trends. The study also addresses Toyota's response to the 2011 tsunami, highlighting the company's resilience and the implementation of new supply chain management systems. By understanding Toyota's approach, organizations can learn to adapt to changes, improve processes, and maintain high performance through employee engagement and systematic improvements.

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Case Study of Toyota Kata
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Case Study - By analyzing Toyota’s unique structure, how can one enhance the knowledge of
organization behavior. How can that Toyota’s system be both flexible and rigid at the same
time, and why do these concepts contradict and support each other? And by what means can
organization be adaptive? After the tsunami in Japan March, 2011, how did Toyota as a
company handle this unexpected nature disaster?
As informed by the author Rother, (2009) the term “kata “in Japanese refers to a set of
patterns and routines. An organization’s daily habits for continuous learning and tailoring itself
according to that defines the concept of Toyota Kata. This particular set of routines help the
organizations to move towards its vision and achieve a state of awesomeness. In the book
TOYOTA KATA, the author describes the two main katas to structure a better organizational
culture. The first is improvement kata and the second is coaching kata (Rother, 2009). This kata
focuses on in-depth learning of organizational processes, establishing the understanding of how
organizations should work and how they can work. On the other had coaching kata supports the
improvement kata by highlighting the importance and need for learning (Rother, 2009). It also
suggests that the leaders of an organization should act like a teacher and coach its people
regarding organizational culture and behavior.
The Toyota company focuses on the implementation of lean manufacturing or Toyota
Production System (TPS) (Rother, 2009). However, the concept and the tools are not new, the
implementation is new every day. In the Toyota company it is ensured that everyone from the
floor workers to the higher executives, all are using the best of their innovative power and
experiments. When the assembly lines, only the best workers among all are chosen to grow on
their career by constantly solving problem. (Rother, 2009) The entire operation starting with
engineering, sales, accounting, service and HR practices are staffed and accomplished by

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selected individuals who are also provided special guidance from the company regarding how to
increase their level of customer satisfaction. The company invests money and efforts on the
people management thereby becoming a true example for a learning organization. They focus on
the team building and team management by providing necessary trainings which enables their
employees to exceed the level of ordinariness like other automobile companies focusing merely
on making vehicles. They mold themselves according to the buzzing trend in the market and the
process of change and adoption starts from the top level.
Therefore, Toyota company in this respect can be regarded as an ideal organization
reflecting and everyday regenerating those unique set of routines or practices that leads the
company towards a brighter tomorrow (japantimes.co,2018). The company is improving every
day – effectively, effectively, within the budge and accurately on time. Their management
approach is responsible for this improvement which focus on improving day to day. Toyota’s
management process proves that by only following the organizational principles and practices do
not yield the best outcome. The organizational outcomes emerge from the routines of thinking
and behavior of its people and Toyota undoubtedly and efficiently manages people.
The production system of the Toyota company highlights how the company at the same
time behaves rigidly and flexibly (Rother, 2009). On the one hand the connection, activity and
production flow in the company is rigidly scripted. On the other hand, the operations of the
company are extremely flexible to the demands of the customers. It has been found after much
research that the key to their flexibility is the rigidity in the operations. They have certain rules of
their own and following those set of rules or ‘katas’ they are able to stick to their standard and
fulfill the demands of the customers (Rother, 2009). The flexibility is possible because the
Toyota company engrains stimulus of experimentation in their workers instead of imposing on

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them. Their scientific experiments are gladly accepted by the employees and they try their best to
accomplish them properly. (Bolman & Deal,2017) The company first adopting the improvement
kata finalizes what changes are to be in the products or services and then adopting the coaching
kata teaches the employees through whom the change or improvement will be made. The
continuous communication with the employees and interaction among them makes the seemingly
rigid system the most supportive system to flexibility.
Although rigidity and flexibility are literally two contradictory concepts, they can be
managed in a way that they start complementing and supporting each other. Crude flexibility is
what should be avoided in an organization because it impacts the decision making difficult. On
the other hand, being too lenient and flexible disturbs the balance in the organization
(Armsworth et al.2015). However, both should be avoided if crossed the limits. The way Toyota
company manages the two results in positive outcomes. Therefore, both should be present in the
operations but in a moderate form.
Regarding adaptive nature, the organizations can adapt change by an unconventional
approach to sustain high performance. ‘Implementation’ should not be taken as just a word. The
organizations must implement certain kata to become adaptive to improvement changes (Jundt,
Shoss & Huang, 2015). The skill, action and behavior of the people of the organization define
how much adaptive the organization would be in action. The utilization of the capabilities of an
organization is the best way to become adaptive. The reaction, problem solving technique and
individual way to improve and stable processes of the employees provides an organization the
competitive advantage (McKellar, 2015). Since the employees are the strength of an
organization, they collectively make the small steps to methodically and systematically bring
change.

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The Toyota company faced huge setbacks after the Tsunami of march 2011, in Japan.
The company faced difficulty in the supply of vehicle body parts and substitute materials. It took
almost five years to compensate and strengthen the loss Toyota company went
through(japantimes.co,2018). However, the company showed much potential in improving the
condition and adapt the change. They stopped for a moment, assessed and then proceeded. The
new supply chain management system supported them a lot(japantimes.co,2018). The amount of
loss would have been worse for the company, but their prior crisis containment measures saved
them. After the disaster, the Toyota company surveyed the suppliers in the year 2013 and
employs a new kind of database now popular as ‘RESCUE’. This database stores the information
of millions of supplier sites(japantimes.co,2018). The company has learnt from the previous
disaster a lot and still developing advanced techniques to sustain in such situations.

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Reference
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japantimes.co (2018). Toyota going for looks, lean output | The Japan Times. [online] The Japan
Times. Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/09/business/corporate-
business/toyota-going-for-looks-lean-output/#.W6iNy2gzbIU [Accessed 24 Sep. 2018].
Jundt, D. K., Shoss, M. K., & Huang, J. L. (2015). Individual adaptive performance in
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McKellar, R. W. (2015). Staying nimble: a flexible approach to complex product development in
a rigid environment (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Rother, M. (2009). Toyota kata. McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.