A Candid Chat with Akio Toyoda: Toyota Technical Skills Academy & Leadership Formation Change

Tomikawa
As I mentioned at the top of the episode, I want to ask you about two topics, one being the Toyota Technical Skills Academy, which held its graduation ceremony just today. The other is the leadership reshuffle, or "formation change" as it is being described at Toyota. As of April 1, President Koji Sato will assume the role of vice chairman, with CFO Kenta Kon taking over as president. I still haven't had a chance to discuss these personnel changes properly with you.

Chairman Toyoda
Is that right?

Tomikawa
I'm sure many people would like to hear your thoughts, so I'll jump right in.
First, let's talk about the Toyota Technical Skills Academy graduation ceremony. To give a brief background for those who don't know, Toyota Motor was founded in 1937. The following year, in 1938, virtually at the same time as the Koromo Plant (now the Honsha Plant) was completed, Kiichiro opened the Toyota Technical Youth School. This became the Toyota Technical Skills Academy.
The academy reflects Kiichiro's conviction that to create great products you must first cultivate outstanding people, a core belief that remains firmly intact today, 78 years later. Akio, what do you think about the fact that Kiichiro's original emphasis on developing people, and nurturing the potential of youth, has not wavered to this day?

Chairman Toyoda
Personally, I've always found it interesting that Kiichiro built the school at basically the same time as establishing the company. Initially, he set up an automobile division within Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. I'm sure he had colleagues who were eager to venture into automobiles, but back then the automatic loom business was like today's automotive industry. I wonder how a group tackling this crazy venture would have been viewed within such a company? Going by Toyota Motor Corporation today, I feel like their pioneering efforts were probably seen as a disruption, a nuisance, nothing but trouble.

Tomikawa
Especially given the money they were pouring into it.

Chairman Toyoda
They were pouring money in, and from the perspective of those building automatic looms, they were being selfish, just doing their own thing. To take on full-scale automobile production, you need to bring in a lot more people. And being a startup venture within a successful company, I imagine the feeling was, "What on earth are these guys splurging all this money on?"
I imagine he quietly built up a team of people who shared his values, and together with them, he had this wildly ambitious vision of building the future. That's my interpretation.

Tomikawa
Bringing that into the present day, Kiichiro once appeared in your dreams and remarked that you hadn't accomplished it yet.

Chairman Toyoda
Those words really ring true, don't they? We have this automotive company that's been successful in many ways, yet I feel as though he's telling me, "What gives you the right to act so high and mighty? It was different for me. You didn't go through any of that hardship, did you?"

Tomikawa
And that's why every year you attend the Technical Skills Academy's graduation ceremony, where the students regard you as a father figure, and you help to nurture the leaders who will play a key role in Toyota's transformation into a mobility company. Is that right?

Chairman Toyoda
I think so, yes. As for what I'm teaching at the Toyota Technical Skills Academy, the other day we ran an Akio Juku, right?

Tomikawa
The first time holding an Akio Juku for Toyota Technical Skills Academy students.

Chairman Toyoda
I happened to be teaching an Akio Juku at a school in Imabari and it got me thinking, why haven't we done this at the Toyota Technical Skills Academy? I tried suggesting it but things never got moving, so I told the academy directly, "Let's do it this year."

Tomikawa
That's great for the academy students.

Chairman Toyoda
I wasn't sure what to expect, but they seemed even younger than I imagined.

Tomikawa
If you only see the graduation ceremony, they look very orderly and disciplined, almost like a police academy, or the armed forces in days gone by, which makes it fascinating when you catch that more youthful side.

Chairman Toyoda
After the ceremony finished today, the graduates took photos in front of the Kiichiro sculpture, and it was interesting to see the moment when that "young generation" side came out.

Tomikawa
The moment you arrived, well, the fact that you spoke to them had something to do with it, but everyone just went "Whoa!"

Chairman Toyoda
When I go to cheer on our baseball teams, if I run into academy students somewhere, they react like that, which makes me happy beyond words.

Tomikawa
You're more than a father figure.

Chairman Toyoda
I wonder what it is.

Tomikawa
They're fans and you are like a star, someone they look up to, a father figure, and something even closer-there are so many layers, I think you're all these things at once.

Chairman Toyoda
I guess that's true. And the Akio Juku gave the students a chance to ask me questions directly. I felt bad that I hadn't set up these opportunities until now, but from now on I will make sure to conduct an Akio Juku for Toyota Technical Skills Academy students two or three weeks before graduation. It will be a regular event. When I asked the academy's director whether we could make it an annual event, he told me, "Absolutely."

Tomikawa
We plan to feature the Toyota Technical Skills Academy Akio Juku on Toyota Times. We were looking to release it the week after our coverage of the graduation ceremony, and I think putting this podcast out before the Akio Juku episode would be interesting. So as far as going through the conversations you had at the academy Akio Juku session, we'll leave it there for now. There were some really interesting topics, weren't there. One question took everyone by surprise. I won't go into the details, but when a student asked this particular question, all the instructors froze in shock.

Chairman Toyoda
The academy director told me he thought, "I'm done for" (laughs).

Tomikawa
Everyone froze, but you were like, "All right, this is great." I won't say any more, but you responded in true Akio fashion. And the look on the student's face was unforgettable.

Chairman Toyoda
He was serious.

Tomikawa
He was indeed. Well, we'll have to wait and see. The students' earnest questions, and your genuine responses.

Chairman Toyoda
We'll have to wait and see. You like to keep everyone hooked, just like in your TV days.

Tomikawa
Just like a TV commercial: join us next week on Toyota Times News!