Welcome to a short series of book recommendation videos. I keep being asked which books I would recommend, and I’m not going to start creating some in-depth book reviews. Uh, I may give some commentary about why I think a particular book is worthwhile. I’m going to link to all the links in the comments section so that you can get them from Amazon or find a secondary source if the book is out of print from its leading publishers.

So which book do you think I would start with? Which do you think is the quintessential book? I would recommend to everybody the Toyota way by Jeff liker. This book is how the book that started my journey with Toyota. This book was published in 2003.

This book is Jeff’s interpretation of the Toyota way, 2001. This book is the official document that you’re given inside Toyota as a Toyota team member, and it was supplemented in 2013 with a book of practices or sort of a short supplement. So showing to the team members are explaining to Toyota team members, How they should implement the practices within the Toyota way. Now the Toyota way is a philosophy. It’s a set of beliefs or ideas or philosophies that Toyota team members should follow.

Um, if I open up the official documentation produced by then, the president of Toyota, Mr. Cho, is still around in Japan. He’s now retired but continues to advise some people in Toyota. Um, there are two pillars of the Toyota Way.

One is continuous Improvement. One is respect for people. And in continuous Improvement, we talk about challenge Kaizen and something called Genchi Genbutsu. And in respect for people, we talk about respect and teamwork, the essence of teamwork.

In Jeff’s Book, they talk about the 14 management principles, or he talks about the 14 management principles within Toyota. There are no management principles within Toyota. This is Jeff’s interpretation.

Now I’m going to say immediately; this is a super book; it semi endorsed By Toyota in that Archeo Toyota has a copy of this book. And in fact, Jeff has a photograph of him with Akio Toyota, uh, holding this book. And if you work at Toyota, you will see many, many copies of this book. And indeed, the Toyota university, the people who produce the official book, says that Jeff got it about 95%, right?

So that’s a pretty much ringing endorsement. Jeff has spent most of his career as a university professor. He’s now retired from studying Toyota and other manufacturing systems, and he’s considered a world expert on Toyota. And indeed, he’s documented more about Toyota than any of the, probably any of the living person alive today.

Probably. So this is the first book I recommend. Suppose you want to understand how Toyota works, how Toyota’s production system functions, the principles that drive Toyota, and true lean thinking. This is the book to buy. Everybody should own a copy of this book. And indeed, when I started my Toyota journey in the early two-thousands in Toyota, motor Europe, this was a book I was given, and these books are everywhere within the corridors of Toyota.

Now, if you want to get a copy of this, the Toyota way, 2001, you’re going to have to get a job at Toyota. This document does not have 14 points of the Toyota way. It lays out the two pillars of the Toyota Way and the five key points I mentioned a few moments ago, and then a little bit later on, as I said, in 2013, Toyota university put out this internal document, which helped people to understand how to implement the Toyota way, how to carry it out in their day to day life.

Now in this document, there are 10 points mentioned in one particular section, but it’s not points of the Toyota way. What this was, something that Toyota motor corporation came up with called out attitude.

There are 10 points. The first is customer first, and number 10, we love Toyota, but they’re not the Toyota waypoints. It’s just our Toyota motor corporation, Phil. They put their attitude into practice.

So buy this book; there’ll be many more books I recommend by Jeff liker. Um, his books have helped me immensely. Um, the next book I review will show you the book that helped me in my early Toyota Korea. This is the first book to buy. I’ll be back with another book review soon.