How Toyota Launches 1m+ New Ideas Every Year

In this edition of Elite Team Tactics:

• One quick win: Play the subtraction game

• One proven system: Toyota’s Kaizen model to implement 1m business improvements per year

• One to watch: Mistakes can lead to our biggest opportunities

• One for you: 18 healthy recipes you can make in under 15 minutes

• One million-dollar question: Why Serena Williams had Tiger Woods in her support team

• Ones we recommend: Adam Grant’s 3-step leadership method to combat employee burnout

• One quote: Margaret Mead on how you can change the world

Welcome to all the new subscribers this week 🫡 

Every week, we share the strategies and blueprints behind the world's most successful teams so you can become the best leader in your industry 🏆

1. PLAY THE SUBTRACTION GAME

As you scale your team, obstacles will start to arise unintentionally.

These are things that slow down your teams and make their jobs more difficult.

The most common example is the reoccurring meetings that worked with 5 people but now steal a considerable amount of time when the team is 20 people.

So how can you quickly combat this?

Stanford professors Bob Sutton and Hayagreeva Rao developed a cure called the subtraction game which encourages you to hold a regular 15-minute meeting with your team where you ask the following questions:

• What are we doing that was once useful but is not now?

• What is adding needless friction?

• What is scattering your attention?

Top performers find ways to spend as much time as possible on what matters and as little time as possible on what doesn't.

As the leader, you have to actively work to eliminate the things that are taking away their time or stopping them from achieving their goals.

A good example of this at scale is from Shopify. Their leadership team removed every recurring meeting with three or more people when staff returned from the festive break. They were only allowed to add them back in after two weeks if they were deemed “critical’.

Shopify took it one step further and created a rule that all large “all hands” meetings with 50 people or more should only take place once a week and can only be scheduled during a 6-hour time window on Thursdays.

What obstacles, distractions, or annoyances can you remove for your team this week?

🎙️ If you are interested in the topic, give Rao’s podcast on the topic a listen here!

2. HOW TOYOTA IMPLEMENTS A MILLION NEW IDEAS PER YEAR WITH THE KAIZEN PHILOSOPHY

Toyota implements a staggering 1 million new ideas each year - the majority of which are made by factory floor workers.

How?

They implement the Japanese Kaizen philosophy of constant improvement.

The kicker with Toyota though is how they make all employees responsible for coming up with ideas of how to improve every aspect of operations, not the manager.

The manager’s role is to become the idea coach.

Why?

The manager will tend to have the experience and deep understanding of the company and market to help shape the idea into something that will add value.

Employees are full of ideas so this gives them a non-judgemental channel to suggest at least 1x new idea per month.

Importantly, the person who implements the idea has to be the one who had it in the first place so it alters the types of suggestions people make - more practical, productive and focused.

The Result?

99% of the ideas are adapted and developed into something that can come to life.

They don’t have to be big ideas. Most of these ideas are small like this one from the tour guide of their Tsutsumi plant in Toyota City, where they produce the Prius and Camry cars.

She used to have to set her bag down on the catwalk section of the production centre tour, which she personally didn't like and was potentially hazardous for the company.

So she put forward the idea of putting up hooks by the catwalk section - an inexpensive change.

Even though this may seem like a trivial example, imagine the cumulative impact of every day looking for ways to do things a little better than you did the day before.

On average Toyota pays 500 yen to the employee for each Kaizen idea, which is currently £2.50 in British pounds but they can be paid as much as 200,000 yen for special ideas (£1,020).

How can you implement the Kaizen process within your team?

1. Create a standard for how your team behave

2. Train people on the standard so it’s followed

3. Constantly ask the team to think of ideas to level up the standard

4. Implement as many improvements as you can

Toyota is now averaging 6.3 Kaizens per employee per year 📈

Imagine this impact on your business.

Kaizen for the win.

3. MISTAKES CAN LEAD TO YOUR BEST OUTCOMES

Everyone makes mistakes.

But how we respond is one of the best indicators of how successful a person or team will become.

It’s almost unbelievable what happens in this clip 👇

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Next time you or your team make a mistake…

• Look for the opportunity

• Look for the learning

• Look for how you can turn it into your advantage

4. NO TIME TO EAT HEALTHILY? NO PROBLEM. WE GOT YOU!

Here are 18 delicious meals that you can cook in 15 minutes or less.

Jimmy Mackey has produced this incredible list to help time-poor business leaders, still be healthier and leaner than 98% of the population.

The Berry Smoothie and Chicken Caesar are our personal faves 🤤

Enjoy!

5. QUESTION OF THE WEEK 🤔

What does your support team look like?

This is a question that we were asked recently and it has been talked about constantly in the office.

We strive for high performance, we maintain good standards across the business and we keep pushing to reach our full potential.

But often we forget the importance of having a world-class support team around you.

We love the energy and support from this photograph of Serena Williams’s box at the US Open.

Even the best performers in the world need a support team.

People who you can trust and who can challenge you to become the best version of yourself.

If you have one already, send them a message today to show your appreciation.

If you don’t have one, consider which people you need around you to perform at your best consistently.

6. LINKS OF THE WEEK 🔗

HIRING:

• 3x ways to adopt skills-based hiring to get the most talented people into your teams (Link)

HIGH-PERFORMANCE:

• Renowned psychologist Adam Grant’s 3-step leadership method that will help fight employee burnout (Link)

CULTURE:

• 10x must-read books to improve your team culture in 2024 (Link)

LEADERSHIP:

• Walmart CEO shares his leadership tips from starting out at 17 working in the warehouses to becoming the company’s youngest CEO (Link)

QUOTE OF THE WEEK 🗣️

REFERRAL PROGRAMME 🤝

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See you next week 👋