Corporate culture a matter of life and death?

03Mar10

Shortly after the recent safety problems at Toyota came to light, the Wall Street Journal published an essay by an author who contended that Toyota’s inadequate response was partially the result of deeply-ingrained aspects of Japanese corporate culture. Japanese companies pride themselves on making products that are superior in quality to anything else on the market. The failure by these companies to be prompt and forthright in public disclosures relating to safety issues, the author asserted, stems partially from the shame felt in admitting that their products do not meet the high standards that consumers have come to expect.

The author suggested that another aspect of Japanese corporate culture also contributed to Toyota’s difficulties:

“There is also a culture of deference inside corporations that makes it hard for those lower in the hierarchy to question their superiors or inform them about problems. The focus on consensus and group is an asset in building teamwork, but also can make it hard to challenge what has been decided or designed.”

All of this doesn’t just sound like part of Japanese corporate culture, but part of the culture in hierarchical organizations everywhere. Not wanting to admit mistakes is part of human nature. Not wanting to acknowledge a failure of duty and responsibility is an innate survival instinct. By the same token, how many senior managers really want to hear that the chosen course of action has flaws, especially from those working under them? Not all organizations explicitly invite the kind of feedback that will result in improvements, and not inviting it often sends a message in and of itself: we’ll let you know when we want to hear it, otherwise don’t bother.

This isn’t to say there aren’t companies out there that foster the kind of open culture that encourages honest criticism and feedback. There are a lot of them, though still not enough. What’s important is that employees feel safe in offering this feedback, whether because the organizational culture embraces an open sharing of ideas or because companies institute effective mechanisms for gathering and then responding to anonymous feedback. Employees need the ability to speak up about issues and problems that are important to them. In certain cases, as we saw with Toyota, sometimes lives depend on it.