Extreme Toyota: Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World's Best Manufacturer

11.1. Embrace Contradictions

The more turbulent the times, the more contradictions there are. As a result, corporate success has never been more fragile. Only a few companies have proven themselves capable of changing as fast as the environment around them and dealing with complexities surrounding them. One of the main reasons why companies fail today is their tendency to kill contradictions, opposites, and paradoxes by sticking to old routines created by their past success.

In contrast, the image that describes Toyota's expanding and integrating organizational dynamics resulting from the six forces is one of constant renewal—akin to the moment the butterfly is about to emerge from its cocoon, or the green tomato with the potential to ripen. This image mirrors the nature of human creativity—a process of change where knowledge acquisition occurs at many levels, both tacit and explicit. This is a powerful concept Toyota embraced when it shifted to a capability-driven approach in the knowledge-driven industry during its rise to become the top car manufacturer in the world. President Katsuaki Watanabe explains this concept as follows:

We need to create a routine in which tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge can spiral up effectively. That requires human effort. We humans should go all out to create a solid educational routine that enables the knowledge level to spiral up ... and do it globally.^[]

As Watanabe pointed out in Chapter 8, explicit knowledge becomes obsolete the moment ...