The Blog Post
Twenty years after Toyota Culture was published, Jeffrey Liker’s lessons still expose why so many Lean efforts stall — and why Toyota’s thinking continues to matter in 2026.
In this episode, Mark revisits a three-part podcast series recorded in 2008 with Professor Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way and Toyota Culture. Together, they explored what most organizations miss when they try to “implement Lean”: culture is not an add-on. It is the system.
This reflection connects Liker’s insights to today’s leadership challenges — high turnover, pressure for speed, tool-driven transformations, and the temptation to replace leadership with dashboards and templates.
Key themes include:
Why Lean fails when it’s treated as a toolbox instead of a management system
The “people value stream” and why development and retention are leadership work
Servant leadership, the manager-as-teacher role, and the idea of “no power” at senior levels
Why stability, trust, and psychological safety are prerequisites for continuous improvement
How turnover, silence, and disengagement are system problems — not people problems
The conclusion is clear: technology has changed, but the hard work has not. Sustainable improvement still depends on leaders willing to invest in people, create stability, and build systems that allow problems to surface and learning to occur.
If you’re serious about improvement in 2026, this episode is a reminder that Lean is still a leadership test — not a tools deployment.
