The carmaker in front is Toyota
Lee Scott, chief executive of Wal-Mart, has coined a description for his dogged style of management: "leadership by erosion". The retail chain's leader believes in pushing aside obstacles until he achieves his goal.
Toyota Motor Corporation, the world's most successful vehicle manufacturer, has another word for it: kaizen. The phrase means "continuous improvement" and it applies to everything Toyota does, from the way it builds cars to product innovation. A new model may fall flat - as its first US cars did in 1957 - but many of the flaws are eliminated in version two, and nearly all in version three.
The latest market to feel Toyota's relentlessness is Europe, where it lags behind companies such as Volkswagen and Renault. Tadashi Arashima, president of Toyota Motor Marketing Europe, cheerfully admits to being "20 years behind" its US market position. But Toyota has been catching up by improving car design - a traditional weak spot - and introducing more diesel engines.
Nobody underestimates Toyota any more. Its market value has risen to $137bn - as much General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Renault and Volkswagen combined. It even makes fashionable vehicles these days. At the Paris Motor Show, which starts today, it will display the latest version of its hybrid-engine Prius car, which is driven by environmentally conscious Hollywood celebrities.
In a world where many companies regard the ability to switch strategies quickly as the prerequisite for success, Toyota sticks out like a sore thumb. It is a cautious, conservative enterprise that has stuck with operating methods it developed decades ago. Yet it has steadily overtaken its rivals, selling more light vehicles annually than any company apart from GM.
There are lessons here for others. Instead of seeking growth through mergers and acquisitions, Toyota has concentrated on organic expansion. Instead of periodically lurching in a new direction under a fresh chief executive, it has stuck to its guns. Its growth (like Wal-Mart's) has been iterative: it has adjusted tactics but its approach remains the same.
Since the publication of The Machine that Changed the World, a 1991 study of the Toyota production system, which was developed by Taiichi Ohno in the 1950s, others have tried to mimic Toyota's methods. The company makes cars with fewer defects at lower cost than its competitors, helped by its collaboration with suppliers, vehicle dealers and employees.
That contrasts with manufacturers such as Ford, which has changed direction abruptly several times in the 20th century, most recently when Bill Ford took over from Jacques Nasser as chief executive. "Not everything is perfect at Toyota, but they avoid so much of the frictional losses and the waste of energy at other companies," says John Wormald, a partner in the consultancy Autopolis.
Toyota's discipline has allowed the company to accumulate less baggage than others. Although it adapts its vehicles for different markets, it maintains a more limited set of manufacturing "platforms" - the basic structure common to different models - than its competitors. Low-cost manufacturing helped it make an average profit of $1,700 on each vehicle sold in the US last year, compared with $180 at GM.
In some ways, it is odd that others have not matched Toyota by now. It hardly keeps its methods a secret: it often shares manufacturing facilities with others. Its first US plant was a joint venture with GM; it will soon open a factory with PGA Peugeot Citroen in the Czech Republic; and it has just signed a deal to make Priuses in China from next year with a local manufacturing partner.
Toyota has no doubt been helped to take a long-term view by being a Japanese company with patient investors - US rivals face more intense short-term pressures. But that is not a complete explanation. DaimlerChrysler has also relied on docile support from long-suffering German banks and shareholders, but it has made nothing like as good a fist of vehicle manufacturing in the US.
More important is Toyota's culture - a combination of humility, willingness to learn from others (as well as sharing its own experiences) and sheer bloody-minded persistence in tackling difficulties. Mr Ohno's insistence that all problems on the production line were thoroughly analysed and solved, rather than being fixed expediently and quickly, infuses Toyota today.
The Prius is a good example. The project to build a hybrid powered by both a gasoline engine and an electric motor started in 1993, when US companies were focusing on gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles. The first Prius came out in 1997 in Japan and only became popular in the US when a second, more powerful, version emerged last year. There is now a five-month waiting list.
Of late, Toyota has fretted about whether it will become a victim of its own success. The company has a 10 per cent share of the world's vehicle market and has a "vision" of getting to 15 per cent by 2010. Fujio Cho, Toyota's president, has talked of its "sense of crisis" that its culture will be diluted as it expands. It already faces complaints that its US dealers are arrogant and complacent.
"I am not sure size is a problem, but success is. We know that it will not last forever. We know we must keep on working," says Mr Arashima. Sage words, but we should not take them too seriously. Other manufacturers swing from triumph to disaster every few years, but Toyota has doggedly pushed aside the obstacles in its way for seven decades. It is hard to change the habits of a lifetime.
前面跑的是丰田车
沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）首席执行官李?司科特（Lee Scott）将自己固执的管理风格称为“细琢式领导”。这家连锁零售商的掌舵人坚信，需要不断扫除障碍，才能达至目标。
对此，全球最成功的汽车制造商丰田汽车公司（Toyota Motor Corporation）则另有一词来形容：持续改善（kaizen）。这个词语适用于丰田公司的一切工作：从汽车生产到产品创新，无所不包。它的新车型也许会遭遇滑铁卢（正如1957年推出的首批美国车），但到了第二版本，首款车的许多缺点便会消失，再到第三版本出台时，这些缺点就几乎消失殆尽。
最近，欧洲市场感受到了丰田公司这股锲而不舍的精神。在欧洲，丰田不及大众（Volkswagen）、雷诺（Renault）等公司。丰田公司欧洲市场推广总裁Tadashi Arashima爽快地承认，与美国市场相比，丰田公司在欧洲市场“落后20年”。但是，丰田公司通过不断改进设计（这是丰田历来的弱点），并采用更多的柴油发动机，从而赶超竞争对手。
如今，谁也不敢小觑丰田公司。它的市值已升至1370亿美元，是通用（General Motors）、福特（Ford）、戴姆勒-克莱斯勒（DaimlerChrysler）、雷诺（Renault）和大众（Volkswagen）的总和。近来，丰田还开始生产时尚车型。在刚开幕的巴黎车展上，丰田公司展出了最新款的Prius混合动力车（hybrid-engine）。在好莱坞，注重环保的名流们所开的就是这款车。
业内许多汽车公司都认为，能够迅速变换策略是获得成功的前提。在这方面，丰田公司显得有些格格不入。它是一家谨慎保守的企业，始终坚持几十年前的经营模式。然而，它已稳步赶超了竞争对手，其轻型车的年销售量位居第二，仅次于通用公司。
其它公司可以从丰田身上汲取一些经验。丰田公司将精力集中在自身的有机增长，而不是通过并购来寻求发展。它坚持固有的策略，而不是每换一次首席执行官就带来一次发展方向的突变。和沃尔玛一样，它的发展是反复式的：尽管作过具体执行上的调整，但它的发展路向始终如一。
自从《改变世界的机器》（The Machine that Changed the World）一书出版以来，其它公司曾试图模仿丰田公司的经营模式。与其竞争对手的产品相比，丰田汽车的缺陷少，成本低。这是丰田供应商、经销商和员工互相合作的成果。《改变世界的机器》一书是1991年研究丰田公司生产系统的一份报告，该生产系统由公司的工程师大野耐一(Taiichi Ohno)开发。
丰田公司的做法与福特等制造商形成了鲜明的对比。在20世纪，福特公司曾多次突然改变发展方向，最近的一次是在比尔?福特（Bill Ford）接替雅克?纳瑟（Jacques Nasser）担任首席执行官之后。英国Autopolis咨询公司的合伙人约翰?沃莫尔德（John Wormald）说：“丰田公司并不是所有方面都很完美，但在避免内耗和浪费精力方面做得比其它公司好得多。”
丰田公司这种自律性使它不像其它公司那样背负太多的“包袱”。虽然它可针对不同市场调整其汽车产品，但它的制造“平台”（即不同车型共有的基本结构）更为有限。去年，它的低成本制造策略使其在美国市场上销售的每辆汽车平均利润达到1700美元，而通用公司每辆车的平均利润为180美元。
奇怪的是，其它公司在某些方面至今仍未能赶上丰田。丰田公司几乎从不隐瞒其经营模式：它经常与其它公司共享制造设备。例如它在美国的首家工厂就是与通用的合资企业；它与PGA标致雪铁龙（PGA Peugeot Citroen）合建的新厂很快也将在捷克投产；前不久，它还与中国的一家汽车制造商签署了一项协议，从明年开始在中国生产Prius混合动力车。
丰田公司的日本背景加上耐心十足的投资者使其可以把目光放远，但它的美国竞争对手却要面对沉重的压力，关注短期效益。但这不是丰田公司成功的全部原因。戴姆勒-克莱斯勒公司也有德国银行界和股东的默默支持，尽管德国的银行和公司股东们长期忍受坏消息，但很少向公司施加压力。尽管如此，戴姆勒-克莱斯勒公司也没在美国市场上大获成功。
丰田公司取得成功更为重要的一点在于它的企业文化：谦恭、虚心好学（同时也愿意与他人分享自己的经历）以及解决问题时的无穷毅力。大野耐一先生坚持生产线上的问题必须彻底分析并予以解决，而不是追求快速方便的对付办法。正是这种执着态度一直推动丰田公司的发展。
Prius混合动力车便是一个很好的例子。公司于1993年开始研制汽电混合引擎的项目， 当时，美国公司正热衷于耗油量极大的运动型多用途汽车（sports utility vehicles）。丰田于1997年在日本推出首辆Prius混合动力车；但直到去年，当第二款动力更强的Prius车推出之后，它才开始在美国热销。现在此车的订货期需5个月。
最近，丰田公司却为自己的成功感到苦恼，它担心如此成功反而不利。公司现已占有全球市场份额的10％，其“目标”是在2010年把这个数字增加到15％。公司总裁张富士夫（Fujio Cho）曾谈到公司的“危机感”，即随着公司的不断扩张，丰田的企业文化将被淡化。已有顾客投诉说，丰田公司在美国的汽车代理商非常傲慢自大。
Arashima先生说：“我不敢肯定公司的规模是不是问题，但成功肯定是一个问题。我们知道，公司不会永远成功，我们必须不断努力。”这话的确明智，但我们不能太当真。毕竟，每隔几年都有一些公司从胜利走向失败。但是70年来，丰田公司一直固执地扫除发展道路上的障碍。而要改变这样难得的好习惯则不是一件容易的事。
