The communication stupid!

This is an extract from an article in The Salt Lake Tribune of March 12, 2010.
Robert Cole, a business professor at the University of California-Berkeley and Doshisha University in
Kyoto, Japan, said some of the dysfunction at Toyota that has come to light as part of the company's recall
crisis is caused by culture, including language barriers, while some is just a consequence of the tight control
in Japan.
"Pressure will build for some type of U.S. representation on the board," he said.
However, several strong American leaders -- including Jim Press, the only American to have ever served
on Toyota's board -- have defected to other automakers in recent years.
After a half-century of doing business in the U.S., Toyota still assigns a Japanese boss to mentor every
American or European executive.
No Toyota executive in America was authorized to issue a recall. That included Jim Lentz, Toyota's top
American sales executive, and his boss, Yoshi Inaba, who oversees North America.
"Most of the information was one-way ... back to Japan," Lentz testified before Congress in late February.
Replied Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.: "What you're saying is that, ultimately, the decisions are made in
Japan?"
One former Toyota executive, who asked not to be identified, said communication could be frustrating
within Toyota.

The reverse is true, that the decisions in Japanese subsidiaries of foreign companies here are also made at home. But the communication factor, that wall of communication is as thick as when you red "Japan as Number One". It's the communication stupid, as usual.

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