The speech that Akio Toyoda, president and director of Toyota, delivered on May 18, 2020 to Babson College's 636 newest master's degree holders, half of which are from family businesses, encapsulates a principle that kept Toyota family business alive. How are you transforming your business models today?
Toyoda -- who earned his MBA from Babson in 1982 and whose son graduated from the college in 2014 -- recalled that his great-grandfather "invented the automatic weaving loom, and his grandfather Kiichiro took Toyota from a fabric company to a car company in its second generation. What a transformation and such resolve! Here are top three insights from that speech:
Lesson 1: Find joy in your pursuits!
Toyoda found joy in doughnuts! He said, "When I was a student here, I found joy in doughnuts! American doughnuts were a joyful, astonishing discovery. I want to encourage all of you to find your own doughnut." Joy unleashes creativity and unlocks peoples' energy far more effectively than fear.
Lesson 2: Be committed to lead.
Toyoda is a descendant of a company founder and the danger in that is having mixed feelings about leadership position. The internal conflict can come from taking orders from a parent or question whether one really deserves his or her position. Toyoda suggests that you ought to be completely committed to leading others and decide on your values--what you stand for and act on the basis of them.
Lesson 3: Stay interested and listening.
Although already set for life being a child of the owner, Toyoda chose to rise to the job instead. He studied and listened to other people and endeavored to make their lives better. Automakers make a consumer product on which peoples' lives depend. If the products prove defective, this is an opportunity to understand what can be done differently to solve your clients problems. A big company often prefers to preserve what has worked in the past -- even though it knows the future is in something new. Use current challenges to innovate and better people's lives. How are you transforming your business models and innovating your products and services today?