Are we simply hypersensative about everything and anything Toyota today? We’re we highly insensitive to anything Toyota (at least regarding quality) two months ago? I believe both to be true, and both are working in concert with each other, which implies quality issues that were being avoided or neglected (Silent Problems) are going to be front page news for the foreseeable future. And more importantly, any complaints regarding safety will receive ”Urgent” priority. For instance, a report over at Bloomberg,
Toyota Motor Corp.’s Corolla, the world’s best-selling car, is being reviewed by the U.S. after driver complaints about steering, according to a government spokeswoman.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recorded more than 80 complaints about Corolla steering for 2009 and 2010 models, according to the agency’s online database.
“We are reviewing steering complaints with the Corolla,” Karen Aldana, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an e-mail. NHTSA wants “to determine if a safety defect investigation is warranted, as is standard procedure with all complaints.”
In essence, the silence barrier has been broken. And once the barrier is broken, the floodgates will open. This is exactly the state of being Toyota is living in, which goes back to the Can You Trust Toyota issue I wrote about earlier this week. The safety regulators don’t trust Toyota. The press doesn’t trust Toyota. And most importantly, the consumer is learning to distrust Toyota. Such are the dynamics of Silent Problems when they finally surface, and most analysts are simply underestimating the dynamics at play here. One would think that things couldn’t get much worse, yet this is what’s happening, which I’ve been stating for well over a week.
Bottom Line: Toyota is quickly becoming a textbook case around how silent problems begin, evolve and eventually explode. How silent problems are dealt with is of critical importance to every organization and is addressed in the book Without Warning.
Over the past year, conversations with consultants, to business owners, to business leaders, to employees focused on doing the right thing reveals just how dangerous Silence truly is. Initially, the silence is somewhat benign. However as I’ve discussed and illustrated (see chart), silent problems grow in toxicity over time. And when (not if) a silent problem surfaces, it can derail an organization with ease.