Rodney Johnson - Without Warning

In most stories, a major  character is confronted with a dilemma, often the challenge between “Doing what’s right” and “Doing the right thing.” The tension between these two is real and visible, and while the desired outcome is clear, the means to the outcome is sketchy and treacherous at best. And the dilemma often feels bigger than life itself. Such is the contentious landscape of the Whistleblower.  from Chapter 11 of Without Warning

Whistleblower lawsuits often eminate from silent problems, most often the type that are being intentionally silenced. For this reason, they are high risk, and highly contentious. The other day, CBS News reported that Toyota is accused of withholding evidence. According to CBS News,

A former attorney for Toyota has accused the automaker of illegally withholding evidence in hundreds of rollover death and injury cases, in a “ruthless conspiracy” to keep evidence “of its vehicles’ structural shortcomings from becoming known.” The complaint charges that in a pair of lawsuits in Colorado and Texas, Toyota failed to fully disclose electronic data (such as e-mails) in defiance of court orders to do so. It states that when Biller learned of the company’s failure to produce design and test data from an engineering subsidiary, he attempted to collect and preserve the information. Despite these efforts, the engineering unit “was allowed to destroy relevant information and documents that should have been produced in, approximately, over 300 rollover accidents involving roof crush issues,” the lawsuit claims.It further charges that Toyota regularly, and improperly, withheld records on design and testing of vehicle roofs. For example, it says that Toyota never produced a document showing that the company’s internal standard for roof strength was tougher than the federal requirement. Toyota engineers and witnesses repeatedly testified that the internal standard did not exist, the lawsuit says, adding that there are vehicles on the road today that do not meet the standard… In the lawsuit, however, lawyers for Biller described Toyota’s effort to silence him as “illegal and against public policy in that it is intended to conceal information from plaintiffs and obstruct justice.”

From my perspective, this scenario parallels the stories about silent problems that exist inside “The Contentious Zone,” which I describe in the book, Without Warning. The Contentious Zone is a place where the opposing party not only disagrees with the situation, but also advocates the problem doesn’t even exist. And for this reason, this will be a long, protracted and volatile battle. However, I can guarantee one thing (cause I’ve followed these scenarios), for Biller to bring this forward at this point in time, three situations exist. They are:

1. Biller is well prepared with lots of evidence,
2. Biller knows his opposition extremely well, and
3. Biller wants to do what’s right.

While this story is worth following, it really begins to surface a much bigger problem underway at Toyota. Earlier this year (May 2009) I published Is the Toyata Way Waning?  I wrote,

Toyota appears to have lost its momentum. And as the economy turns around and car sales begin to rebound, I predict that Toyota will be a lagard. Fresh companies like Ford, Hyundai and others will be on the attack, going after #1. And if Toyota falls as I anticipate, reports about Toyota will also turn for the worse. Stories will reveal about how key decisions weren’t made. How faulty assumptions were made. How political infighting is underway. These are the basic foundations of Silent Problems and Without Warning Events.

Since I made this prediction, Toyota’s world has and continues to spin out of control. It is a world filled with intrigue, disappointments, silent problems and now without warning events. Here are but a two of the stories being written about the highly reverred Toyota.

May 19, 2009 (The Truth About Cars)– Toyota plans on replacing 40 percent of its senior managers and half the board members while reorganizing its North American business according to the Financial Times. Akio Toyoda takes over as president of his grandfather’s company next month and clearly wants to set a new tone at the top.

June 2009 (Autoguide.com)– One of the last things Shoichiro Toyoda did as honorary chairman at Toyota Motor Corp., was to assemble all of the company’s executives and give them a tongue lashing. Toyoda even called out president Katsuaki Watanabe and blamed him, as well as those other executives in charge of the Japanese automaker, for leaving behind the company’s long-standing business practices to chase the quick-buck. He said they followed the lead of now-bankrupt automakers like GM and Chrysler, a path that has put the company in a serious financial bind.

 Toyota’s #1 problem today isn’t design, manufacturing or sales. Their #1 problem is the silent problems now beginning to surface. And as I’ve discussed before here (Do Silent Problem Impact Business Performance), these problems will impact present and future performance, the whistleblower lawsuit is likely just the tip of the iceberg for what will follow.