Dear Management of Toyota,

This letter is about the current crisis in Japan:

First - excuse me if I may break rules of politeness. I know than Japan has many customs, unfortunately they are not know to me.
I just try to help/communicate over the culture gap.

My aim is to share some information on the 'waterairplane'-tweet I shared yesterday.
emirjame
政府は、この飛行機が「使えること」を知らないの? http://bit.ly/faEPdy #fukushima #Tokyo #tsunami #fukushima50
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After finding this article:
http://www.cringely.com/2011/03/who-ya-gonna-call-supertanker/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ICringely+(I,+Cringely)
on the internet I realized (from the postscript) that someone had tried to get the information in the right place.
But that it was only one line of communication & that it could break somewhere.
So I decided to try to use Twitter to the best of my ability

And Japanese people helped me with the translation. 3 Hours later I saw that that tweet had a good position on the net. Then I thought about the follow up. I realized the time difference between the company and Japan. For the (USA) company it was end of the day. If they would all go home-there could still be a problem. So I rang the company.

The lady who picked up the phone said there were talks on high levels of the management & the White House and Japan. And that they had a plane standby. So this was very good news. But is was also concerning: Because the plane is more or less a 5 hour flight away from Japan. So deciding first on tthe best option and then flying will cost/ waste 5 hours!

So I tried to do a tweet in Japanese on this problem. But that was not picked up by the broader public. So this is still a case of concern.
The problem is: from my own profession I know that it is not natural for people to always realize that they can make parallel steps.
= Fly the plane even if it is NOT used & maybe do many other (later useless) steps to create more speed & more options when the decision is made.

What I mean is: normal management will go for the best option (because that is economical). In this crisis - because the risk is so high & the costs are extremely high when you fail.....
You need management that will look at 5 or 6 possible scenario's at the same time.
Then draw a timeline from these scenario's.
Then cut the timeline in separate units
Then try to start up the units as fast as possible & carry them out up till the point where they need input from the stage before.

Also start getting them approved by all parties parallel and deciding what is the best solution can be done in a similar way.
Because it saves time when the solution is made & because it gives space when a scenario fails.
This is parallel management instead of chronological management.

This way of working is expensive on resources. And that is why it is unusual. But it is very economic on the most precious resource of all: time!!!

It is my personal opinion that in a hierarchical society this parallel thinking & decision making is even more unusual. This, to me, is a great concern. That Japan may loose precious time to avert this disaster. Because the lines of command are not set up to start making parallel decisions.

And I know for sure that eg. Toyota would have great managers that could easily do this. But are you involved?
Because I imagine that the normal daily operations of a Nuclear power plant or of a government don't need this type of management.

So - I did my 'butterfly gesture' and flapped my wings & tried to help Japan with my first gesture (sending the tweet on the airplane). (Sentence based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect The theory says that even the movement of a butterfly wing can cause bigger effect elsewhere).
But trying to get more parallel decision making to fight the disaster is just to difficult for me. (As I don't master the languague & the politeness & the connections).

As an outsider I would know where to start: With you: the management of Toyota. Because you are very famous & understand every inch of process management & will grasp/know this problem quickly. This in contrast to maybe government & Nuclear plant staff who maybe never have to think this way.

Reason to talk to you: Concern for the lack of parallel-management in the fight against the disaster. Decision-making & approval/discussion with third parties & carrying out scenario's should run parallel. To save precious time.
The "waterairplane" now only being an example of what is tricky in the current style of management. Far too much time is wasted & it is the only component you cannot buy.

Would you, in your position, maybe see possibilities to do something sensible with this information?

With great respect from Holland,

Mirjam Eikelboom

PS. There was just a short film in the news here with Tokyo Firefighters going to the disaster area.
If I see there courage - I can only try to achieve as much as possible!

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