• The New York Times, Friday, February 22, 2008 11:30 AM

Toyota's top executives are trying a difficult balancing act-- replicating the company's success and operating principles in other countries, while ceding more control at the same time. Such thinking represents not just a challenge of reconciling conflicting goals--to control and let go simultaneously--but also a fundamental shift for Toyota, where top jobs are held entirely by Japanese executives.

"It's extremely important to have the same common Toyota Way infiltrated to employees in all corners of the world," says president Katsuaki Watanabe, who adds that there are "inherent characteristics" in the 27 countries where Toyota has plants that also "need to be respected."

Watanabe says that Toyota has learned--especially through experience in the U.S.--that it cannot simply impose Japanese practices on workers in other countries. It also has learned it cannot spend decades gradually handing off responsibilities. "This is about a greater maturity about globalizing and transferring knowledge," says John Paul MacDuffie, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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