Time to Jump on the Beat-Up-On-Toyota Bandwagon?

Not exactly. There's still much to admire about the company, but I've been thinking a lot about its recall woes, as have many people (and not just the Toyota owners out there).

The sections on "crisis management" in the PR manuals have all been updated.

"Managing a public-relations disaster isn't what it used to be. Back in 1982, even as people in Chicago were dying of cyanide poisoning from tampered Tylenol bottles, the drugmaker's parent company, Johnson & Johnson, didn't have to worry about Internet message boards inciting panic or fueling rumors and fear-mongering. The strategy of corporate crisis management hasn't necessarily changed, but in the Google, Twitter, and Facebook era, the execution has," notes Newsweek writer Matthew Phillips in an online-only article.

Managing a crisis, unfortunately, takes time, and in the Internet world, it's a lot easier to yell, "End of the world!" than it is to analyze.

If Toyota had ordered a recall when the first complaints about unintended acceleration arose (in 2004, according to a Reuters timeline), the company might well have been savaged for encouraging panic -- especially if the problem had, on thorough investigation, proven to be simple to fix and rare in occurrence.

The recall(s) will certainly affect Toyota negatively for a time, both because the recalls involve really scary stuff (My car is going to run away with me? My car won't stop when I need it to?!?), and because Toyota Loyalty has been built on the brand's near-mythic reputation for quality and reliability.

Will the negative effect be permanent?

I suspect not, in part because we humans have short memories for a lot of stuff. But a lot will depend on Toyota's actions in the next weeks and months.

This is a great opportunity for transparency within the Toyota organization and in the way Toyota deals with the world at large -- whether customers, dealers, or regulators.

In a piece published in today's Washington Post, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda (grandson of the company's founder) apologized directly to consumers, and outlined three steps that he and his company will be taking: (1) "I have launched a top-to-bottom review of our global operations to ensure that problems of this magnitude do not happen again and that we not only meet but exceed the high safety standards that have defined our long history." (2) "...[We] will ask a blue-ribbon safety advisory group composed of respected outside experts in quality management to independently review our operations and make sure that we have eliminated any deficiencies in our processes. The findings of these experts will be made available to the public, as will Toyota's responses to these findings." (3) "...[We] fully understand that we need to more aggressively investigate complaints we hear directly from consumers and move more quickly to address any safety issues we identify. That is what we are doing by addressing customer concerns about the Prius and Lexus HS250h anti-lock brake systems."

Relatedly, Mr. Toyoda wrote, the company will be "putting in place steps to do a better job within Toyota of sharing important quality and safety information across our global operations. This shortcoming contributed to the current situation. With respect to sticking accelerator pedals, we failed to connect the dots between problems in Europe and problems in the United States..."

All of these are good plans. The proof will be in the execution.