Now you have Toyota

A big challenge

Actually, it's right up there with Tiger Woods.

It's a very big issue.

Suddenly, the world knows your cars have a major risk factor -- which most people really don't understand, and you don't, either -- but you have to make decisions. None of them nice ones.

For consumers, the options are limited: drive your Toyota, or not drive your Toyota. Sell your Toyota, or not sell your Toyota (at a discount, presumably).

And if you are a Toyota dealer? Think about your inventory. Your obligations. Your debt. Your uncertainty about the models that have driven your growth.

As an automobile dealer, you don't expect or anticipate this.

As a consumer, the car you own is now a question mark.

Interestingly, virtually everyone who sees themselves as a brand expert talks about Starbucks, or Apple, or Harley Davidson.

We used to say, fine -- but what are you going to do about Chrysler?

Now the reasonable question is, what would you do about Toyota? Or Lexus, the luxury brand of Toyota?

There are four issues:

(1) Identify the issue (hopefully, your culture allows you to celebrate those who pinpoint the problem, rather than destroying them).

(2) Apologize (hopefully, your culture allows you to fix the problem, apologize, and then move on).

(3) Solve the problem (that's obvious).

(4) Celebrate the solution (respect your customers, provide incentives for them to buy new cars, and welcome journalists and others to your HQ, research lab, and testing facilities, so they learn what actually happened). Then, perhaps, they can tell the rest of the world about what you have done to make things right.

Major lesson: openness.

Major opportunity: making openness happen.

Action: acting now, not waiting.

Your future: building on positives.