“For Toyota, respect does not mean encouraging a relaxing, work-at-your-own-pace environment. Toyota deliberately creates a steady flow of challenges for its people. The Toyota Production System, with its just-in-time system and andon to surface problems immediately, creates constant challenges on the shop floor. Toyota needs every employee to always be thinking about how to improve processes–continuous improvement–just to keep up with the demands of the highly competitive automobile business. That requires Toyota to invest in team members so that they can be problem solvers. It is these skills in deeply understanding the gemba, solving problems as they occur, and systematically improving through PDCA that make Toyota team members the company’s most valuable asset. Thus, the scientific thinking skills of challenge, kaizen, and genchi genbutsu are integrally connected to respect and teamwork.” 

The Toyota Way 2nd Edition by Jeffrey K. Liker (McGraw Hill, 2021) pp. 49-50.