CASE STUDIES
Goalous
Destroyed the hierarchy and spread the messages from the managers to the business locations all over the world!
- Sharing missions and visions improved the motivation of employees
- Spreading collateral information sharing beyond hierarchy and departments
- Clarifying the goals and creating collaboration
Toyota Tsusho Corporation
About the Company
One of the goals of Toyota Tsusho is, as a general trading company in the Toyota group, to become and remain a company that creates value that contributes to a rich society, in the business fields of metal, global production parts, logistics, vehicles, machines, energy, plant project, chemicals, electronics, food, and housing industries.
Employees
58,565
Interviewee
Mr. Loh, Chee Ming
Toyota Tsusho has been utilizing “Goalous“ as a key factor in the education of global human resources and its reinforcement. As for Toyota Tsusho, which carries out hundreds of businesses over the world, the Global Human Resources department is the core organization in its HR strategies. Its mission field is making bridges between training and projects and promoting the improvement of global cooperation. This time, we had a chance to learn about how they use and utilize Goalous in one of the most well-known Japanese global companies.
Sharing missions and visions improved the motivation of employees
The reason we introduced Goalous
（Mr. Loh, Chee Ming）My job deals with various education and training programs with all the employees in Toyota Tsusho. Among these, we have a year-long training program carried out with around 20 employees elected all over the world. This is a unique program in Toyota Tsusho which holds global business locations; the objective is to promote communication between the candidates of future managerial personnel and the creation of new businesses that will lead the future of Toyota Tsusho. However, once the training is over, communication that doubles up the interactions between the participants is hardly made, and I found it challenging to accelerate the outcome of the training. I learned about Goalous when I was looking for a tool that could stimulate interactions with unfettered communication, and eventually, lead to the creation of a new business. Goalous is a communication tool based on its unique objective management system, GKA (Goal, Key Result, Action); it seemed new and innovative because, with that, each member would be able to share his/her missions and visions. Besides, I felt it has many in common with our company's mind and decided to install it.
Spreading collateral information sharing beyond hierarchy and departments
What's seen after the introduction
(Mr. Loh, Chee Ming) Our communication before Goalous was mostly e-mail, and we had no chance to speak out toward whole organizations. Now, with Goalous, we share the learnings and findings at the time of training, and even after the training, we still have a mutual understanding of each other's situation. I consider it to be great. Also, since we have used Goalous for about three years, we have accumulated the past training information and I feel it is a great strength for new trainees since they are now able to follow the tracks of the past trainees or to communicate with them interactively. What is better, I consider it means a lot to be able to create a relationship over barriers between hierarchy organizations.Did the members under training get used to using Goalous soon enough? (Mr. Loh, Chee Ming) Some of them seemed to find it a great chance to make connections with those elites from other departments with whom it was difficult to make friends and those members actively tried to utilize Goalous for their business. In fact, it is not only the trainees but also the company officers including the president and the vice president have joined Goalous and been observing employees' activities. Since the system structure of Goalous is easy to understand and to get used to, I think it is good that the members can make communications in a relaxed atmosphere.
Clarifying the goals and creating collaboration
Please tell us some examples of the outcome.
Mr. Loh, Chee Ming) Although the training was closed before, now, various collaborations such as mutual transfers between organizations interested in each other are found as a result of sharing the application of the training outcomes in each trainee's projects or getting to know and connecting with each other on Goalous.A short while ago, GKA posted by the vice president made a great excitement. He set the goal of “sharing the video messages in the offices over the world” and leaders in the business locations shared it. He encouraged those leaders to show the movie and afterward, make an Action with a photo taken with the employees watched the movie together. It was much more fun with photos than usual reporting. Also, visualization of goal-setting motivates the users. Besides, rather than just setting goals, it enables others to learn about the atmosphere in each site, this could be another strength.
Expectations on future Goalous
（Mr. Loh, Chee Ming）We use Goalous for the candidates of future managers and found that it tends to require a certain time to make it a part of daily habit to use Goalous continuously. As a part of operating the training, I encourage and make sure that trainees will certainly use Goalous, but I hope Goalous would be much easier in its introduction phase so that I wouldn't have to facilitate. The tool itself is great, and I am sure it will lead to employees' inclusion and outcome. I have high expectations for Goalous improvement!
