Sometimes good-and-proper corporate communications requires some serious rhetorical backbending. This howler of the day comes straight from Toyota's Jim Press, president of the company's US sales machine, in an AutoWeek interview: "We have no interest in becoming number one," he said, regarding GM's market-share vulnerability. (Sure, and frottage is a kind of pastry.) Press also recently downplayed Toyota's reported ramp-up to overtake GM in 2006 by blaming a Japanese motivational technique, in the Detroit News, "In Japan, culturally, a lot of times there are visions enunciated to motivate the company. We're given encouragement to look forward, to grow." Let's see, the company's employees are dedicated to beating GM, but the company itself isn't. Sure, we buy that.
A new Golden Age? [AutoWeek]
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Was Toyota's Jim Press Once One of the Boat People of San Pedro? [internal]