What lessons can be learned from Toyota crisis

With the announcement that Toyota will globally recall over 400,000 hybrid vehicles, including its popular Prius hybrid, because of problems with the braking system, is just one more blow to the automaker's reputation and bottom line. This comes in the wake of weakening sales for the month of January, loss of consumer confidence and increasing litigation and calls for government investigation of the automaker.
Many are blaming Toyota management for the mess. Earlier this week, company's Japanese management, including Akio Toyoda, stepped forward and publically admitted to having failed to effectively manage the problems at the company and putting the global automaker in a crisis. Mr. Toyoda, grandson of the founder of the company, said a committe would be set up to look at quality issues and recently accounced he will come to the United States to get a better handle of the recall crisis.
I've been following commentary on Toyota for a number of days, but the only one that seemed to get to the heart of the matter was an op-ed piece by Matthew DeBond at the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/opinion/06debord.html?ref=opinion).
DeBond points out that while Toyota worked hard to become the largest car manufacturer in the world, it did not know what to do when it got that coveted spot. The company's vaunted management culture, which allowed it to grow and overcome its competitors, could not deal with the problems that come with rapid growth, outsourcing of production and parts and to move quickly to fix problems with its products. Instead, problems were ignored until they became too obvious to be dismissed, and then it was too late.
Now we see the result. While mechanical issues can be fixed quickly, management problems will take much longer and may be much harder to deal with.