First you will have to complete a self evaluation where you rate yourself on leadership skills, problem assessment, teamwork, work standards, problem solving, adaptability, initiative, quality orientation, communication, and coaching. Your group leader will rate you on the same qualities and will review their assessment with you. If rate high enough overall according to your group leader, you will be scheduled for a computer assessment and role laying session.
The computer assessment includes personality, math and reasoning. The role playing consists of an HR person playing the role of a new employee and you are their team leader. They will pretend to be stupid or lazy or contrary in some way. They will observe how you react as you train them on a process which is given to you. There is no need to try to memorize the make believe process. This is how Toyota wants you to instruct: 1. Prepare the TM by putting them at ease, stating the job, finding out what they already know about it, getting them interested and putting them in the correct position. 2. Present the operation by telling and showing them the major steps, stressing the key points to the major steps, and presenting no more than they can handle at one time. 3. Try out TM performance by having them do the job and correcting their errors, having them call out the major steps and key points as they work. and 4. Follow up with TM after putting them on their own and designating to them where to go for help should they need it and encourage questions. If you pass the role playing and computer evaluation, you will go on to the interview.
The interview consists of three people asking questions that must be answered in STAR format (Situation/Task, Action, Result). The questions they ask pertain closely to the self evaluation topics. One person reads the question and all three write your response as you give it. No one in the interview will really look at you as they are all focused on writing. The questions are like, but not exactly, "describe a situation where you had to deal with a difficult team member and what was the outcome." or "what is the most difficult problem you have had to deal with and how satisfied were with the outcome." This is not like a traditional interview and is kind of weird. They want to know that you know what standardized work is and that you follow it all the time.
They will let you know right away if you passed the interview or not. If you pass you will be put in the team leader pool for a time. When the need for a team leader arrives they will take the person in the pool with the highest scores throughout team leader selection process until the pool is exhausted.
