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Agreed, I tend to assume most companies beyond any complex size (100? 200? a few hundred) are, in fact, almost completely dysfunctional, operating only on the chance ad-hoc ties of culture and individual stewardship that have had a chance to avoid being crushed by incredible complexity and traditional ineptitude of managing people at scale.

However, Toyota originated lean. Something's not wrong about that.

Why socially constrained?

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I worked at a particular BigCo in Nagoya. You know how Silicon Valley is a small town where everyone knows everyone? Nagoya is a much smaller town. I would prefer employees at BigCo in Nagoya continue to remember me as "fine chap, despite the obvious issue" and not as "that #^#{%^ing American backstabber", partly because there may yet come a day when the Ministry of Justice calls around for a character reference and partly because I'm modestly invested in the values system of BigCo despite having left it.

Mr. McKenzie lived in Gifu for many years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifu_City#Industry Gifu is about half the size of San Francisco, and presumably the members of various trades in that city are just as much a small town as various trades are in San Franciso. Someone as gregarious as Mr. McKenzie certainly did not spend his time there flying solo. These are things Mr. McKenzie has said publicly, and they provide plenty of material with which to make a high-quality guess as to why Mr. McKenzie might be socially constrained and why he might prefer not to answer that question directly.

I was particularly unaware of the context. Thank you.

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