Following the merger of Toyota Motor with Toyota Motor Sales, Toyoda led a concerted effort to blend the two organizations' distinct corporate cultures, emphasizing what he called "'The Three Cs': Creativity, Challenge and Courage". Until then, their management philosophies had been compared to "oil and water"; the old Toyota Motor had prioritized "efficiency", while Toyota Motor Sales had a more "free and open" culture. In 1984, a group was formed to explore organizational reform within Toyota, which found that the company suffered from "big company disease", discouraging younger employees from proposing new ideas due to the bureaucracy which had become entrenched within the old Toyota Motor. Toyoda pushed the company to overcome its "rigidity" to encourage innovation, and in 1988, nearly all the recommendations of the study group were adopted.
