When it comes to business, no one wants to settle for second best. Companies, almost by definition, are always trying to ensure that they are in front of their rivals in terms of market share, sales and brand recognition.

Despite often leading the pack in terms of technological innovations in the industry, Honda Motor Co., a 66-year-old automaker founded by Soichiro Honda, has always been overshadowed by its Japanese archrival, Toyota Motor Corp. So dominant is Toyota's position in the market that its capitalization is almost three times larger than its nearest domestic competitor.

Perhaps reflecting their respective positions in the market, plenty of books have been published on Toyota — "The Machine that Changed the World" by Daniel Jones, James Womack and Daniel Roos, "The Toyota Way" by Jeffrey Liker and "The Toyota Mindset" by Yoshihito Wakamatsu, to name but a few — but, manuals aside, there have been much fewer books published on Honda and certainly none with much insight into the inner workings of the company.