What drives growth-how to accumulate daily improvements-

This time, Mr. Inamori talks about the theme of “Accumulating daily efforts”.

“It is important to have ambitions and aspirations. However, even if you set a sublime goal, you have to deal with something that seems minor and simple in your daily work. Therefore, sometimes you may feel that there is a huge gap between your dreams and reality. But no matter what field you are working in, you should chip out small but daily efforts such as slight improvements through your fundamental experiments, data collection, and word of mouth information before we can produce great outcomes. Keep in mind that the great goal cannot be achieved in one day, but only with the step-by-step accumulation of small efforts allows you to achieve such a great goal.

To accomplish one great goal in your life, there is no shortcut. There is no choice but to accumulate steady efforts step by step. It’s just like building up a stone fortress by placing each tiny stone one by one. However, what if each of hundred people, or even a thousand people places one by one and we repeat this process, the accumulation would be tremendous records. There is a limit that one person can do for a company, but by working together as a group and continuing to do so, we can eventually do great things. I noticed that early stages.

However, it is not always easy. When I repeat simple work every day, I get tired of it and become more and more discouraged to pile up my efforts. Therefore, I thought about how to accelerate my efforts. I realized that being creative is very important for us to keep accumulating daily efforts. ”

The reason why Kyocera has a high level of technical know-hows is not because we were originally knowledgeable, nor because we had excellent engineers from the beginning. Since the time of the foundation, by chipping out tiny efforts and making improvements, we have acquired such advanced technologies. The accumulation of ideas that everyone delivers little by little is the basis of Kyocera’s wide range of technologies.

Mr. Inamori elaborate this motto by showing an example.

“Assume that you operate a sewing factory (small business) that pays employees’ wages by arranging 30 industrial sewing machines and earns revenue for piece work based on semi- processed goods. However, while staff keep sawing, they usually encounter technical issues in sawing. When they look for a solution, they eventually hear an opinion from someone. ” You could ask for the solution for company A, even though A is not in the textile industry.” Your staff may find this to be good news. Your staff conduct research for company A, finally find the better sawing method, share that technique in the company and improve it. While they keep improving one after another, your company would turn into a professional group of sawing. Your company is no longer an “outsourced vender”, who deals with patterns and fabrics for cutting and sewing. You are now a professional company with advanced and high level skills. It is important for them to make a modest effort. I could say that keeping improvements is the secret by which a small business can grow to a large enterprise.”

Mr. Inamori said above.

I think the following are the tips for making improvements.

1 Revise the daily routine
2 Value the opinions from others
3 Think how to help others

Let me explain one by one.

1 Revise the daily routine

Inamori explained as follows.

“For example, while darning the buttonhole, staff may think about this instead of the way I have done. ”

“We can’t control staff by command. If the top leader brings an issue, your staff spontaneously start thinking with a group how to solve it. This looks like a whirlpool. We need that kind of corporate culture.”

“I don’t like repeating the same thing. So, I started improving otherwise, I got bored with routines. I have driven myself to create slightly better than I did yesterday. I will keep the slight improvement to deliver a better output than I did today. I’ve always asked questions, such as –Why did this happen?-, and- Is there a better way to try?– That attitude has always allowed me to keep improving. “(P184: in Kyocera philosophy)

In our daily work, we can intentionally find at least one inconvenience. This can motivate us to make an innovation in terms of work procedure. So just carefully reviewing our routine would help us to find out the key for improvement as well as the idea for the innovation.

2 Value the opinions from others

“In this way, we have invented advanced technologies. In other words, technology has been invented not by the academic knowledge acquired from the university, but by the practical experiences taught by people. Even if you are a business owner who graduated from high school, you should get hints for innovation in this way: from the experience. Kyocera has developed through this approach. Another example is Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic. Matsushita didn’t even complete elementary school. He had obtained knowledge and know-how exclusively by others. How come could he develop his know-how through a sort of on the job or word of mouth? Because he used to look at phenomena with a skeptical attitude. ” How come this happened? ” Matsushita looked into the opinions of others and analyzed them. This kind of attitude has made Panasonic such a big company. ”

Now that the internet is so developed, most of the information can be obtained online.

However, I think there is also a considerable amount of information that does not appear on the Internet. I think that by being sensitive to information you need and by identifying what kind of information you really need, you would finally be able to reach out to that necessary information and you have hints for improvement.

3 Think how to help others

“In fact, consciously or unconsciously, everyone has the desire to help others, an altruistic mindset. Devoting yourself to others means -working for others not only for yourself- It’s a sort of altruistic mindset, and it’s very important. (P82 Kyocera philosophy) ”

Needless to say, improvements help not only you but your colleagues. At the same time, your efforts encourage others to conduct their responsibilities based on the altruistic mind. “As you worked hard for the team, I also want to do the same for you and our team. ” If this becomes a corporate culture, this would definitely drive the performance and create improvements as well as innovation.