Be unselfish in making decisions

Inamori mentioned that leaders need to be unselfish in making decisions.

I personally feel that this is quite important for us to conduct our responsibilities as consultants, or advisors. In every case, we should consider the benefit for our client. However, to demonstrate our capabilities and competences consultants tend to make cases complicated, or situations worse.

For instance, lawyers sometimes want to escalate cases to the battle on the court even though it was supposed to be settled in the negotiation or arbitration. Lawyers stimulate negative feelings of their clients and encourage them to be more aggressive. Lawyers can demonstrate how capable they are and even earn more fees from their clients. However, this, at the end of the day, may help neither parties, our clients as well as ourselves. Sooner or later, clients get aware that they could have ended the litigation without such a huge battle, and they never come back to the lawyer, who elevated the case. So, professional service providers must always think about what the best solution for the client is.

Inamori said as follows. “When you make decisions, even a little selfishness would mislead your judgement. Anyway, people tend to get biased toward their own interests. If everyone is occupied with selfishness and gets egoistic, our work will not proceed smoothly. In addition, such selfish motivation discourages people from contributing to the team’s efforts. In our daily work, we must keep away from our selfish mindset and always ask ourselves whether we conduct the right things as human beings.”

Even though our mindset is so important, we, consultants or professional advisors, tend to pursue our interests first. To avoid such practice, we may have to keep in mind the following two items.

1 Self-fulfillment (Affirmation)

2 Aikido, Zen (meditation for self-discipline)

Let me explain one by one.

1 Self-fulfillment (Affirmation)

When Mr. Inamori was the president of Kyocera, his subordinates came to propose a welfare system. Looking at the proposed proposal, Mr. Inamori said: “As your child grows, the benefits from the company are getting bigger.” That staff said, “No, I didn’t think like that…” This is how the subliminal mind works. If we think, “It would be nice if the company has such a welfare system according to the growth of my child …” This mind unintentionally appears in our performance of daily works. Such a mindset drives our actions from the unconscious level.

We should avoid such unintentional control of our actions. What can we do to avoid this?

Self-fulfillment or affirmation works. Such desire influencing our subliminal comes from our desire to be respected by others. It means that we leaders and experts should fulfill ourselves. This means we should be aware of our subliminal mindset. What it wants, what our mindset has been looking for. Simply, just being aware of your mental status works to tame such subliminal minds.

2 Aikido, Zen (meditation for self-discipline)

Inamori also said as follows.

“In short, ‘think things with your vacant mind’, or more simply,’ think, based on your neutral mind, which I call ‘unguided decisions’.”

“When you make a decision, you have to put yourself aside. Of course, if you’re a business owner, it’s natural to think about your company’s profits first. But when deciding, you should first put aside your company’s interest. When you take this approach, you could intuitively come up with the best solution that makes both your client and you satisfied. Before making the final judgment, make your mind clear, and see the issue from the other side. This would allow you to find the best solution. “

Aikido and zazen, the meditation, are such disciplines that make one’s mind empty.

Our common sense is always occupied with a set of manuals. Manuals usually teach us to be clever not to lose anything that we possess. Meditation allows us to be aware of the opposite directions: getting rid of what is unnecessary for our status quo: the less we have, the better our quality of life would be.

Even if I am busy, I would like to take the opportunity of such mental training from time to time.

So, I think it is important for you to be aware of your own mind and to train your mind in order to make decisions that are not selfish.