This time, Inamori* spoke about the above motto in Kyocera philosophy.
What Inamori said is quoted with “”.
“ This also can be applied to learning management know-how from a consultant. If you look for an advisor, first check whether the person has a reliable track record or not. A consultant without a track record is meaningless. You don’t have to learn so-called theories or cases from them. In seeking advice, choose someone who knows this field with experience. “
Recently, I realized that experience is really important. I thought that books never teaches you the human resources, recruitment, and business management. You must experience it yourself. Even now, I am during trouble, but while reflecting on my own situation, I think about why it is important to learn from experience. Learning from experience is so important for the following reasons.
1. You can’t analyze yourself objectively
2. You can’t incorporate lessons into your subconscious
3. You can’t get “the lessons learned “
Let me explain them one by one.
1. You can’t analyze yourself objectively
“ (Being humble) is especially important for top leaders, as their company gradually improves from a small business. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be arrogant just because it has become a big company. Some top leaders in small businesses become arrogant as soon as they start making a little profit. So, please keep in mind that you must always be humble. If you lose your humility, you will become arrogant, and the company will fall into the red in an instant, even though God helped you to increase the profit, and the company started growing. “
(Quoted from the Inamori Digital Library.)
→ This is also an example of not being able to objectively analyze yourself and your company. We also tend to believe that what we are doing is always right. However, having an objective third party look at our company, we were able to analyze the situation as it is. The staff I had been working so hard to develop was just a hindrance to me. She was not trustworthy subordinate, but a person who was taking away my valuable time and resources. I was able to look at my company objectively because I listened to the advice of these people and adopted a different perspective. I realized once again how important it is to embrace different perspectives.
2. You can’t incorporate lessons into your subconscious
” When you think about it, human consciousness is actually frightening. Humans are very intelligent, so it seems like they can change their way of thinking flexibly. There is no cost to changing your way of thinking, so if you just say “Oh, yes, that is the approach I should take” and change your way of thinking, it’s easy. Equipment and machines are hard to change once they’re installed, but changing people’s way of thinking seems the easiest, but this is the most unchangeable and stubborn. This is the root of all evil. Everyone thinks that people can change their way of thinking easily, but this is difficult to change. “
(Quoted from the Inamori Digital Library.)
→ It is only after a shocking event or experience that a person can embed important facts in their subconscious. Once you believe something, it is difficult to change your mindset. The only way to change your mind is experiencing it. The problematic staff member in our company immediately turned around and escaped from her duties, soon after her fundamental problem was pointed out. Even though we spent a lot of time to learn philosophy, she had not acquired anything about “what is the right things as a human being” or “what is a wonderful life.” These things became “lessons learned” for me precisely because I learned those lessons through my experience.
3. You can’t get “the lessons learned “
“ Only when your business has a fair and justifiable mission, you can obtain the sympathy and full cooperation of employees. Furthermore, the top leader must raise the supreme objective and put all his effort into management. Having learned from this incident and learned a lesson, I have changed our corporate mission to ‘pursuing both the material and mental fulfillment of all employees’, which is the top priority of Kyocera’s management philosophy. Furthermore, in order to fulfill our responsibilities as an institution in our society, we have added the clause ‘contributing to the progress and development of humanity and society’, and made this the Kyocera management philosophy. “
(Quoted from the Inamori Digital Library)
→ This is the episode in which Inamori first learned about the reason to be of the company when he was confronted by an employee rebellion. I think now we must consider the function of the company and business leaders. In the Showa era, it was almost impossible for an individual to have sufficient knowledge, information, and management resources (capital). I think that in order to fulfill staff, we needed such a purpose and “reason to be of a company”.
Nowadays, anyone can go and get knowledge, information, and management resources. Actually many people are unaware that they have been given these resources. However, they never try to make the best use of those resources but make up for their own shortcomings by taking them from others. Mr.Inamori says that we should not privatize our talents, but I also think that it is important not to waste your talents on selfish people. I think we are in an era where we really must think about for what and how we should use our limited resources including talents.
So, to sum up, we need to objectively analyze our own situation, learn deeply enough to let lessons embedded into our subconscious, and accumulate “lessons learned”. To do this, I think it is important to learn from experiences.
* Mr. Kazuo Inamori, the founder of Kyocera, KDDI (one of the top tele communication companies in Japan) and the top of revitalization project of JAL. As a well-known Japanese entrepreneur, he has been sharing his experiences and management know-how with managements of small to middle companies in Japan.
Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com
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