When Mr. Inamori* released his book “To find your vocation-what is the ultimate objective of work-”, he made a speech for Seiwajuku members, most of whom are business leaders of small to middle companies in Japan, to demonstrate the ideas to be shared with employees of their companies.

Mr. Inamori said “The only one way to your business success is continuous endeavor and accumulated improvements”

 

To find the vocational work, he pointed out the following tips.

1  Determine yourself to your commitment

2  Like your work

3  Pile up small but daily improvements

4  Keep working

5  Treasure your philosophy

6  Put higher importance on employees not on shareholders

 

In this article, 4-6 will be explained.

 

4  Keep working

Continuing one work, committing yourself to that responsibility will help you to fulfill your lives. This may eventually turn your life wonderful. In our lives, the success ultimately comes from only the daily improvements, small but continuous efforts. All the great works in the world have eventually been delivered from that piled up endeavors.

 

5  Treasure your philosophy

During the Kyocera start up stage, Mr. Inamori and his colleagues used to play baseball games in lunch time with two small balls, hand-made gloves and mitts.

“People may have said that how come those guys could enjoy baseball at that tiny company! However, that baseball game united our team-work spirits and we got the feeling as if we are an actual family. Our colleagues showed their determination and commitment when I was demanding. To unite our people and achieve our goals, we have to look in one direction. We need our compass, and we call that compass as Kyocera philosophy.”

 

6  Higher importance on employees not on shareholders

“Under the harsh economic environment, some top management make redundancies. This totally depends on management’s decision however, I personally feel that cutting staffs is the last option to be taken. “ Mr. Inamori said.

 

>>> Generally speaking, it’s a global phenomenon that people are only interested in stock prices. This indicates what is a company’s reason to be. A company doesn’t exist for shareholders, but employees. Before paying dividends, a company head may think about reducing their salaries as well as dividends to secure employment. I feel this is for sure the fundamental value for us to fulfill our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com

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