Inamori had his boyhood and adolescence before and after World War II. Around that time, sacrificing ourselves to the country and fulfilling our family with materials were highly valued in our society. However, after the war, Japan entered into the period of high economic growth driven by industrial expansion and improvements led by corporations. Small companies have grown into large conglomerates. The basis of our values shifted from the family & status to the company. Inamori successfully made such a paradigm shift. Unintentionally, he was able to leave the old value standard and pushed himself to look at the new value, the corporate growth.
Nowadays, we all have again been forced to catch up with such a paradigm shift. Looking at the current middle-aged Japanese who are in their forties to sixties, in their childhood and adolescence, they had been forced to compete with each other to pursue higher careers. Graduating from good universities and working for blue chip companies for our entire lifetime have remained the most successful career paths. However, the current society doesn’t guarantee lifetime employment. We must prepare our pension of 200, 000 USD per person, under the long lasting deflation economy.
When it comes to the presidents of middle to small businesses, Inamori said that they are the ones who look most astonished by such a paradigm shift. Under their values, as they are highly educated with brilliant careers, they have believed that they are the ones who should be treated properly as the most valuable human resources. Nevertheless, when they become entrepreneurs or the leaders of their family businesses succeeded from their parents, they look unhappy in struggling with the business management.
Inamori and leaders of those small & middle companies, there is a huge gap as a leader who must survive under the new ear. Inamori changed his mindset, but the latter ones hardly manage this change.
I feel that there are fundamental reasons why Inamori succeeded in making the paradigm shift in his mind. Those are the following.
1 Honesty and open-mindedness
2 Leaving everything-no obsession-
3 Sincerity -never telling lies-
4 Humbleness
1 Honesty and open-mindedness
Inamori started Kyocera to release his technologies to the society. However, he experienced a coup d’état of young employees and realized that the ultimate objective of a company was to fulfill them. “The company is for them, not for me”, he thought. Then Inamori set up the corporate objective as “to fulfill all the employees materially and mentally”. He said, “Although I wrote this phrase as Kyocera’s corporate mission, I found myself empty, so I added to -contribute to the development of human beings-. After fulfilling all of my staff, there may be some room for me to get fulfilled by contributing to society.”
This episode shows how honest and open minded Inamori is. He is the president of a hundreds billion-dollar sales company. He demonstrated his success story to all the workshop participants. He could show off how great he is. But he simply stated his anxiety, sadness and weaknesses. This is the key for a leader to make a paradigm shift.
2 Leaving everything-no obsession-
“I know I will die as a human with no possession. Thus, if your staff showed off his excellent career and arrogance, you could discard him by telling him,-we could never share our values. You can find a place where you feel comfortable. – “ Inamori, despite the fortune he developed, has never got obsessed with his career, skills, title and position, in a nutshell, the power. What made Inamori great is this, “paying attention to none of the things his has developed.”
3 Sincerity -never telling lies-
When Kyocera young employees protested Inamori by asking for a guaranteed salary increase, Inamori said, “Hey guys, Kyocera started just two years ago, we have been making a profit but I can’ t guarantee our future performance. Instead, what I can guarantee you is my working very hard to maintain your employment and realize your fulfillment. ”
From a psychological view point, this is quite important. If there is a discrepancy in what we feel and what we think, our sixth sense never works. Even for a tiny item, we should keep our honesty. By doing this, we would be able to achieve the psychological findings, called “higher self- true self-.” When we achieve this higher self, we would intuitively be able to feel the wind of the ear: which direction we should head, and what we should do.
4 Humbleness
Inamori said, “Around thirty years ago, I thought that I was a guy with a good talent for business administration. But at the same time, I was feeling that there is no necessity that Kazuo Inamori should be the one with such business senses. There are two reasons. 1 statistic reason: God created a certain percentage of people in Japan as business leaders. I was allocated such a role by chance, there was no reason. I am the one who was selected by the lottery. 2 All the existences are linked to each other under the fundamental system of the universe. There is something that we could call as just “existance”. Sometimes it appears as a material, in other instance, it is an animal, and some other occasion, it looks like a human. ( This is rather the Buddhism philosophy), given this concept of the universal system, we spontaneously get humble and could never be an arrogant one, who distinguishes himself from the others. ”
→ Japanese proverb says “Remain humble and keep your endeavor. What you are now is the result of the efforts you made in the past. What you will be in the future is the reflection of how
serious and diligently you are working now.”
Thus, even under the era of dynamic change, people with the following criteria could survive well and make a breakthrough. 1 Open mind, 2 No obsession 3 Sincere & Honest and 4 Humble, those are the personality for a leader who can get the very big wave under the new normal era.
Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com
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