In Kyocera philosophy, there is a motto, “ Think deeply until you can visualise the results in detail.”
Inamori said,
“In order for us to work, we must reach the mental condition where we can visualise the results. What was initially a dream or aspiration, but seriously, as I said, when we repeat the simulations in our minds repeatedly, finally the boundary between the dream and the reality disappears. Even if you haven’t achieved the goal, you will feel as if you did it, and you will gradually become confident that you can do it. This is the situation I call “visible”. Unless you find your goal to be “visible,” you would not be able to accomplish unprecedented work, creative work, or difficult work with many obstacles.”
This time, Inamori spent some time demonstrating to Seiwajuku members the manual of how to conduct this.
The process is as follows
1 Determine yourself
2 Plan specifically
3 Bring your experiences
4 Anticipate the condition, environment, and assumptions
5 Maintain the reality
6 Repeat the success
Let me explain one by one.
1 Determine yourself
Inamori said, “Guys, listen, almost 99 percent of my time has been devoted to my work, which means business administration of our company. I was afraid that either the company Kyocera gets into -non-breathing- as I can’t fuel actual energy to it or becomes less active as it lacks vitality which I have transmitted to the company. So, what I want to tell you is concentration. The top leader really needs to concentrate on the management to keep your company alive.”
2 Plan specifically
“Let me tell you the example of a restaurant chain. Don’t care if you haven’t opened any of your stores yet. You may think that the right arm of the current store manager would be suitable for the next store manager, while the current one can be promoted as the head of a new store. Think about the availability of the finance, sales, expense, labor costs, reaction of the competitors, you should create a precise business plan as if that plan has been broadcasted in front of you.”
3 Bring your experiences
Like playing chess or games, you should repeat the simulation. “The sales of that hypothetical store is ***, we can borrow the amount of *** from the bank, the initial sales would be ++++, given the existing competition.”
By bringing all of your experiences and the research outcomes, you could be able to repeat those simulations.
4 Anticipate the condition, environment, and assumptions
Inamori emphasized that there should be an accounting system by which you can figure out the sales/ expense/ and the profit as an individual store base. Inamori said he has been repeatedly conducting such a simulation in his mind. This should include some costs, revenue, and expenses. I have conducted a ton of thorough simulations before execution of the project.
Therefore, he said, “Our projects have actually never failed.”
5 Maintain the reality
While repeating simulations, I finally come to the feeling that I am sure this project is going to succeed. I call this feeling “visible”. Every time I ask our staff whether he visualize the project, and he answers, yes, I ask him further if the visualized project is full-color or monotone. While it is monotone, this seems to be immature in terms of the level of simulation. Thus, my staff needs to think again and again until he gets clear vision in color. If we execute the project with such clear visualization, this should be succeeded.
6 Repeat the success
Inamori said that the most important thing when you start a new business is the availability of staff: human resources. “Money, facilities, technologies, all of them are less important. If you have a good and capable project manager and he/she completely understands your philosophy, you would be able to tap that new business”, Inamori said.
Many presidents of small to middle size companies say “ We can’t expand our business as we lack of human resources. ” However, listen, guys, capable and skilled workers would never come to your companies. Your staff are the reflections of yourself. If you complain to them, this looks like spitting to the sky. The waste will fall to you. Only the thing that you can do is understand that the staff working with you now are the best human resources. Remain humble and make efforts with them to improve your own management skills.
→ In Aikido, we say that each of us has a mechanism which is exactly the same as that of the universe. As long as each of us is the reflection of the universe, there is no difference between the leader and staff. Thus, we have to tender and respect each other. This is the fastest and most efficient way to realise the company’s growth. I feel this is what Inamori wanted to tell us.
Thus, to summarize, for us to conduct a good simulation, we should desire, plan, bring the experience, and respect our staff. Otherwise, we would never bring the good result by executing a new business plan.
Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com
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