“Be always humble” is one of the core principles of Kyocera philosophy.
Inamori mentioned as follows:
The more people get filled with materials, the more egoistic they become. This change has caused conflicts among people as each of them insists on their egoistic views. This may disturb team building and productive interactions. If you show off your abilities and slight successes and become irreverent, you will not be able to either get the cooperation of others, or improve your competences.
Therefore, in order to align the vector of the group and manage the workplace with the highest efficiency while maintaining a good atmosphere, it is important to maintain a humble attitude among staff. Each of us must recognize that I can always perform well because everyone helps me. In other words, the mind of “one for all, all for one (goal)”.
A Chinese proverb says, “Only those who are humble can receive good fortune “. It means that an arrogant person cannot get luck, happiness, but do those who are humble. Speaking of humbleness, some people may find those humble people as beggars, but that is not correct. Arrogant people tend to intimidate others because they have nothing to be proud of. They just tend to ignore and hide their ugliness by satisfying their materialistic desires. Those arrogant are, at the end of the day, simply poor people who have never got mentally fulfilled. Therefore, even if someone makes a fool of you simply due to your modesty and humbleness, it is wrong for the person to look down upon you.
In the business administration, it is necessary to manage the workplace with high efficiency while creating a good atmosphere where people are looking at the same goal. To foster this wonderful corporate culture, the top management himself must be humble. Employees can follow if management demonstrates such a humble attitude.
Above are what Inamori mentioned.
I fully agree with him and I believe that I have achieved business goals simply because I followed Inamori’s philosophy: being humble.
The question is how we can remain humble.
I personally feel that the following three attitudes are keys which drive us to remain humble under any circumstances.
1 Admit our own weaknesses
2 Find what we already have
3 Look at those who you hate
Let me explain one by one.
1 Admit our own weaknesses
Due to the educational system and social mood, those who are in their fifties, sixties are forced to have the following ideas.
・ I should be the smartest one among rivals.
・ I should be the most respected one.
・ Everyone should love me.
・ I must not be a loser.
Above mindset spontaneously drives us to be arrogant and snobbish. Thus, what we must do is admit our weaknesses. We should allow ourselves to be ordinary. This may be disappointing but can be interpreted to be just “ourselves”. We can be just the way we are. We don’t have to pretend to be something greater than we are. Rather, we must find our values, which God gave us as our default.
This may also allow us to forgive others. We can find them as the same human as we are. Then we eventually realize that others have allowed us and loved us even though we are not superior to others. Those who are loved much are the ones who can share pains that others have, and understand the value of ordinary people. So, it’s really important to analyze ourselves and forgive our weaknesses.
2 Find what we already have
Modern societies have been driven by materialism. The more we have, the more we get satisfied. Now, people are getting satisfied with materials. No further materials can give us more satisfaction. Instead, we have been looking for something that fulfills us mentally and emotionally.
Under such materialism, people are unintentionally looking for what they are missing. Compared with others, people tend to notice what they don’t have. Say, the twenties and early twenty first centuries have been the era of seeking materialistic satisfaction.
The sense of missing has driven us to take something from others and we have never gotten fulfilled or satisfied. Forgetting about what we are missing, we just simply focus on what we have already had. This allows us to make the best use of our capabilities, conditions, abilities which we have already acquired.
Once we ‘ve got aware of what we have, we just simply pay attention to how to make the best use of them. We may be able to be the only one, unique one, and precious one by bringing our possessions. We may be able to cleverly think, what we can do to contribute to the growth of our society. Therefore, I feel that noticing what we have is the key for us to remain humble.
3 Look at those who you hate
From my childhood to my thirties, I hated my father. I don’t like what I was before. I ignored, looked down upon, and kept my distance from my father. He succeeded his family business, the gas station, but went bankrupt, putting his family in a very difficult situation. I had never forgiven him.
I joined Inamori’s workshop and learned his business philosophy, and I have been running my own business. Now I realized that my father was very humble and a man to be respected most.
My mother used to help our family business as an accounting manager. But after my father lost our business, she started working for a nursing home as accounting staff. Her colleagues sometimes told her, “Every time I drop by the gas station where your husband works, I find out he works hardest and sincerest among all the staff there. ”
At my fathers’s funeral, a guy from the funeral service looked at the photo of my father and said, “Oh, he is the guy at that gas station. Oh dear, such a nice guy…I liked him.”
My father had always been humble, never had any enemy in his life, always remained gentle, kind and helped others. He had never got aggressive, arrogant, nor forced anything to family.
Everybody liked him and admired him as a good guy. I respect him most and regret myself as I had been harsh to him when I communicated with my father.
Now I understand why I was born as his daughter. That is because to learn what is humbleness, how important it is for me to remain humble.
Psychologically, those who irritate us mirror our complex or mental blocks. In other words, we can find the negative side of our minds by watching people whom we hate.
Thus, in conclusion, as top leaders, we must always remain humble. For us to be like that, we should admit our weaknesses, find values that we already have, and pay attention to people who irritate us.
Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com
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