In the Seiwajuku workshop, a CEO, Kathy(pseudonym), showed her management experience. The company that she happened to work for has come to be subject to the Corporate Rehabilitation Law. As Kathy helped the procedure, she eventually became the representative of this company. The corporate debt can be repaid under her management and the company restarted. She shared that episode.
After the presentation, Mr. Inamori says, “Create a philosophy within yourself and make the company even better.” This implies that Kathy has been in her way to learn philosophy and she should keep learning. This sounds a bit harsh to her as she looked very much proud of her performance.
Ten years later, Kathy is neither a representative of the company nor an officer.
I’m not sure if she is still in this company or not. Perhaps she had already left.
We could find in her presentation how and why Kathy lost her lucky charm.
I would like to demonstrate the keys as follows.
1 Believing herself as a victim.
2 Stubbornness
3 Egoism
4 Ignoring “Pricing is the management”
Let me explain one by one.
1 Believing herself as a victim.
Kathy talked about how she got divorced with her husband.
“My husband, who overestimated his sensibility and skills as a designer, relied only on his self-esteem. … He tried to keep a lavish lifestyle even by borrowing money to pretend to be a big guy. I believed that a wife should be obedient to her husband and dedicated myself as much as possible. (to my diabetic husband) “I can’t look after three of us. I will take care of our daughter and myself. So please take care of yourself. Never ask me the support as a wife, as we will no longer be a married couple. ”
According to Mr. Inamori’s speeches, the couple are close to each other, so before blaming our partner, we should forgive others’ deficits and show our gratitude towards that partner for being our partners for a long time. (This is what I understood)
Mr. Inamori says that this is a part of philosophy. If you do not have this mindset, you will not be successful in your life or work, and therefore, the results will be negative.
In Kathy’s words, you may be able to find that she believes that she is a victim.
There are actually no victims or perpetrators in the modern world. Still, if Kathy is obsessed with the sense of victim, and she can’t let go of this feeling, it will have bad consequences both at work and in her personal life. I think Mr. Inamori’s comments imply that message.
2 Stubbornness
“As the executives of that small company in Osaka did not like my stylish working practice that I got to learn in Tokyo, I experienced the envy from my boss and the so-called bullying from my colleagues at the office. It was the first time in my life. When the application for the Corporate Rehabilitation Law was announced, it looked rather funny to so many colleagues in the workplace who should have shared the same pain and anxiety, so in a sense that they could have coped with it, but everybody got panicked. I thought I could tell them, “Calm down everyone, look at me, I’ve survived through the harsh time of divorce !!” At the same time, to be honest, I had a refracted expectation that a fair investigation would be done for unclear organizational finance and structure for this company.
Mr. Inamori didn’t say that, but I think there was probably a message like this, “All the bad luck was caused by yourself. Please sincerely think about this. ” Mr. Inamori used to demonstrate the story of Sontoku Ninomiya, who was told not to study during farm work by his uncle, and he studied while walking, by thinking ” Yes, my uncle was right, I should have done this earlier.” Sontoku was a very honest and straightforward person. He never had hostile feelings for others. Mr. Inamori talked about this as an example of our mindset, where he had been honest and always bright and positive, even if there is sarcasm or malicious intent from the other party. I often hear stories about bullying, domestic violence, and mental abuse. Again, the root of them sometimes lies under the mind of the person who can be seen as a victim. I think Mr. Inamori could see such a mindset in Kathy’s words.
Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com
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