One of Kyocera’s business management mottos is transparency in terms of accounting figures and numbers.
Inamori said “at Kyocera, management is based on relationships of trust. Everything is open, including accounting, and there is no doubt about the development of the system.
As an example, in (Hourly Profitability System), the business results of all departments are disclosed to all employees. It is easy for everyone to understand how much their amoeba benefits and where it comes from. On the other hand, each of us is also required to open our thoughts and work openly. This transparent system allows us to do our best to complete our daily tasks.
He also said,
Many leaders are concerned that disclosing management figures to employees in a –glass-walled – system may lead to information leakage to competitors. This is not correct. Even if I run the risk of leaking company information to competitors, I think the most important thing is to explain to employees without hiding any information, and to establish a mutual trust with them. With such a trust, it should be a driving force for employees to lead the company to further growth and development by exerting enough power to compensate for the risk of leakage.
When the owner of a profitable small business tends to hide its business performance from the employees. Simply, he is afraid of getting blamed by staff who are likely to tell the leader, -Raise my salary more!- -Give more bonuses!- So those leaders, whose companies are performing well, are reluctant to disclose company’s management figures to employees. On the other hand, managers who are not making a profit tend to hide the actual business result so as not to give anxiety to employees. However, we, leaders, really need to understand we can’t achieve our goal unless we have staff’s support. Only the top leader himself is not enough to drive a good business result.
If you, as a top management, desire the growth of your company, you have to build a trust with your employees who will eventually support you devotedly not only during the market boom but also during the difficult times such as the recession”, Inamori mentioned.
I’m now thinking of hiring staff to expand our business.
My reluctance to hire people comes from the following.
1 unexpected betrayal
2 misunderstanding of philosophy
3 lack of self-confidence as a leader
1 No matter how much effort I spent on staff, at the end of the day, they may leave our company. I don’t think I can’t stand such hard circumstances.
2 Even though I put so much effort and energy, the staff wouldn’t understand the business philosophy. I might feel the sense of “losing”, exhausted, or may find myself as totally useless. I’m very much afraid of ending up in such a situation.
3 What if I conduct bad management, lose confidence, and get blamed as a so-called “Black Company “? I’m not sure if I can stand this or not. I might be too sensitive and naive against those hardships in business management.
Among them, the betrayal seems to be the harsh one.
Having learned the subliminal mindset, I finally have come to the idea; both the betrayer and betrayed one are totally identical. We are, over one’s lifetime, deemed to play both roles, without overlapping in a certain time frame.
In my case, I used to be an arrogant professional. I showed off my career and appealed to others to value me as the most capable and competent one, because I worked hard and achieved my goal, a sort of highly qualified professional. I unintentionally and unconsciously push others to evaluate me as the one who could be the winner of a harsh competition.
In the later stage of my life, I realized that this attitude had never helped neither to build the trust with my clients nor sourcing new businesses. Rather, the opposite attitude worked to build trust and expand our business. While I act as if I have no value, the business has gotten into a good stream, where everyone is happy and fulfilled. So, I realized that appealing my contribution doesn’t help at all, while deleting my existence has promoted our businesses. Probably and certainly, arrogance is the attitude that the top leader should not have.
Then I become sensitive to those people who look arrogant. I started hating arrogant people, regardless of their capability and competence, Arrogant people are mirrors, reflecting who I was, how I looked. At the same time, a business partner, whom I had been working with, started irritating me with his arrogance. In our communications, I started pointing out his attitudes were not good and also asking for improvements. He looked astonished with my comment. Before, I had appreciated his delivery, but suddenly I changed my attitude.
He might have thought that he got betrayed and so did I. No matter how much time I had spent with him, he never changed his attitudes. I felt lonely and betrayed by a trusted teammate.
Therefore, as the example I described above, betrayer and betrayed one are almost identical. We have been playing different roles one by one as time passes.
This analysis helped me to reduce my concern in hiring people.
I could accept that my staff betrayed me as he/she is the one who I used to be. Those who look arrogant and betray me would help me to remain humble and keep living on the right path as a leader, who is willing to devote herself to staff.
So as a conclusion, we should be very transparent and demonstrate everything to employees. If we want to set up a trust with them. The key is realizing that the most troublesome one is a staff member who has a similar personality as you have. Keeping self-reflection is the fundamental credo anyway.
Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com
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