There is no secret ingredient or hidden formula responsible for the success of the best Japanese companies.
I believe it is a big mistake to think that money is the only way to compensate a person for his work. People need money, but they also want to be happy in their work and proud of it.
I believe people work for satisfaction.
If you don’t want Japan to buy it, don’t sell it.
Never break another man’s rice bowl.
Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of work, any kind of work, as honorable.
If we do our best and make efforts, a peaceful and great future will become ours without fail. Whether we succeed or not depends on the strength of our resolve and the amount of our endeavor.
The most important mission for a Japanese manager is to develop a healthy relationship with his employees, to create a familylike feeling within the corporation, a feeling that employees and managers share the same fate.
Executives of the company must have the necessary qualities to direct the personnel by showing them the way to do things.
When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for the job, I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.
America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.
I have always made it a point to know our employees, to visit every facility of our company, and to try to meet and know every single employee.
Of course we have to make a profit, but we have to make a profit over the long haul, not just the short term, and that means we must keep investing in research and development – it has run consistently about 6 percent of sales at Sony – and in service.
Advertising and promotion alone will not sustain a bad product or a product that is not right for the times.
We want to keep the company healthy and its employees happy, and we want to keep them on the job and productive.
While the United States has been busy creating lawyers, we have been busier creating engineers.
If we face recession, we should not lay off employees; the company should sacrifice a profit. It’s management’s risk and management’s responsibility. Employees are not guilty; why should they suffer?
The important thing in my view is not to pin the blame for a mistake on somebody, but rather to find out what caused the mistake.
I established the rule that once we hire an employee, his school records are a matter of the past and are no longer used to evaluate his work or decide on his promotion.
Management of an industrial company must be giving targets to the engineers constantly; that may be the most important job management has in dealing with its engineers.
From a management standpoint, it is very important to know how to unleash people’s inborn creativity. My concept is that anybody has creative ability, but very few people know how to use it.