The following article comes from the common sense of management. The author Kazuo Inamori
was one of the four gods of in Japan, and was honored as one of the gods of in Japan Condensing one's own life experience into an equation:
The result of life and career = the way of thinking × enthusiasm × ability 0 , "Enthusiasm" and "ability" are well understood, but he believes that the most important thing is "thinking style", because this variable can be positive or negative. If a person has the wrong direction and wrong values, no amount of effort will be counterproductive. The same is true of being a business.
What is the most important qualification of a leader? Today’s article will share with you Inamori’s experience of running a business for more than 50 years, and I hope to inspire you.
source | knowledge management
author | Inamori
01
What is the best leader Important qualifications?
China Ming Dynasty 's Lu Xinwu discussed the qualifications required for leaders in his book "The Moan",He divides the qualifications of leaders into three types:
is the first-class qualification;
strong73 _span0 strong73 br5_strong_span0 _strong73 _span0p23p is the second-class qualification; Being smart is the third-class qualification.
We tend to use the so-called "smart and talented" leaders who possess talents—strategic thinking, skillful, and eloquent.
However, according to Lu Xinwu, this intelligent and eloquent ability is only the third-class qualification. Ability like
may be necessary and sufficient qualifications for serving as an official, but when it comes to leading the entire group, this kind of ingenuity is not enough.
As mentioned earlier, The leader of a group must have the courage to lead the group in the right direction under any situation .
However, courage alone is not enough to be a true leader.
Just like what Lu Xinwu said, "a hero is the second-class qualification", with courage and courage, for a leader, it is just the second-class qualification.
The most important of the qualifications of leaders,It is as Lu Xinwu said, "Deepness is the first-class qualification."
Leaders must not be superficial and exaggerated, but must have a thoughtful and trustworthy personality. In a word, the leader must be a person of noble character.
In other words, Lu Xinwu means that a leader should have both ability, courage and personality, but if you want to sort by priority, the first one is "personality" and the second one is "courage" , The third place is "ability."
02
What is the most important benchmark for an operator?
I believe that, based on the above qualifications, in order to better lead the group, leaders also need to develop a vision and goals .
At the same time, the goal and vision must be based on the mission. This means that the company or department must have a clear "mission."
If it is just to improve performance, then it is enough to set goals;
If the goal of the company is the sustainable development of the organization, it must ask the leader to rack his brains and think "What is the purpose of achieving the goal?", "What is the significance of achieving the goal for the company, society, the country, and for mankind?"Thinking about this fundamental issue, we can clearly formulate a "mission" that resonates with everyone and has a righteous reputation.
Moreover, the leader of must have a clear criterion of judgment , which is very important.
At the beginning of the business, the first question I encountered was, "As an operator, what benchmark should be used to judge".
When I first started, I had to give orders to everything about Kyocera , "This work should be improved like this, told to the customer in this way, and this work will proceed like this."
Therefore, although it is a small company with only 28 members, there are always a lot of things waiting for me to judge.
We are a small company that has just been established, and it may disappear in the slightest trouble. As long as I make a mistake in judgment, the company may face a crisis of survival.
If I have experience in business operation, I can make a judgment based on the past experience, "It was the same in the past, so it's fine to do this. It failed in the past, so I can't repeat the same mistakes." .
However,At that time, I was only a 27-year-old young man, and I did not have any knowledge and experience to run a business, so there was no basis for judgment at all.
I thought hard, and finally decided to use the principles of humanity taught by my parents and school teachers in my childhood as a criterion for judgment. That is to say, using the extremely simple ethics and morals, "what a person should do is not What should be done" is the basis for judging right from wrong.
I am determined to regard "what is right as a person" as the criterion for business judgment, and implement these principles wholeheartedly.
My judgment is so unpretentious, but now in retrospect, it is thanks to the strong support of these unpretentious benchmarks that Kyocera has never gone into business misunderstandings and has been able to continue. Smooth development.
03
The formula of life that everyone can understand
5
5
How to work with people who have graduated from top universities and worked in large companies, and how to spend their lives.
At the same time, I often think about how to express these simple truths in a way that everyone can understand.
So I invented an equation:
The result of life and career = the way of thinking × enthusiasm × ability _strong76_strong
0
0
0p The result of career depends on the multiplication of the three elements of "ability", "enthusiasm" and "thinking style", that is, the result of life and career depends on the "ability" that the person has, the "passion" for life and career, and What kind of "thinking way" is used to treat life and career.
I proposed that a leader must first have "ability". Leaders must think about strategies and tactics and must have the professional knowledge required for the job.
At the same time, the "ability" mentioned here does not only refer to a smart mind. It is also a kind of "ability" to have a healthy and strong body that can adapt to high-intensity work.
However, although some people are capable, they can’t make people feel his “enthusiasm”. This tendency is especially evident in the talented students who graduated from prestigious universities.
They are consciously clever and often refuse to work hard.
On the contrary, although some people are not clever enough, they wake up in the dark, work hard, spare their lives, and are full of "enthusiasm" for work.
The scores of "ability" and "enthusiasm" range from 0 to 100 points, and they are not additive but multiplied. The result will have a huge impact on life.
According to this idea,Even if the ability is not outstanding, it is possible to surpass those with excellent ability and obtain excellent results as long as "work no less than anyone else's effort".
Here, we also need to consider the element of "thinking mode". The score range of thinking style is -100～+100.
Because it is multiplication, once the thinking mode is negative, even if it is only a very small negative value, the result of his life and work will immediately become negative.
In this way, the greater the value of "ability" and "enthusiasm", the greater the negative value of the result.
In other words, this equation fully embodies the importance of "thinking style".
Although some people have sufficient "ability" and "enthusiasm", they are always cynical and think that the world is full of injustice and contradictions. Since they live in such a society, they are simply cynical and even take terrorist actions. Revenge on society.
This kind of person, even though he originally had lofty ideals, has unknowingly become self-righteous. In order to realize the so-called ideal, he will not hesitate to choose self-interested means, and the result of his life will inevitably become a negative number.
04
The importance of the way of thinking
5 p23p
A consistent "thinking way".
what kind of "thinking", outlook on life and philosophy,It is the freedom of one person. However, the life results resulting from this must also be borne by the individual.
However, we have hardly received education about the outlook on life in school, so people often do not think deeply about their outlook on life, but live silly, aimlessly, and accept life.
I deeply feel that it is necessary for people to explore the way of thinking and philosophy that they should have in life since they are young.
After I founded the company at the age of 27, I summarized the things that a person should do one by one, and compiled it into " Kyocera Philosophy ". It records dozens of "the way of thinking that life should have" that I have experienced in my work practice.
Summarize this way of thinking in one sentence, which is what just said "what is right as a person". That is, regards the universal truths that people should abide by as the principles of life.
At the same time, I also regard these principles as Kyocera’s “philosophy” and I repeat them to employees and strive to share them.
Whenever I talk about these principles, some people immediately protest: "What kind of thinking is my freedom. Why do I have to follow Kyocera's way of thinking when I enter Kyocera? This is a restraint of personal thinking. !"
This makes me very distressed. "It is indeed personal freedom to hold which way of thinking, but if you let everyone's way of thinking go, you will never be able to do your job well."
However, it is not an overnight effort to get employees to recognize and accept these ways of thinking.
We can use "climbing" as a metaphor for "what way of thinking should be".
If you want to climb the nearby low hills, you only need to be outing, wearing regular clothes and sneakers.
But if you want to conquer snowy mountains like the Alps, you must be equipped with corresponding equipment, not to mention climbing Mount Everest, you must be equipped with rock climbing skills, equipped with various equipment, and receive rigorous training. .
Just as the mountain to be climbed is different, the preparation work and equipment required are also different. The life and business goals that a person pursues are different, and the state of "thinking mode" he holds is also completely different.
In other words, the higher the goal a company pursues, the higher the thinking mode employees need to hold.
First determine the "goal" to be pursued, and then determine the "thinking mode" required to achieve the goal.
Kyocera has always set high goals, so after the company is on the right track, I also meticulously implement the Puritan-like "way of thinking".
For this reason, I was slandered by a media reporter, saying "Kyocera is crazy".
At the same time, some operators said:
"Happy work and easy management are our company style. Mr. Inamori's management style is too harsh and harsh, and it is still our kind of relaxed and happy company. It can make employees feel comfortable.”
I will not refute this criticism at all, because the company I pursue is completely different from those who pursue a relaxed and happy life and also pursue a relaxed and happy style in their operations. .
My goal is to open up a new world of precision ceramics that no one has ever set foot in, and make Kyocera the world's number one ceramic company.
To achieve such a business, it is absolutely impossible to achieve this kind of business by just laughing and joking and understatement.
To achieve this goal, it is inevitable to choose the road that has experienced hardships.
05
Leaders must have a lofty state of mind 5
People tend to have excellent "ability" and "enthusiasm" like fire.
Moreover, their "thinking style" was not bad at first, so they were able to achieve great success and the company was able to grow and develop.
However, when they succeed, they tend to indulge in status, wealth, honor, and personal feelings for relatives and friends. Their way of thinking as a leader gradually deteriorates, and the enterprise is finally brought into decline. trigger.
The so-called "successful failure, failure also failure", it is the leader who opens the door to success, and it is also the leader that causes the decline of the enterprise.
As mentioned earlier,As long as one is willing to bear the consequences, it is his freedom to choose what way of thinking a person chooses, but only group leaders represented by business operators cannot have this kind of thinking.
The way of thinking of a leader not only affects individuals, but also affects the destiny of employees and even society. Therefore, the leader of the command group must not think that it is their freedom to choose what way of thinking.
For the happiness of the group and the prosperity of society, it is the leader's duty to have a noble and far-reaching way of thinking.
In an enterprise, not only the top level, but even the leader of the team, can’t choose their own way of thinking.
There is an old saying in China called "only modest and blessed", which means that only modesty can make people happy and lucky.
Losing humility is the greatest loss in life and business. Even if you succeed, you must be content, don't forget to be humble, and you must always be grateful to the people around you because of your own happiness.
At the same time, "altruism" dedicated to making others happy is also very important.
When you are successful and proud, as long as you have an "altruistic" mindset, you will never lay the fuse for your life's decline.
.
