Chapter 2 of Sony's story

Style Chapter 4

Chapter 2

The main function of a manager is to make decisions, that is, to have professional knowledge and the ability to predict the future development direction and trend of technology. In my opinion, a manager must have extensive knowledge in his own industry. The special feelings produced by knowledge and experience are also very helpful. This special feeling is beyond the intuition of facts and data that only humans have.
One day in New York, Peter and I. professor Dirac, Bill. for lunch in benbach, Professor drakot is a management expert. benbach is an advertiser who has made many advertising campaigns for us, including the popular success TV series "Big Belly TV". We talked about management. "When I talk to Japanese managers, their thinking seems unreasonable. The strange thing is that they can come to the correct conclusion at the end. What is going on ?"
Ben Bach thought for a moment and said frankly: "My major is advertising, and I do not know much about the way of business. However, to make a reasonable decision, we must fully understand the facts and the environment around the facts. Of course, a person may not know anything. American managers may believe they are reasonable, but their rationality is only based on the facts they already know. There must be a lot of facts and environmental factors that they don't know. If you miss this, no matter how reasonable the conclusion looks, there is no justification ."
He continued: "In comparison, Japanese managers seem to have a sixth sense in the east. Instead of putting one thing together with another, they grasp the general idea as a whole and use the information and the sixth sense to make a decision. In this way, they understand the overall idea more deeply than those who use careful reasoning ."
I use bill. ben Bach's comment shows that a businessman wants to understand the industry he is engaged in and the surrounding environment, be prepared at any time, take full advantage of his professional knowledge, and even take risks based on the so-called sixth sense, this is crucial. I also want to talk about my hunch about Portable stereo Walkman. I hope that the readers will not think that I am self-defeating. Although many people in our company were skeptical at the time, I still think it will become a successful and popular product. I am very confident about this. I even said, "If our sales volume does not reach 100,000 units by the end of this year, I will resign as the chairman of the company ." Of course, I don't mean to do that. I know this product will succeed.
In today's United States, management staff are very mobile. Some people tell me that white-collar employees have to work in three different companies on average all their lives, therefore, the company's operators have little or no knowledge of the technical aspects of the company's products. If so, he certainly lacks intuition about products and their influence on the market, especially when an accountant runs a daily necessities company. Of course, there are some notable exceptions in this case, but I don't think so much. According to my observation, this kind of layman and unconfident person-in-charge will only hesitate in the face of risks and find reasons for every action step, so they usually go to consult the consulting company.
In addition to lawyers, in the United States and Japan, these advisory providers have not only been used excessively, but also used the wrong places. I have chosen to consult with consultants and found that the best of them can collect valuable information and conduct market analysis. However, using such intelligence can lead to absurd extremes. When market research turns out to be wrong, they often find such an excuse that market conditions change after the study ends. In this way, what are the purposes of the research results? I suspect that it can only be a reason to keep your job. I know that in a US-Japan Joint Venture, the US headquarters considers that the Japanese plan is incorrect, so they asked the company's US representatives to ask a famous management consulting company in Tokyo for research.
The US representative is the vice president of the joint venture. He just agreed on the plan with the Japanese partner. He expressed his opinion in the recommendation to the US headquarters. However, the boss of the US headquarters does not trust his representative in Tokyo or a Japanese partner. The American in Tokyo discussed the project with the consulting company. He gave them a comprehensive introduction and told them what he expected. Maybe they came to the conclusion that he was looking. Later Facts proved that the Japanese side had always been right, but the company spent a lot of consulting fees, and it took a lot of time to interview the company director. This virtually ruined the mutual trust between the two sides, making the representatives of the US feel fooled and wasted, and did not get anything new. Only the leading person in charge of the company's international business in the United States should leave the project for himself in case of failure.
I have written too much about top-level managers and workers, but I am not trying to exclude middle-level managers. They are important roles. Middle-level managers in Japan are different from western managers. Many Japanese companies rely on the "suggestion" system. In this system, we hope that middle-level managers can put forward their ideas and ideas for the judgment of top-level managers. This practice is certainly different from the popular Western concepts of personal or small team management, especially in the United States, where traditional personal heroism prevails. (Since the beginning of the war, Japanese people have watched American movies. We use these movies to evaluate the American spirit. This may not be good or accurate. But we like fighting spirit. Sometimes we worship the best spirit in the arena and in the business field. Even if he fails, he doesn't care .) Some people say that, contrary to western companies, Japanese companies operate in accordance with the same opinion. Sony companies I have mentioned earlier respect for individuals, however, in other Japanese companies, such as Honda and Panasonic, it is traditionally a bold decision made by a person, as if only when he says so. This seems a bit contradictory, but in fact it is not.
Consensus is a natural thing for the Japanese, but it does not necessarily mean that each resolution is produced by the impulse of a spontaneous group. Consensus in a Japanese company usually refers to taking the time to prepare basic conditions for it. Consensus is generally formed from top to bottom, rather than from bottom to top by some observers. For example, a top-level manager may accept or modify the opinions of a middle-level manager, and then seek approval and cooperation from top to bottom. When I resigned to scare people in man's case, my colleagues knew that I saw them farther away, I made this decision based on all my market experience and knowledge, as well as my analysis of consumer psychology. It is because of this that they are willing to do their best to contribute to the success of this plan. If I fail on mongoman, I cannot blame any market research for the cause of the fiasco.
Once a decision is made, no matter whether it comes from a store or a workshop below, the Japanese approach is that everyone has to do their best, not as sometimes in western companies, in the back of the scam, they split their platforms. Cooperation is good because everyone is doing their own job, but it is not easy to do this.
My second son, Changfu, graduated from Georgia University and served at Morgan Securities trust. He has been working in New York and London for two and a half years, he felt that the Japanese sought consensus and made plans in a lengthy and tedious way. His point of view is very interesting to me. It is entirely Western. He complained: "in Japanese companies, they like to hold meetings and start them one hour after another. This makes me always disappointed, because I want to know why we want to hold meetings, what should we do. After five minutes, I want to sleep. When I was at Morgan, I engaged in foreign currency trade. Time was precious and we could not waste it on meetings. If we want to express our opinions, we should first draw a conclusion. If someone wants to know how I come to this conclusion, they will ask questions. In Japan, they always explain their decisions until the end. But sometimes it is difficult to understand the explanations without knowing the intention ."
This is a problem. It often makes foreigners who encounter such a system feel embarrassed. A reporter came to Japan and interviewed many people from the Business and Industry. He came to interview me as soon as he was about to leave. I asked him about his visit. He told me frankly that after a few weeks in Japan, he finally found out how to understand the Japanese. He said: "I don't need to listen to what they said until they say '...... 'and then begin to focus, because before that they are expressing what others mean, since then they are their own views."
Be patient with the Japanese. It takes a long time for most Japanese to express their true thoughts.
In Japan's collective management system, decisions are made based on suggestions made by young managers, which is of great benefit to the company. Young managers can stay in the company for another 20 to 30 years, and in ten or about ten years they will be promoted to the highest level of management. Therefore, young managers always look forward to the future direction they want the company to take over. If the top management looks down on middle-and lower-level managers, they are always forced to complete the profit indicators for the current year or the next year. If they are not completed, they will be evicted, as is typically done in the West, then the company will be destroyed in their hands. If a middle-level manager says his plan or solution cannot work now, but he will make a lot of money in ten years, no one will trust him, and he will even be fired.
We encourage employees who will be reused to propose long-term plans, which is a major advantage of our system, despite the time it takes for meetings and discussions during planning. It allows us to create and retain a business principle that is not in Western business. The company's ideals will not change because employees will maintain a consistent view with us after a long time. Even if I leave Sony, Sony's principles will continue to exist. In the United States, companies rarely have their own principles, because once the top management changes, new recruits will enforce their own set. In fact, the Board usually looks for a new top leader to change everything in the company far away from the company's business. They call it "room cleaning ".
A foreign employee recently entered an American company. He closed several factories and dismissed thousands of employees, however, he was praised as a great manager in the wall street journal article. In Japan, such practices are considered shameful. The right to close the factory, fire the workers, and change the direction of the company when the business is sluggish may easily make the balance sheet at the end of the next quarter turn around, but it destroys the spirit of the company. When the business is booming again, where can the company find experienced workers? How can they work hard to produce high-quality products for the company?
I think the main advantage of the Japanese management system over the US and Western systems is its awareness of corporate principles. Even if a new person in charge takes over the company, he cannot change the company's principles. In Japan, the proposed system of long-term planning and middle-and lower-level management personnel ensures the close relationship between the top management and middle-and lower-level management. After many years, they can form a special action program, in this way, the company's principles remain unchanged. This is why Japanese companies started slowly. However, once the company's principles are deeply rooted in the hearts of all employees, the company will have a strong strength and flexibility.
When many industries are in crisis, such as the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, Japanese companies are showing their flexibility. Shipbuilding companies began to make environmental equipment, computer software, and even dishwashers. Mining companies began to make bowling machine. Jinbao textile company began to manufacture cosmetics and has now become a main role in the local market. When there were fewer and fewer movie audiences, Japanese film manufacturers began to use theaters for leisure.
Recently, the world's demand for iron and steel has declined, reaching the world's most efficient iron and steel plants to sell their by-products-various gases, such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen, these gases are sold as raw materials to chemical companies, reducing their dependence on oil. Now, there is fierce competition in trading these gases in Japanese steel plants.
Another recent example is the joint venture between a Japanese Iron and Steel Company and a semiconductor manufacturer in the United States, which produces the main silicon wafers used to manufacture semiconductor logical gate arrays and remote communication ultra-large integrated circuits. This is the first example of steel manufacturers entering the semi-customized logic chip manufacturing industry. The Iron and Steel Company can efficiently produce small batches of specific steel, use computers to control the production process, and have a quality assurance system. Its experience in these areas seems to work well with American manufacturers. Both parties will learn from the experiences of joint ventures, especially the employees of Japanese companies who hope to work in the future while having experience in recession.
As a Japanese manager, I think these companies are more sensible than I saw in the United States. Americans are proud of their reasonable judgment in the business field. However, the entire logic of American business seems cool, ignoring human factors.
We Japanese have different opinions on the basis of successful business. We believe that if we want to achieve high efficiency and productivity, we must maintain a close and enthusiastic relationship with our employees so that they will enjoy high morale. Sometimes it is more important to create a sense of intimacy than to do anything. Sometimes it is even necessary to make some technically unreasonable decisions. You can keep the machine completely reasonable, but you have to work with people, so sometimes the logic is at a secondary point relative to understanding.