Notable Moments

Inamori has frequently talked both within and outside his company about the mindset that business managers should possess when running a business. Today, we would like to share a statement he made in May 2013, following the reconstruction of Japan Airlines. This speech was made to 300 members of the Seiwajyuku management school in Brazil. In it, he emphasized the importance of remaining humble and continuously striving for improvement by using the analogy of a helicopter.

"Human beings tend to become arrogant and eventually fail the more successful they become. At the same time, they become complacent, feeling like 'this is good enough,' and start to seek comfort. This becomes their downfall.

Looking at post-war corporate history, it all seems so dreary. We see companies with a long history and high social evaluation that once managed their businesses brilliantly but ended up on a roller-coaster of sharp rises and falls, decayed, or even went bankrupt--it's a veritable graveyard of tragedies.

Seeing such devastation, I think it is due to the complacency and decadence of the managers, which leads to such disastrous situations. That's why I've always urged people at Kyocera to remain humble and always work harder. In March of this year, I conveyed the same message--to remain humble and always work harder--to the employees of Japan Airlines, which was able to recover successfully after approximately three years of restructuring efforts.

In other words, Japan Airlines was reborn as the world's most profitable airline due to its employees' tireless efforts over three years following its bankruptcy. However, I explained to them that without continuous effort similar to what they've exerted over those three years, they will never be able to maintain this performance.

At that time, I introduced the employees of Japan Airlines to the idea of a "human-powered bicycle floating in the air" so that they would never forget to be humble and continue to work endlessly. It's an imaginary concept, but consider a vehicle like a helicopter with a propeller that spins and causes the vehicle to rise into the air when you pedal. Imagine that it's floating in the air right now. Gravity is pushing down on you, so you have to pedal quite a bit just to stay afloat. Moreover, if you want to rise further, you must pedal even harder than before. This is also true in management. If a company wants to maintain its high profitability, it must continue to exert the same level of effort that brought it to its current height. If you ease off on the pedals even slightly, gravity will pull you down, and you will slowly descend and eventually crash.

In other words, to remain a great company, you must continue to put in as much effort as you did in the start-up phase." (From Issue 121 of the SEIWAJYUKU Journal, Lecture 117: "Why Philosophy is Necessary in Business")