Business leaders like Jack Ma and Ren Zhengfei also use his company’s business strategy as an example to learn from, and highly respect Kazuo Inamori’s management philosophy.
It is said that Jack Ma once had a 5-hour secret meeting with Kazuo Inamori. ▼
Chili Pepper does not have any ambitions to gallop in the mall, but after reading some stories of Kazuo Inamori, I found that some of his business methods have a high degree of overlap with the two-year-old wolf culture and 996 culture.
However, there are obviously some deviations in understanding. Kazuo Inamori’s management method is far more clever than the above two corporate cultures.
Inamori was born in Kagoshima, Japan in 1932. His childhood was bombed by the Allied forces in World War II, his hometown was burned down in the air raid, and he had an experience of contracting tuberculosis.
The hardships he experienced in childhood made him more determined about what he wanted. In 1951, Kazuo Inamori was admitted to the Department of Applied Chemistry of Kagoshima University.
After graduation, he enteredKyoto Matsukaze IndustryWorked in the electric porcelain bottle factory, engaged in the research of special ceramics.
The company is also researching ceramic materials for dentures. ▼
The young and vigorous Inamori wanted to make a career here, but he had a disagreement with his boss at the time on the direction of technology development at that time.
So Inamori was in a fit of rage and showed the traditional arts of Showa men – Shimogami.
He decisively handed in his resignation and left without saying anything, and also abducted the leader who introduced him to the company at the time, as well as the seven colleagues who were studying with him.
In 1959, Inamori, who was only 27 years old, established Kyoto Ceramics Co., Ltd., which was later known as Kyocera, with the help of people who had a good relationship.
At the beginning, the company had only 28 employees, and started the business with the precision ceramic technology developed by Inamori himself as the core, under the condition of lack of funds and equipment.
This wave of new doors is enough to see Kazuo Inamori’s ambition and unique vision.
But soon, he was also “offended” by his own employees.
In the third year of starting the business, 11 employees with high school degrees asked Inamori to give them regular salary increases and overtime pay and other guarantees, or they would go on strike.
For a startup company, the founding members work hard and work overtime for the development of the company, which is nothing to say.
However, for the employees who are recruited later, it is difficult as a boss to let people generate electricity with love and work for you for free without paying a reasonable salary.
In order to keep these employees, Kazuo Inamori reluctantly promised the employees:“If I lie to you, you will stab me with a knife.”
Seeing how determined the boss is, these troubled employees stayed.
Although the matter was resolved, it had to make Kazuo Inamori re-examine the relationship between himself and his employees, laying the foundation for the employee-oriented business philosophy in the future.
But having said that, Kazuo Inamori’s remarks could only work under the specific circumstances at the time. If it were put into practice today, let alone touching people, I would be thankful that they didn’t call 110.
In 1966, in order to expand overseas markets, Kyocera actively promoted cooperation with IBM, and Kyocera took over from IBM.Alumina substrate‘s order.
However, Kyocera’s technology did not meet IBM’s specifications at that time. In order to meet the needs of customers, Kyocera developed samples day and night, which finally met the product quality standards and opened up the market for subsequent OEM orders.
In order to enable the company to develop better, he also proposed a method called“Amoeba”mode of operation.
Amoeba refers to a creature called amoeba, which is a single-celled organism that can change its body shape as needed, so it is also called amoeba.
This business model refers to breaking up the company’s departments and splitting them into independent operating entities to operate, which is somewhat similar to the concept of a subsidiary.
The advantage of this is that,Each department has its own budget, revenue, and costs, and if there are more efficient companies in the external market, it will put direct pressure on the department.
In essence, this is a practice of putting external pressure on employees in disguised form to stimulate employees’ awareness of the company’s management.
But after the company achieved some success, Kazuo Inamori discovered a problem.
After amoeba management stimulates employees’ sense of competition, company departments and departments are prone to wrangling.
For example, when the market decides that a certain product must be reduced in price, which department should the cost of this part be allocated to?
If each has 50 major boards, the departments with a high proportion of value creation will naturally be dissatisfied, and the proportional allocation of flowers will easily wipe out some small departments.
Although Kazuo Inamori has set up a special agency to balance the issue of pricing, there is obviously no such thing as fairness. As a boss, if the bowl of water is uneven, the people below will inevitably complain.
Under such circumstances, Kazuo Inamori asked about Eastern philosophy and proposed a set of“Respect God and Lover”the entrepreneurial spirit.
Simply put, it is to build a collective consciousness in the company, so that employees realize that their work is creating value for the whole society.
Does this statement sound brainwashed now? Very PUA?
But what really scary Kazuo Inamori is not to come up with this theory, but to put the altruistic spirit of “respecting God and loving people” into practice from me.
For example, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Kyocera, he gave all the shares of Kyocera he held to employees, and promised not to receive wages.
In order to reduce long-distance telephone charges, Kazuo Inamori took the lead in unitingMitsubishi Corporation, Sony, SECOMTwenty-five Japanese companies, such as the establishment of DDI (Second Telecommunications Corporation) to check and balance the state-run telecommunications company NTT, slapped down telephone charges.
such aWords must be done, deeds must be fruitfulThe boss, even if the employees below him want to criticize, it is difficult to find any obvious black spots.
In order to implement this management system of Kazuo Inamori, not only the spiritual realm of self-sacrifice is required, but also a little bit of penance, which is beyond the reach of most people.
He himself did have experience of studying abroad. ▼
Inamori Kazuo’s other top-level operation that is well-received by people is the operation of taking over Japan Airlines, which was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2010, and bringing it back to life.
At that time, due to poor management of Japan Airlines, the JAL Group Corporation was burdened with 2,322.2 billion yen in debt.
Although things like layoffs and cost cutting are not difficult to operate, the government still hopes to find a prestigious person to control the situation and clean up the mess.
In the end, they found Kazuo Inamori, hoping to rely on his prestige and qualifications to make this matter more smoothly and help the country tide over the difficulties.
Inamori immediately became the chairman of Japan Airlines.Delisting, closing loss-making routesas well aslayoffsAfter a series of big moves, Japan Airlines returned to profitability after only a year.
A strong V-shaped recovery, three times the profit of the opponent ANA▼
Inamori’s behavior of saving JAL, to a certain extent, also confirmed him“God of Management”image of.
His rescue experience this time was also adapted into the Imperial Airlines case in the Japanese drama “Hanzawa Naoki 2”, with a high degree of arrest.
In general, Kazuo Inamori’s life is wonderful and dramatic. Compared with a capitalist, he is more like a socially responsible industrialist.
The over-hype in Japanese society has objectively made some of his deeds too deified, so much so that he was portrayed as a “sage of Confucius” in the modern business world.
It’s a bit over the top.
Little Pepper only hopes that in the future, the bosses who will master the lifeblood of the enterprise will not only look at the skin and only learn strategies when they read Kazuo Inamori’s business philosophy.
If there is a little more empathy and equal treatment, it will be the greatest wealth that Inamori has left to the corporate world.