“Satsuma Hayato” Inamori Kazuo’s practice life
It is a human being who encounters difficulties and wants to get rid of them. Want to get rid of but can’t get rid of, this kind of situation is often the majority. Regardless of bad luck or bad luck, endure them, keep a cheerful mind and look forward, persevere in your efforts, and never slack off. This is life. My life is like this, relying on a cheerful state of mind and unremitting efforts, I have realized my ideal.
——Inamori Kazuo On
August 30, 2022, Japan’s Kyocera Corporation announced the death of the company’s honorary chairman Kazuo Inamori through its official website. The wording of the obituary is simple, and the serenity and modesty of the deceased are revealed between the lines. In life, we are usually reluctant to talk about the topic of death, although it is the ultimate destination that everyone must face. Kazuo Inamori is different. In his biography, he once assumed that his life would last 80 years, and then regarded the first 20 years as a preparation period for stepping into society, and the next 40 years as a working period for society and self-study. , the last 20 years are the preparation period for death. Kazuo Inamori originally planned to escape into Buddhism at the age of 60 to start his death preparation period. However, due to work reasons, he didn’t get what he wanted until he was 65 years old, and he entered the final stage of his life mentally.
Many people know Kazuo Inamori because he founded two companies that entered the world’s top 500 in his life, and because he was able to lead Japan Airlines (JAL, “Japan Airlines” for short) out of the predicament at the age of 78, because he The famous Shenghejuku once taught business philosophy around the world, because he established Japan’s Nobel Prize-“Kyoto Prize” and other acclaimed legends. But the successful life of such a “sage of management” was spent “on thin ice” in the eyes of Sakaiya Tai, a former Japanese cabinet adviser and professor of Waseda University.
Japan’s Nobel Prize – “Kyoto Prize” Medal
Kazuo Inamori was born in 1932 in Kagoshima, the southernmost tip of Kyushu, Japan. As the second son in his family, he has two younger brothers and three younger sisters. It can be said that Kazuo Inamori’s life began “absolutely without the favor of good luck”. When he was a child, he was a crybaby, and when he grew up, he became a naughty egg. When he was young, he suffered from tuberculosis, an incurable disease at the time, and was eliminated twice in the junior high school entrance examination. The air raids of the war cost the Inamori family almost everything. Kazuo Inamori, who finally managed to graduate from high school, failed to get into the university he wanted. In the end, he could only study at Kagoshima University, which was just opened locally. Not only that, but even the employment situation after graduating from university is still not satisfactory. Faced with such a life, Kazuo Inamori also complained about “why is fate so bad”, and later even admitted that “if you take a wrong step at the beginning, you may go astray”.
Now, if we look at it from another angle, Kazuo Inamori, who was “not favored by good luck” at the beginning, may be extremely lucky again. Because he didn’t die from tuberculosis, didn’t drop out of school because of his poor family, and didn’t get depressed because of the failure of the exam, and blamed himself because of the bankruptcy of the company… On the contrary, Kazuo Inamori seemed to turn all the unfavorable factors into favorable factors, and finally made himself Become the “lucky one in a million”. He used his own life to interpret the “success formula” in Inamori’s philosophy, “The result of life and work = way of thinking (-100~+100)×enthusiasm (effort) (0~100)×ability (0~100) “. In this equation, Kazuo Inamori believes that people’s “way of thinking” has positive and negative points, which affects the other two elements, determines the result of the equation, and is the soul of the entire equation.
Positive thinking and negative thinking can indeed lead things to two completely different development trajectories. After graduating from university, Kazuo Inamori worked for Matsukaze Industrial Company in Kyoto, Japan. After entering the company, I found out that the business operation is already in the sunset, the orders are decreasing day by day, and the phenomenon of wage arrears happens from time to time. Several college students who joined the job at the same time left soon after, and he was the only one left in the end. Kazuo Inamori even applied for the Self-Defense Forces Cadre Preparatory School with others, but failed because his family secretly blocked him. Kazuo Inamori, who had no hope of resigning, was much calmer. Because at this moment he knew very well that no matter how much he complained, it would be of no avail. He might as well adjust his negative thinking, stop trying to get rid of it, but face the reality directly and study it with great concentration. After completely changing the way of thinking, he began to gradually experience the joy and sense of accomplishment brought by work, and then formed a virtuous circle, making unexpected achievements in the seemingly dead end work.
Although Kazuo Inamori has achieved great success in the decades of his life and entrepreneurship, he has always blazed a path that no one has gone before with an attitude of rising from adversity. In 1958, Kazuo Inamori decided to resign because of a conflict with the company’s new leader. After that, Kyocera Corporation was founded with 8 like-minded friends. At the beginning of the business, the company only had a capital of 3 million yen and 28 employees. It was an out-and-out small and micro enterprise. Whenever the market or the economy has the slightest sign of trouble, it is likely to face bankruptcy. No one can imagine that 17 years later, this “small workshop” could surpass Sony, which has long occupied the top of the Japanese stock market, with a stock price of 2,990 yen, and become the most expensive stock in Japan. In 1984, with Kyocera as the core of the second Denki (DDI) was established, Inamori Kazuo started to enter the communication industry as a layman. Different from the subsequent establishment of China National Railway Communications, High-speed Communications and other advantageous companies that can use their own railways and highways to lay optical cables, Second Power did not have any channels to build infrastructure at the beginning of its establishment. Take risks, every step may fail. Likewise, no one could have predicted that 16 years later, KDDI, the second largest integrated communication technology company in Japan and the top ten in the world, would be born on the basis of DDI. The case of Japan Airlines (JAL) is the same. On January 19, 2010, when the company applied for bankruptcy protection to the Tokyo District Court, its total liabilities reached 2.3221 billion yen, which can be called the largest industrial and commercial enterprise bankruptcy case in Japan after the war. The 78-year-old Inamori Kazuo was ordered in danger. What he is facing is not only a company with high debt, but also a group of JAL executives who can only shirk their responsibilities and employees who have lost their faith and slack for a long time. In the 1,155 days since he took office, Kazuo Inamori used his business philosophy and “amoeba business model” to train a team of JAL who dared to fight hard, creating a “myth” of corporate revival: in just one year, the A profit of 180 billion yen; in the second year, it hit a record high of 204.9 billion yen; in September 2012, after filing for bankruptcy protection for two years and 8 months, Japan Airlines (JAL) was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange again. Realize the glory return of the enterprise.
With his own talent and unremitting efforts, Kazuo Inamori overcame difficulties and obstacles and achieved great success in his era. Borrow a simple diagram used by Mr. Lu Xun’s Japanese friend Kanzo Uchiyama when he illustrated a successful life. Kazuo Inamori’s life also started from the subtleties. After a long period of unyielding efforts, with the changes in the world, the road of life suddenly unfolded like a “blessing in disguise”. After that, in this new state, after a long period of unyielding efforts, along with some new changes in the world, once again “a blessing in disguise” to achieve a more magnificent expansion of life, and so on. But whether it is life or work, sometimes neglecting the last 1% of effort may mean that all previous efforts have been wasted and everything will be lost. Therefore, in order for one’s own efforts to bear fruit, one must have the drive to pursue perfection. This is what Kazuo Inamori repeatedly emphasized in his “Six Points of Excellence” and “Twenty Points of Management” to aim toward the goal, persevere, and “pay no less effort than anyone else.”
Kazuo Inamori’s success is not predestined, but it is by no means accidental. The reason for being able to have such a life is not unrelated to that period of adolescence that “was never favored by good luck”. As the saying goes, one side supports the other side. Kazuo Inamori once joked that he was “a country bumpkin from Kagoshima in southern Kyushu. He left his hometown at the age of 23 and went north to Kyoto.” rough and unrestrained”. The influence of the homeland on Kazuo Inamori can be seen deeply. Inamori Kazuo’s hometown, Kagoshima, used to be called “Satsuma Domain”. In ancient times, it was the residence of the Hayato people. In history, Satsuma warriors who are brave and good at fighting are known as “Satsuma Hayato”. As an important town in Japanese history, especially modern history, the Satsuma region has produced a large number of resolute and brave men. Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi among the “Three Heroes of the Restoration” were born here. They are also the life idols of Inamori Kazuo. Kazuo Inamori has the sensibility of Takamori Saigo and the rationality of Toshimichi Okubo. When he was in a difficult situation, Kazuo Inamori would always carefully appreciate the story of Takamori Saigo. He also took Xixiang Takamori’s “respect for heaven and love for people” and “Tao is a natural thing of heaven and earth, and those who practice it must be based on respect for heaven” (“Nanzhou Weng’s Legacy”)” as the company’s purpose. In the Kagoshima area, there is still a unique education system – “Education in the Township”. This is an educational model that brings children together on a regional basis for self-exercise. There is no adult participation in “Xiangzhong Education”, and the older children are responsible for taking care of the younger ones. Children of similar age summed up their wisdom and sharpened their will in the process of mutual cooperation and mutual friction. Kazuo Inamori stated in his autobiography that “rural education” can turn a coward into a strong person. In addition, the cautiousness of his father and the optimism of his mother have also become the cornerstones of Kazuo Inamori’s life. Kazuo Inamori once recalled that during the chaotic period after the war, his mother tried his best to persuade his father to reopen the printing factory, but in doing so, he had to borrow money to buy printing equipment. As a result, no matter how the mother persuaded, the cautious father remained indifferent. Because my father had no idea of borrowing money at all. Kazuo Inamori is also cautious in everything in the business operation process, and regards no-loan operation as a creed. The reason why Japan Airlines (JAL), which came back to life, repaid the entire 360 billion yen reconstruction loan at a rate higher than the general loan interest rate in just three years may also have some influence from Inamori’s father. And the cheerful personality inherited from his mother will allow Kazuo Inamori to maintain an optimistic attitude no matter what kind of adversity he encounters in his future life. In his youth, Kazuo Inamori also realized the importance of gratitude and the influence of mentality. Even in difficult times, The experience of helping his father sell paper bags became the starting point of his business. A person’s knowledge can be improved with the growth of experience, but if a person does not have the character of hard work and hard work when he was young, it may be difficult to have it again in this life.
Kagoshima, the hometown of Kazuo Inamori
As of the end of 2020, the cumulative global circulation of books written by Kazuo Inamori has exceeded 20.17 million since their publication in 1989. When Shenghe Juku was disbanded at the end of 2019, the scale reached 56 branch schools in Japan, 48 branch schools overseas, and about 15,000 students. Kazuo Inamori divided people into three types. One is the self-ignition type that can burn by itself, the other is the combustible type that can be ignited close to the fire source, and the other is the non-combustible type that cannot burn even if it is ignited. If a person wants to achieve a career, he needs huge energy, and this energy comes from a self that can burn. Kazuo Inamori himself is obviously a typical self-combustible type. Not only that, but he is also a burning source of fire, spending his whole life trying his best to ignite more people. Kazuo Inamori’s success cannot be replicated, but “in a turbulent life, no matter what kind of difficulties and difficulties you encounter, you should not resent, sigh, or degenerate, but should accept the test of life positively and optimistically, and give yourselves down-to-earth Work hard. No matter what kind of destiny we face, as long as we always have a heart of gratitude and be proactive, the door of life will naturally open.” But it is a philosophy of life that can guide us to forge ahead. In fact, everything advocated by Inamori’s philosophy begins with changing oneself. So if you want to “change your life”, start with “changing yourself” first!
