Japan's master plan
from The Economist May18th-24th 2013
Shinzo Abe has a vision of a prosperous and patriotic Japan.
The economics looks better than the nationalism.
When Shinzo Abe resigned after just a year as prime minister,
in September 2007, he was derided by voters, broken by chronic illness,
and dogged by the ineptitude that has been the bane of so many recent
Japanese leaders.
Today, not yet five months into his second term, Mr Abe seems
to be a new man.
He has put Japan on a regime of "Abenomics", a mix of reflation,
government spending and a growth strategy designed to jolt
the economy out of the suspended animation that has gripped it
for more than two decades.
He has supercharged Japan's once-fearsome bureaucracy
to make government vigorous again.
And, with his own health revived, he has sketched out
a programme of geopolitical rebranding and constitutional change
that is meant to return Japan to what Mr Abe thinks is its rightful place
as a world power.
Mr Abe is electrifying a nation that had lost faith in its political class.
Since he was elected, the stockmarket has risen by 55%.
Consumer spending pushed up growth in the first quarter
to an annualised 3.5%.
Mr Abe has an approval rating of over 70% (compared with around
30% at the end of his first term).
His Liberal Democratic Party is poised to triumph in elections
for the upper house of the Diet in July.
With a majority in both chambers he shoilld be able to pass legislation
freely.
Pulling Japan out of its slump is a huge task. After two lost decades,
the country's nominal GDP is the same as in 1991,
while the Nikkei, even after the recent surge, is at barely a third
of its peak. Japan's shrinking workforce is burdened by the cost
of a growing number of the elderly. Its society has turned inwards
and its companies have lost their innovative edge.
Mr Abe is not the first politician to promise to revitalise hiscountry
- the land of the rising sun has seen more than its share of false
dawns - and the new-model Abe still has everything to prove.
Yet if his plans are even half successful, he will surely be counted
as a great prime minister.
The man in Japan with a plan
The reason for thinking this time might be different is China.
Economic decline took on a new reality in Japan when China elbowed
Japan aside in 2010 to become the world's second-largest economy.
As China has gained confidence, it has begun to throw its weight
around in its coastal waters and with Japan directly
over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
Earlier this month China's official People's Daily
even questioned Japanese sovereignty over Okinawa.
Mr Abe believes that meeting China's challenge means shaking off
the apathy and passivity that have held Japan in thrall for so long.
To explain the sheer ambition of his design, his people invoke
the Meiji slogan fukoku kyohei: "enrich the country, strengthen
the army". Only a wealthy Japan can afford to defend itself.
Only if it can defend itself will it be able to stand up to China - and,
equally, avoid becoming a vassal of its chief ally, the United States.
Abenomics, with its fiscal stimulus and monetary easing,
sounds as if it is an economic doctrine; in reality it is
at least as much about national security.
Perhaps that is why Mr Abe has governed with such urgency.
Within his first weeks he had announced extra government spending
worth \10.3 trillion (about $100 billion). He has appointed
a new governor of the Bank of Japan who has vowed to pump
ever more money into the financial system.
In so far as this leads to a weaker yen, it will boost exports.
If it banishes the spectre of deflation, it may also boost consumption.
But printing money can achieve only so much and, with a gross debt
of 240% of GDP, there is a limit to how much new government
spending Japan can afford.
To change the economy's long-run potential, therefore,
Mr Abe must carry through the third, structural, part of his plan.
So far, he has set up five committees charged with instigating
deep supply-side reforms. In February he surprised even his supporters
by signing Japan up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade
agreement that promises to force open protected industries like farming.
Bad blood
Nobody could object to a more prosperous Japan that would be
a source of global demand. A patriotic Japan that had converted
its "self-defence forces" into a standing army just like any other
country's would add to the security of North-East Asia.
And yet those who remember Mr Abe's first disastrous term
in office are left with two worries.
The danger with the economy is that he goes soft, as he did before.
Already there are whispers that, if second-quarter growth is poor,
he will postpone the first of two consumption-tax increases due
in 2024-15 for fear of strangling the recovery.
Yet a delay would leave Japan without a medium-term plan
for limiting its debt and signal Mr Abe's unwillingness to face up
to tough choices.
The fear is that he will bow to the lobbies that resist reform.
Agriculture, pharmaceuticals and electricity are only some of
the industries that need to be exposed to competition.
Mr Abe must not shrink from confronting them, even though
that means taking on parts of his own party.
The danger abroad is that he takes too hard a line, confusing
national pride with a destructive and backward-looking nationalism.
He belongs to a minority that has come to see Japan's post-war
tutelage under America as a humiliation. His supporters insist
he has learned that minimising Japan's war-time guilt is unacceptable.
And yet he has already stirred up ill will with China and South Korea
by asking whether imperial Japan (for which his grandfather helped
run occupied Manchuria) really was an aggressor, and by allowing
his deputy to visit the Yasukuni shrine, where high-ranking war
criminals are honoured among Japan's war dead.
Besides, Mr Abe also seems to want more than the standing army
Japan now needs and deserves. The talk is of an overhaul of
the liberal parts of the constitution, unchanged since it was handed
down by America in 1947, Mr Abe risks feeding regional rivalries,
which could weaken economic growth by threatening trade.
Mr Abe is right to want to awaken Japan. After the upper-house
elections, he will have a real chance to do so. The way to restore
Japan is to focus on reinvigorating the economy, not to end up
in a needless war with China.
The End
001-2
Defense paper: Chinese ships of grave concern
July 9,2013
Japan's annual defense report expresses grave concern
about the expansion of China's naval activities
around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
This year's white paper on defense policy was submitted to
a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The report says that Chinese government ships have frequently
entered Japanese waters around the Senkaku Islands.
The islands are controlled by Japan, but also claimed by China and
Taiwan. The report warns that some actions by the ships were so
dangerous that they could have caused emergency situations.
The white paper says China insists on its own stories
that are inconsistent with existing international law and
its expanding maritime activity is of concern to the region
and the international community.
On the issue of North Korea's ballistic missile development,
the report says that the North demonstrated technological
advances with the launch in December last year.
It warns that North Korean missiles are a real and imminent threat
to the international community. They are believed to have enough
range to reach the US west coast and even the central states.
The white paper also expresses concern about the suspected
involvement of Chinese, Russian and North Korean government
organizations in cyber attacks targeting the governments of
other countries.
The End
002
Useful Phrases in a Meeting
1.
I need to notify you about a merger plan. I know
this comes as a surprise to you, but it's some-
thing we need to do for the survival of the company.
2.
I need to inform you that, based on your performance
last year, your salary is being reduced
by three percent. I know you're disappointed, but
we have to follow company policy.
3.
I'm afraid I have to inform you about some
changes in our long-term plan. Today I'd like to
outline the changes for you.
4．
I'd like to give you an update on the sales figures
for our new computer model. Sales rose by 10 percent
last month.
5.
There're going to be some changes in the long-term
plan. Listen carefully and don't miss anything,
6.
There's going to be a merger I need to tell you
about. It's not the best thing to happen, but at least
the company will survive.
7.
There are a few announcements I need to make.
First, we've decided to change our policy concerning
vacation time.
8.
By way of announcements, I'm happy to report
that our sales last month increased by 10 percent
over the same month in the previous year.
9．
You might be interested to know that ABC's new
computer will be coming out in June. From what
I've heard, it's very similar to our B3 Model.
10.
Mary, could you give us an update on the current
sales strategy? We'd also like to know how
effective you think it is.
11.
Mary will now update us on the progress we're
making with the current sales strategy. She'll also
give us her evaluation of its effectiveness.
12.
I'd like to make a suggestion, if I may.
Why don't we just rent an office for two months
while making repairs ?
If I'm not mistaken, that will save us time and money.
13.
This is my suggestion. We rent an office for two months
while we make repairs on this building.
That way we can maintain productivity and save money.
14.
We need to find an office to rent for two months.
Then, when the repairs are done on this building
we can move back in.
It's the only way we can stay productive and save money.
15.
Do you think it would be appropriate to make some
suggestions ?
I think I know of a way that we can cut our costs and
also increase efficiency.
16.
What do you think about that suggestion ?
Is the amount of money and time we'll save really
significant ?
17
I have a feeling that this is the best plan. In order to be
more certain, we need to do some more studies.
18
I strongly believe that this policy is wrong. It's wrong
for several reasons. One of them is that it hurts
employee morale.
19
I know there are other viewpoints, but I am willing
to stake my reputation on this.
20
I can't say I know for certain, but I am quite sure
about this.
21
I'm not sure, but I think that this plan will work.
I think we won't know for sure unless we implement it.
22
I guess this plan is the best. Nothing is certain,
but it seems the best to me.
23
Based on the information I have, I would say that
this Is the best plan. Why don't we try it and
see what happens ?
24
I have a firm belief that what I am saying is true.
It'll only be a matter of time before you'll agree
with me.
25
I think everyone will agree with me on this.
It's really the best plan of action.
26
I have to think that this plan is the best.
Why don't we give it a try and see what happens ?
27
I don't just think, I know that this is a good idea.
I can't see anything wrong with it.
28
I have no doubts that this will work.
It's our very best option at this time.
29
If you ask me, I think that we need to change
the dress code. We don't need to wear a suit
if we're not going to meet with clients.
30
If you want my opinion, the dress code is outdated.
If I were in charge, then we'd change the dress code.
31
My personal opinion is that the dress code is
too strict. I don't know why we can't dress casually
when we aren't going to be meeting with crents.
32
Maybe it's just my opinion, but I kind of think
we should change the dress code.
33
This policy hurts employee morale. That's just
one of the reasons why I think it's wrong.
34
This is just an opinion, but I think this plan is
our best option. Let's try it and see if it works.
35
I'd like to ask for everyone's opinion on this.
We want to have everything on the table.
36
I'd like to know what you think about George
Green, the new consultant. Do you think he's
really as good as everyone thinks ?
37
I'd like to ask you about something.
What do you think about George Green ?
38
I'd like you to look at the graph on page 5.
This shows how sales have fluctuated
over the past six months.
39
I've prepared a graph on page 5 showing sales
trends since April of this year. From this graph
we can see that sales are slowly dropping.
40
The obvious reason is money. We've already used up
most our budget for the current fiscal year.
41
There are several reasons. For one thing,
we only have a limited budget.
42
There're lots of reasons why we can't do this right now.
The biggest one is that we don't have the money.
We have to stay within our budget.
43
Let me just say that we are running out of money.
This leads me to think that now is not the right time
to start something new.
44
Now, let's look at the table that shows the sales trends
of our competitors. I'd like to ask you to go to page 5
of the handouts.
45
If I may, I'd like to ask you about the new consultant,
George Green. Is he doing what we want him to be doing ?
46
If you look on page 5 of the handout, you can see
the trend in sales for the last six months.
47
George Green doesn't seem to be producing any results.
Am I right or maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture ?
48
Off the record, what do you think about George Green ?
Do you think he's doing what he said he would do ?
49
Could you look now at page 5 of the handout ?
This is a graph of sales trends starting from April.
50
The next sheet is a graph showing sales for the last six
months. As you can see, sales have been rising steadily.
51
The project seems to be going well.
I think we can expect some good results.
52
I'm starting to have some doubts about this project.
I think we're going to be disappointed with the results.
53
I'm affaid I don't know what's going to happen
with this project. It's too early to evaluate it.
54
Let's think about what's going to happen if this
project doesn't go well. Do we have a plan B ?
55
I can already tell that this plan is not going to work.
I think we need to take action right now to limit the cost.
56
I'm not a fortuneteller, but I think our forecast is
going to be right. We still have a lot of work to do,
but I'm optimistic.
57
I've got to ask, is the situation getting better or worse ?
58
Just a quick question. Will the problem get better or worse
in the next six months ?
59
I really need to ask you something. Six months from now,
is the situation going to be better or worse?
60
I'd like to ask you a two-part question.
First, how long have you known about the problem ?
And second, what's being done about the problem now ?
61
Here're a couple questions for you.
When did you become aware of this problem ?
And what's being done to fix it now ?
62
Could you give me some more specific information
about what caused the problem ?
63
So you think that delaying the launch will give you
more time to launch an effective ad campaign ?
64
So you're telling me that you want two extra months
for the pre-launch ad campaign ?
65
Let me make sure I have this right. The consultant
recommends putting off the launch by two months,
and you agree with him ?
66
I want to make sure I understand you. You and
the consultant want to delay the launch by two months.
67
Is my understanding correct that you and the consultant
think the best strategy is to delay the launch ?
68
Are you sure that putting off the launch is the best thing ?
Do you really think that you could do a better job ?
(to be continued)
003
Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
Scene III
Elsinore. The house of Polonius.
[Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA his sister.]
Laertes
My necessaries are embark'd. Farewell. And,
sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.
Ophelia
Do you doubt that?
Laertes
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
a violet in the youth of primy nature,
forward not permanent, sweet not lasting,
the perfume and suppliance of a minute;
no more.
Ophelia
No more but so?
Laertes
Think it no more;
for nature crescent does not grow alone.
In thews and bulk, but as this temple waxes,
the inward service of the mind and soul
grows wide withal.
Perhaps he loves you now,
and now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
the virtue of his will; but you must fear,
his greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
for he himself is subject to his birth:
he may not, as unvalued persons do,
carve for himself; for on his choice depends
the sanity and health of this whole state;
and therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
unto the voice and yielding of that body
whereof he is the head.
Then if he says he loves you,
it fits your wisdom so far to believe it
as he in his particular act and place
may give his saying deed; which is no further
than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
if with too credent ear you list his songs,
or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
to his unmast'red importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
and keep you in the rear of your affection,
out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
if she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes;
the canker galls the infants of the spring
too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
and in the morn and liquid dew of youth
contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary, then; best safety lies in fear:
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
Ophelia
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
as watchman to my heart.
But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious
pastors do.
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine.
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
and recks not his own rede.
Laertes
0, fear me not !
[Enter POLONIUS.]
I stay too long. But here my father comes.
A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
Polonius
Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard, for shame !
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
and you are stay'd for. There － my blessing
with thee !
And these few precepts in thy memory
look thou character.
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd courage.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel;
but, being in, bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
but not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
for the apparel oft proclaims the man;
and they in France of the best rank and station
are of a most select and generous choice in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
for loan oft loses both itself and friend,
and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all － to thine own self be true,
and it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee !
Laertes
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Polonius
The time invite's you; go, your servants tend.
Laertes
Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
what I have said to you.
Ophelia
'Tis in my memory lock'd,
and you yourself shall keep the key of it.
Laertes
Farewell.
[Exit.]
The End
004
The Moon and Sixpence
by Somerset Maugham
Chapter XIX
I had not announced my arrival to Stroeve, and when I rang
the bell of his studio, on opening the door himself, for a moment
he did not know me. Then he gave a cry of delighted surprise and
drew me in. It was charming to be welcomed with so much
eagerness. His wife was seated near the stove at her sewing, and
she rose as I came in. He introduced me.
'Don't you remember ?' he said to her. 'I've talked to you
about him often.' And then to me: 'But why didn't you let me know
you were coming ? How long have you been here ? How long are you
going to stay ? Why didn't you come an hour earher, and we would
have dined together ?'
He bombarded me with questions. He sat me down in a chair,
patting me as though I were a cushion, pressed cigars upon me,
cakes, wine. He could not leave me alone. He was heart-broken
because he had no whisky, wanted to make coffee for me,
racked his brain for something he could possibly do for me, and
beamed and laughed, and in the exuberance of his delight sweated
at every pore.
'You haven't changed', I said, smiling, as I looked at him.
He had the same absurd appearance that I remembered. He was
a fat little man, with short legs, young still - he could not have been
more than thirty - but prematurely bald. His face was perfectly round,
and he had a very high colour, a white skin, red cheeks, and red lips.
His eyes were blue and round too, he wore large gold-rimmed
spectacles, and his eyebrows were so fair that you could not see them.
He reminded you of those jolly, fat merchants that Rubens painted.
When I told him that I meant to live in Paris for a while, and had
taken an apartment, he reproached me bitterly for not having
let him know. He would have found me an apartment himself, and
lent me furniture - did I really mean that I had gone to the expense
of buying it ? - and he would have helped me to move in. He really
looked upon it as unfriendly that I had not given him the opportunity
of making himself useful to me. Meanwhile, Mrs Stroeve sat quietly
mending her stockings, without talking, and she listened to all he said
with a quiet smile on her lips.
'So, you see, I'm married', he said suddenly; 'what do you think of
my wife?'
He beamed at her, and settled his spectacles on the bridge of his
nose. The sweat made them constantly slip down.
'What on earth do you expect me to say to that?' I laughed.
'Really, Dirk', put in Mrs Stroeve, smiling.
'But isn't she wonderful? I tell you, my boy, lose no time;
get married as soon as ever you can. I'm the happiest man alive.
Look at her sitting there. Doesn't she make a picture? Chardin,
eh ? I've seen all the most beautiful women in the world;
I've never seen anyone more beautiful than Madame Dirk Stroeve.'
'If you don't be quiet, Dirk, I shall go away.'
'Mon petit chou', he said.
She flushed a little, embarrassed by the passion in his tone.
His letters had told me that he was very much in love with his wife,
and I saw that he could hardly take his eyes off her. I could not
tell if she loved him. Poor pantaloon, he was not an object to excite
love, but the smile in her eyes was affectionate, and it was possible
that her reserve concealed a very deep feeling.
She was not the ravishing creature that his love-sick fancy saw,
but she had a grave comeliness. She was rather tall, and her grey
dress, simple and quite well-cut, did not hide the fact that her figure
was beautiful. It was a figure that might have appealed more to
the sculptor than to the costumier. Her hair, brown and abundant,
was plainly done, her face was very pale, and her features were good
without being distinguished. She had quiet grey eyes.
She just missed being beautiful, and in missing it was not even pretty.
But when Stroeve spoke of Chardin it was not without reason, and
she reminded me curiously of that pleasant house-wife in her mob-cap
and apron whom the great painter has immortalized. I could imagine her
sedately busy among her pots and pans, making a ritual of her household
duties, so that they acquired a moral significance; I did not suppose
that she was clover or could ever be amusing, but there was something
in her grave intentness which excited my interest. Her reserve was not
without mystery. I wondered why she had married Dirk Stroeve.
Though she was English, I could not exactly place her, and it was not
obvious from what rank in society she sprang, what had been her
upbringing, or how she had lived before her marriage. She was very silent,
but when she spoke it was with a pleasant voice, and her manners were
natural.
I asked Stroeve if he was working.
'Working ? I'm painting better than I've ever painted before.'
We sat in the studio, and he waved his hand to an unfinished picture
on an easel. I gave a little start. He was painting a group of Italian
peasants, in the costume of the Campagna, lounging on the steps of
a Roman church.
'Is that what you're doing now?' I asked.
'Yes. I can get my models here just as well as in Rome.'
'Don't you think it's very beautiful ?' said Mrs Stroeve.
'This foolish wife of mine thinks I'm a great artist', said he.
His apologetic laugh did not disguise the pleasure that he felt.
His eyes lingered on his picture. It was strange that his critical
sense, so accurate and unconventional when he dealt with the
work of others, should be satisfied in himself with what was
hackneyed and vulgar beyond belief.
'Show him some more of your pictures', she said.
'Shall I ?'
Though he had suffered so much from the ridicule of his friends,
Dirk Stroeve, eager for praise and naively self-satisfied, could never
resist displaying his work. He brought out a picture of two curly -
headed Italian urchins playing marbles.
'Aren't they sweet ?' said Mrs Stroeve.
And then he showed me more. I discovered that in Paris he had been
painting just the same stale, obviously picturesque things that he had
painted for years in Rome. It was all false, insincere, shoddy; and yet
no one was more honest, sincere, and frank than Dirk Stroeve.
Who could resolve the contradiction?
I do not know what put it into my head to ask:
'I say, have you by any chance run across a painter called
Charles Strickland?'
`You don't mean to say you know him ?' cried Stroeve.
'Beast', said his wife.
Stroeve laughed.
`Ma pauvre cherie.' He went over to her and kissed both her hands.
'She doesn't like him. How strange that you should know Strickland !'
'I don't like bad manners', said Mrs Stroeve.
Dirk, laughing still, turned to me to explain.
`You see, I asked him to come here one day and look at my pictures.
Well, he came, and I showed him everything I had.'
Stroeve hesitated a moment with embarrassment. I do not know
why he had begun the story against himself; he felt an awkwardness
at finishing it.
'He looked at - at my pictures, and he didn't say anything. I thought
he was reserving his judgement till the end. And at last I said:
"There, that's the lot !" He said:
"I came to ask you to lend me twenty francs."'
`And Dirk actually gave it him', said his wife indignantly.
'I was so taken aback. I didn't like to refuse. He put the money
in his pocket, just nodded, said "Thanks", and walked out.'
Dirk Stroeve, telling the story, had such a look of blank
astonishment on his round, foolish face that it was almost
impossible not to laugh.
'I shouldn't have minded if he'd said my pictures were bad,
but he said nothing - nothing.'
`And you will tell the story, Dirk', said his wife.
It was lamentable that one was more amused by the ridiculous
figure cut by the Dutchman than outraged by Strickland's
brutal treatment of him.
'I hope I shall never see him again', said Mrs Stroeve.
Stroeve smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He had already
recovered his good humour.
`The fact remains that he's a great artist, a very great artist.'
`Strickland ?' I exclaimed. 'It can't be the same man.'
'A big fellow with a red beard. Charles Strickland.
An Englishman.'
'He had no beard when I knew him, but if he has grown one
it might well be red. The man I'm thinking of only began painting
five years ago.'
'That's it. He's a great artist.'
'Impossible.'
'Have I ever been mistaken ?' Dirk asked me.
'I tell you he has genius. I'm convinced of it. In a hundred years,
if you and I are remembered at all, it will be because we knew
Charles Strickland.'
I was astonished, and at the same time I was very much
excited. I remembered suddenly my last talk with him.
'Where can one see his work ?' I asked. 'Is he having any
success ? Where is he living ?'
No; he has no success. I don't think he's ever sold a picture.
When you speak to men about him they only laugh. But I know
he's a great artist. After all, they laughed at Manet. Corot never
sold a picture. I don't know where he lives, but I can take you
to see him. He goes to a cafe in the Avenue de Clichy at seven
o'clock every evening. If you like we'll go there tomorrow.'
'I'm not sure if he'll wish to see me. I think I may remind him
of a time he prefers to forget. But I'll come all the same. Is there
any chance of seeing any of his pictures ?'
Not from him. He won't show you a thing. There's a little dealer
I know who has two or three. But you mustn't go without me;
you wouldn't understand. I must show them to you myself.'
`Dirk, you make me impatient', said Mrs Stroeve. 'How can
you talk like that about his pictures when he treated you as he
did ?' She turned to me. 'Do you know, when some Dutch people
came here to buy Dirk's pictures he tried to persuade them
to buy Strickland's. He insisted on bringing them here to show.'
'What did you think of them ?' I asked her, smiling.
`They were awful.'
`Ah, sweetheart, you don't understand.'
'Well, your Dutch people were furious with you.
They thought you were having a joke with them.'
Dirk Stroeve took off his spectacles and wiped them.
His flushed face was shining with excitement.
'Why should you think that
beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world,
lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by
to pick up idly ?
Beauty is something wonderful and strange
that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world
in the torment of his soul.
And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it.
To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist.
It is a melody that he sings to you,
and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and
sensitiveness and imagination.'
`Why did I always think your pictures beautiful, Dirk ?
I admired them the very first time I saw them.'
Stroeve's lips trembled a little.
'Go to bed, my precious. I will walk a few steps with our friend,
and then I will come back.'
The End
005
The KAIZEN Approach to Problem Solving
『KAIZEN』 Chapter 6
by Masaaki Imai
The Problem in Management
KAIZEN starts with a problem or, more precisely, with the
recognition that a problem exists. Where there are no problems,
there is no potential for improvement. A problem in business
is anything that inconveniences people downstream, either
people in the next process or ultimate customers.
The problem is that the people who create the problem are
not directly inconvenienced by it. Thus people are always
sensitive to problems (or inconveniences created by problems)
caused by other people, yet insensitive to the problems and
the inconveniences they cause other people. The best way
to break the vicious circle of passing the buck from one person
to another is for every individual to resolve never to pass on
a problem to the next process.
In day-to-day management situations, the first instinct,
when confronted with a problem, is to hide it or ignore it
rather than to face it squarely. This happens because a problem
is a problem, and because nobody wants to be accused of
having created the problem. By resorting to positive thinking,
however, we can turn each problem into a valuable opportunity
for improvement. Where there is a problem, there is potential
for improvement. The starting point in any improvement, then,
is to identify the problem. There is a saying among TQC
practitioners in Japan that problems are the keys to hidden
treasure. Yet how many people have the courage to admit that
they have a problem?
I still vividly recall my first sales call twenty-some years ago.
I had just gotten back from a five-year stint with the Japan
Productivity Center in the United States, had hung out my shingle
as a management consultant, and was enthusiastically calling on
prospective clients.
My first call was on Revlon Japan. I had an introduction from
an executive at the head office in New York and had been told that
their man in Tokyo needed some assistance. So, as a novice in the
consulting business, I made a sweeping entrance into the general
manager's office and, as soon as I had introduced myself, started
with, "With regard to your problems in Japan ..." The American
general manager cut me off with a curt, "We have no problems in
Japan." End of interview. I have since become wiser and now never
discuss a client's "problem." It is always the client's
"opportunity for improvement."
It is only human nature not to want to admit that you have
a problem, since admitting to problems is tantamount to confessing
failings or weaknesses. The typical American manager is afraid
people will think he is part of the problem. However, once he
realizes that he has a problem (as most people do), his first
step should be to admit it and to "share" the problem. It is
particularly important that he share the problem with his superiors,
since he usually does not have the resources to solve it alone
and will need company support.
The worst thing a person can do is to ignore or cover up
a problem. When a worker is afraid that his boss will be mad at him
if he finds out a machine is malfunctioning, he may keep on making
the defective parts and hope that nobody will notice. However,
if he is courageous enough, and if his boss is supportive enough,
they may be able to identify the problem and solve it.
A very popular term in Japanese TQC activities is warusa-kagen,
which refers to things that are not really problems but are somehow
not quite right. Left unattended, warusa-kagen may eventually
develop into serious trouble and may cause substantial damage.
In the workplace, it is usually the worker, not the supervisor,
who notices the warusa-kagen.
In the TQC philosophy, the worker must be encouraged to identify
and report such warusa-kagen to the boss, who should welcome
the report. Rather than blame the messenger, management should be glad
the problem was pointed out while it was still minor and should welcome
the opportunity for improvement. In reality,however, many opportunities
are lost simply because neither worker nor management likes problems.
Another point in warusa-kagen is that the problems must be expressed
in quantitative, not qualitative, terms. Many people are uncomfortable
with the effort to quantify. Yet only by analyzing problems in terms
of objective figures can we tackle them in a realistic manner.
When workers are trained to be attentive to warusa-kagen, they also
become attentive to subtle abnormalities developing in the work-shop.
In one Tokai Rika plant, workers reported 534 such subtle abnormalities
in a single year. Some of these irregularities might have led to serious
trouble had they not been brought to management's attention.
Another important aspect of this approach to problems is that most
problems in management occur in cross-functional areas. Good Japanese
managers who have worked at the same company for years and expect
to stay for years more have developed a sensitivity to cross-functional
situations.
(Promotion to important managerial positions should in part be based on
how much sensitivity to cross-functional requirements the employee
develops.)
Information feedback and coordination with other departments is a routine
part of a manager's job.
In many Western companies, however, cross-functional situations are
perceived as conflicts and are addressed from the standpoint of conflict
resolution rather than problem solving. The lack of predetermined criteria
for solving cross-functional problems and the jealously guarded professional
"turf' make the job of solving cross-functional problems all the more
difficult.
KAIZEN and Labor-Management Relations
This may be an appropriate point at which to consider the role
Western trade unions have traditionally played with regard to improvement.
If we take an unbiased look at what unions have been doing in the name
of protecting their members' rights, we find that they have, by obstinately
opposing change, often succeeded only in depriving their members of a chance
for fulfillment, a chance to improve themselves.
By resisting change in the workplace, unions have deprived the workers
of a chance to work better and more efficiently on an improved process
or machine. Workers should welcome being exposed to new skills and
opportunities, because such experience leads to new horizons and challenges
in life. However, when management has suggested such changes as assigning
workers different jobs, the unions have opposed it, arguing that it would lead
to exploitation and would infringe upon the workers' union rights.
Stubbornly preserving the tradition of union membership based upon
particular job skills, union members have been confined to their fragmented
pieces of work and have forfeited precious opportunities to learn and acquire
new skills associated with their work-opportunities to meet new challenges
and to grow as human beings. Such an attitude has often been based on the
union's fear that improvements may result in a decline in membership or
unemployment for its members.
In May 1982, Hajime Karatsu, then managing director of Matsushita
Communication Industrial, gave an address in Washington,D.C., explaining
Japan's successful TQC practices. After this speech, someone asked him
if he thought there was a culture gap between Japan and the United States
that made TQC possible in Japan but not in the United States. Karatsu's
response was:
Before coming to Washington, I stopped off in Chicago to see the Consumer
Electronics Show. There were many Matsushita products on display at the show.
When they arrived packed in crates, it was the work of the carpenters' union
to remove nails from the crates. However, simply taking out the nails was not
enough to remove the entire wooden frame, since there were some nuts and bolts
remaining. The man from the carpenters' union said that it was not his job
to remove the nuts and bolts, and that he would not do it. Finally the frames
were removed, but again the work stopped because the rest had to be done
by a worker from another union. Then we learned that pamphlets ordered from
Japan had arrived. I went to see about them, but there was nobody there from
the right union to unload the packages. We waited for two hours, but no one
showed up. Finally, the truck driver who had delivered the packages gave up
and went back, with the pamphlets still in his truck.
It might seem that there is a cultural pattern here that makes it
impossible to cooperate to get the job done. However, baseball is a very
American game, and I have never seen the first basemen's and second basemen's
unions discussing who should field the ball after the batter hits it. Whoever
can do it does it, and the whole team benefits. In Japanese companies, people
try to achieve the same type of teamwork as on a baseball team.
In 1965, Isetan Department Store, one of the largest department stores
in Japan (6,000 employees), moved to a five-day week for all employees.
At the same time, labor and management agreed that one of the days off should
be used for rest and the other for self-improvement. In fact, a joint
declaration on Isetan's manpower resources development policy was issued
by the company president and the union president. It read:
The Isetan management and union hereby declare that, sharing the same
workplace, we will join hands to develop our natural personalities and
capabilities to the fullest extent in our daily life and to create
an environment conducive to development. The underlying philosophy of this
joint declaration was that
(1) an individual's developing and exercising his skills at work benefits
both the company and the individual and
(2) people are constantly seeking self-improvement, and the real meaning
of equal opportunity is to provide opportunities for growth.
Stealing Jobs
People who are interested in improving their work should take a positive
interest in the upstream processes that provide the material or semifinished
products. They should also take an interest in the downstream processes,
regarding them as their customers and making every effort to pass along only
good materials or products.
As the old saw goes, "You cannot make a good omelette out of rotten eggs."
There is a similar correlation between the individual's job and the jobs of
his co-workers: if one worker is interested in making KAIZEN part of his work,
his fellow workers must also be involved.
Any job involving more than one worker has gray areas that do not belong
to any one individual. Such gray areas must be taken care of by whoever is
at hand. When the worker sticks to his own job description and refuses
to do any more than what is formally required of him, there is little hope
of KAIZEN.
The Japanese worker has been noted for his willingness to take care of
such gray areas. Because of the lifetime-employment system, the Japanese
blue-collar worker does not feel threatened even when other people pitch in
and do part of his job, since it affects neither his income nor his job
security. For the same reason, he is willing to teach workers the skills
that he has acquired on the job. This smooth transfer of skills from one
generation of workers to another has consolidated the solid base of skilled
labor in Japanese industry.
In an environment where job descriptions and manuals dictate every action,
there is little flexibility for workers to engage in such "gray area"
activities. The workers should be trained so that they can work flexibly
in these gray areas, even as they strictly follow the established work
standards in performing the job. Flexibility is further reduced when several
craft unions are involved in the same workplace. In such a case, going too
far into a gray area can easily be construed as "stealing the other guy's
job." In Japan, this would not be stealing but would be a positive and
humane contribution to KAIZEN, viewed as being to everyone's advantage.
There is something dehumanizing about the logic that the only way you can
be assured of a job is to refuse to teach anyone else your skills. We must
create an environment in which improvement is everybody's business and
everyone's concern.
The End
006
The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck
１.The Plot
Pearl Buck's The Good Earth opens with Wang Lung,
a poor Chinese farmer, making the preparations for his wedding day.
To mark the momentous change in his life, he bathes for the first time
since the New Year, dresses in his best clothes, and buys extra food
at the market.
He goes to the House of Hwang, where his new wife has worked
as a slave, to collect her. Although his new wife, 0-lan, is not beautiful,
and her feet have not been bound, he is pleased that she has neither
pockmarks nor a split lip. Back at his modest house he hosts a wedding
feast, and she impresses him with her cooking skills, making a meal more
delicious than Wang has ever tasted.
Wang's marriage brings good fortune. 0-lan's arrival restores order and
comfort to the house; she works hard in the fields and soon gives birth
to a son. Wang's crops are plentiful, and when the New Year arrives,
0-lan and Wang take their son to the Great House (the House of Hwang),
where 0-lan presents her healthy son to her former mistress.
Because of their good fortune, Wang has enough silver to buy land from
the Great House, which has fallen on hard times. For several more years,
Wang and 0-lan thrive. 0-lan brings a second son and a daughter into
the world, and Wang continues to buy land from the increasingly decadent
House of Hwang.
Their luck turns, however, with the beginning of a severe drought.
Starvation drives them to desperate measures and sets the villagers
at each other's throats. Finally Wang and his family head south for the city,
where there is the promise of food, using the last of their money to buy
railroad passage.
Life in the city brings little improvement - but at least there is food.
Wang, his wife, his father, and their three children live in a shack and buy
their meals for pennies in the great public kitchens of the city. Wang pulls
a rick-shaw, and 0-lan and her children beg for money. Wang dreams
constantly of returning to the land. Finally a war breaks out in the city,
the wealthy families flee, and by stealing from the rich, Wang and 0-lan
are able to return to their land and rebuild their farm.
The family's fortunes improve and more children are born. Despite a flood
that submerges his fields, Wang's financial power increases. He grows
restless and dissatisfied with his wife and falls under the spell of a woman
called Lotus Flower, who becomes his concubine. But Lotus Flower does
not bring him happiness, and Wang is plagued by turmoil in his household.
Both 0-lan and his father die, and his sons lack interest in the rural
empire he has built. In the end, it is clear that his obsession with the land
will not outlive him, and all he has worked to build will disappear after his
death.
２．Characters
Wang Lung
A poor farmer at the beginning and a wealthy landowner by the end
of the novel, Wang holds steadfast to the belief that everything comes
from the good earth. He is not immune to earthy temptations, and
he allows his sons to become further and further removed from their
agricultural roots, but working the land always helps to restore him.
0-lan
The stoic, hardworking, and self-sacrificing wife of Wang Lung.
Formerly a slave in the Great House, she is extremely proud that she
has married and brought sons into her husband's family. A woman of
few words, she is thoughtful, persuasive, and wise. Wang begins to
appreciate her value only after her death.
Wang Lung's Father
An infirm old man who wants nothing more than to have a cup of hot
water in the morning and grandsons to warm his heart, Wang Lung's
father has few responsibilities. He refuses to beg in the great city, and
he does not help with the farmwork. He does, however, greatly disapprove
of his son's having taken a concubine.
Wang Lung's Oldest Son
Educated, moody, and overly concerned with the social standing of the
family, Wang Lung's oldest son exhibits all of the characteristics of the
privileged class. He takes great pride in restoring the House of Hwang -
and spending the family money freely.
Wang Lung's Oldest Daughter
Referred to as the "poor fool," the oldest daughter was born before
the famine and appears to suffer from mental disabilities. Though Wang
Lung initially resents her, he grows very fond of her.
Wang Lung's Second Son
Wang Lung's second son is frugal and practical. He receives an education,
becomes a merchant, and oversees the business side of his father's farms.
He chooses a wife from a farming family; he also reaffirms his differences
from his brother.
Wang Lung's Uncle
Lazy and corrupt, Wang Lung's uncle borrows money from his nephew,
attempts to swindle him out of his land, and eventually moves his family
into Wang Lung's house. His association with notorious robbers allows him
to manipulate Wang, but his power wanes when he becomes addicted to
opium.
Wang Lung's Aunt
The opposite of 0-lan, Wang Lung's aunt possesses no domestic skills
and allows her children to run wild. She helps arrange for Lotus Flower
to move into Wang Lung's house. Like her husband, she succumbs to opium.
Wang Lung's Nephew
A rebellious young man with unwholesome appetites. He joins the army.
Lotus Flower
Dainty and withholding, Lotus Flower works as a prostitute in a teahouse,
where she casts a spell over Wang Lung. Later she becomes his much-
spoiled concubine.
３．Qｕｅｓｔｉｏｎｓ ｆｏｒ Dｉｓｃｕｓｓｉｏｎ
When The Good Earth was published, some critics called it a universal
story. Is the story of The Good Earth still universal at the beginning of
the twenty-first century? What is a "universal story"?
Pearl Buck was an early advocate for women's rights and feminism.
How are women depicted in The Good Earth ? In what ways, if any,
do you see feminist beliefs at work in this novel?
Do the events that unfold in The Good Earth make its title a true
statement or an ironic one ? Is the earth really good or not ?
In what ways ?
Chance plays a critical role in The Good Earth. If 0-lan had not chanced
upon the jewels in the wealthy family's house in the South, Wang Lung would
not have been able to purchase more land when they returned to their
farm. At the same time, Wang Lung believes in the virtue of hard work and
the reward of effort, which is essentially a cause-and-effect view of the
world. What does the novel ultimately say about chance versus causality ?
Writing about people of a different race or nationality can often pose
problems for authors. How would you characterize Buck's depictions of
Chinese farmers ? Does she stereotype them ? Or does she portray them
as complex individuals ? Is it possible to do something in between ?
Practices such as infanticide or taldng a concubine are very foreign and,
for many western readers, distressing. How does Buck help you understand
the complexity of these practices ? Can you think of things that we do
in our culture that would probably appear strange to people from different
countries ?
Although The Good Earth won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and was
instrumental in helping Buck receive the Nobel in 1938, the novel lapsed
into obscurity for many years. In what ways do you think this novel is or
is not a classic ? Why is it important (or not important) to read novels
that were prize-winning best sellers during earlier times in our history ?
The End
007
Nine Suggestions
on How To Get the Most out of This Book
『HOW TO WIN ERIENDS & INFLUENCE PEOPLE』
by Dale Carnegie
1.
If you wish to get the most out of this book,
there is one indispensable requirement, one essential
infinitely more important than any rule or technique.
Unless you have this one fundamental requisite,
a thousand rules on how to study wyll avail little.
And if you do have this cardinal endowment, then you can
achieve wonders without reading any suggestions
for getting the most out of a book.
What is this magic requirement?
Just this:
a deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous determination
to increase your ability to deal with people.
How can you develop such an urge ?
By constantly reminding yourself how important these
principles are to you. Picture to yourself how their
mastery will aid you in leading a richer, fuller,
happier and more fulfilling life. Say to yourself over
and over: "My popularity, my happiness and sense of
worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing
with people."
2.
Read each chapter rapidly at first to get a bird's-eye
view of it. You will probably be tempted then to rush on
to the next one. But don't - unless you are reading
merely for entertainment. But if you are reading because
you want to increase your skill in human relations, then
go back and reread each chapter thoroughly. In the long
run, this will mean saving time and getting results.
3.
Stop frequently in your reading to think over what
you are reading. Ask yourself just how and when you can
apply each suggestion.
4.
Read with a crayon, pencil, pen, magic marker or
highlighter in your hand. When you come across
a suggestion that you feel you can use, draw a line beside
it. If it is a four-star suggestion, then underscore every
sentence or highlight it, or mark it with "****." Marking
and underscoring a book makes it more interesting, and
far easier to review rapidly.
5.
I knew a woman who had been office manager for a large
insurance concern for fifteen years. Every month,
she read all the insurance contracts her company had
issued that month. Yes, she read many of the same
contracts over month after month, year after year.
Why ? Because experience had taught her that that was
the only way she could keep their provisions clearly in mind.
I once spent almost two years writing a book on public
speaking and yet I found I had to keep going back over
it from time to time in order to remember what I had
written in my own book. The rapidity with which we
forget is astonishing.
So, if you want to get a real, lasting benefit out of this
book, don't imagine that skimming through it once will
suffice. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend
a few hours reviewing it every month. Keep it on your
desk in front of you every day. Glance through it often.
Keep constantly impressing yourself with the rich
possibilities for improvement that still lie in the offing.
Remember that the use of these principles can be made
habitual only by a constant and vigorous campaign of
review and application. There is no other way.
6.
Bernard Shaw once remarked: "If you teach a man
anything, he will never learn." Shaw was right. Learning
is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire
to master the principles you are studying in this book,
do something about them. Apply these rules at every
opportunity. If you don't you will forget them quickly.
Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.
You wiIl probably find it difficult to apply these
suggestions all the time. I know because I wrote the book,
and yet frequently I found it difficult to apply everything
I advocated. For example, when you are displeased, it is
much easier to criticize and condemn than it is to try
to understand the other person's viewpoint. It is frequently
easier to find fault than to find praise. It is more natural
to talk about what you want than to talk about what
the other person wants. And so on. So, as you read this book,
remember that you are not merely trying to acquire
information. You are attempting to form new habits.
Ah yes, you are attempting a new way of life. That will
require time and persistence and daily application.
So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working
handbook on human relations; and whenever you are
confronted with some specific problem - such as handling
a child, winning your spouse to your way of thinking,
or satisfying an irritated customer - hesitate about
doing the natural thing, the impulsive thing. This is
usually wrong. Instead, turn to these pages and review
the paragraphs you have underscored. Then try these
new ways and watch them achieve magic for you.
7.
Offer your spouse, your child or some business
associate a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches
you violating a certain principle. Make a lively game out
of mastering these rules.
8.
The president of an important Wall Street bank
once described, in a talk before one of my classes, a
highly efficient system he used for self-improvement.
This man had little formal schooling; yet he had become
one of the most important financiers in America, and he
confessed that he owed most of his success to the
constant application of his homemade system. This is
what he does. I'll put it in his own words as accurately
as I can remember.
"For years I have kept an engagement book showing
all the appointments I had during the day. My family
never made any plans for me on Saturday night, for
the family knew that I devoted a part of each Saturday
evening to the illuminating process of self-examination
and review and appraisal. After dinner I went off by myself,
opened my engagement book, and thought over all the
interviews, discussions and meetings that had taken
place during the week. I asked myself:
" `What mistakes did I make that time?'
" 'What did I do that was right- and
in what way could I have improved my performance?'
" 'What lessons can I learn from that experience?'
"I often found that this weekly review made me very
unhappy. I was frequently astonished at my own
blunders. Of course, as the years passed, these
blunders became Iess frequent. Sometimes I was inclined
to pat myself on the back a little after one of
these sessions. This system of self-analysis, self-education,
continued year after year, did more for me than any
other one thing I have ever attempted.
"It helped me improve my ability to make decisions
and it aided me enormously in all my contacts with people.
I cannot recommend it too highly."
Why not use a similar system to check up on your
application of the principles discussed in this book ?
If you do, two things will result.
First, you will find yourself engaged in an educational
process that is both intriguing and priceless.
Second, you will find that your ability to meet and
deal with people will grow enormously.
9.
You will find at the end of this book several blank
pages on which you should record your triumphs
in the application of these principles. Be specific.
Give names, dates, results. Keeping such a record will
inspire you to greater efforts; and how fascinating
these entries will be when you chance upon them some
evening years from now.
In order to get the most out of this book:
a.
Develop a deep, driving desire to master the
principles of human relations.
b.
Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.
c.
As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how
you can apply each suggestion.
d.
Underscore each important idea.
e.
Review this book each month.
f.
Apply these principles at every opportunity.
Use this volume as a working handbook to help you
solve your daily problems.
g.
Make a lively game out of your learning by offering
some friend a dime or a dollar every time he or she
catches you violating one of these principles.
h.
Check up each week on the progress you are
making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made,
what improvement, what lessons you have learned
for the future.
i.
Keep notes in the back of this book showing
how and when you have applied these principles.
The End
008
Company Philosophy:
The Way We Do Things around Here
The Will to Manage Chaptr 2
by Marvin Bower
Managing Director,McKinsey & Company,Inc
I have an abstract painting in my office that I bought
in London off the Piccadilly fence. In that open-air mart,
which operates on weekends, the artists sell their own works.
Judged by the $43 price, my painting is not great art.
But it has delightful swirls, angles, and other abstract
forms, all in bright colors. And when Mr. Eves, the artist,
told me the title - "Forces at Work" - I bought it immediately.
With a little metal plate bearing the title and the artist's
name, the painting is a constant reminder to me that any
successful organization must give continuing attention
to keeping adjusted to the forces affecting it - that is,
to the forces-at-work element of its philosophy. But before
discussing that element, let us examine the whole concept of
company philosophy as a system component and identify other
important elements of a successful philosophy.
Meaning and Elements of Company Philosophy
Over the years, I have noticed that some executives -
particularly top-management executives in the most successful
companies - frequently refer to "our philosophy." They may speak
of something that "our philosophy calls for," or of some action
taken in the business that is "not in accordance with our
philosophy." In mentioning "our philosophy," they assume that
everyone knows what "our philosophy" is.
As the term is most commonly used, it seems to stand for
the basic beliefs that people in the business are expected
to hold and be guided by - informal, unwritten guidelines'
on how people should perform and conduct themselves. Once such
a philosophy crystallizes, it becomes a powerful force indeed.
When one person tells another, "That's not the way we do things
around here," the advice had better be heeded. And when
a superior says that to a subordinate, it had better be taken
as an order.
In dealing with the concept as I find it used in practice
by leading executives, the literature on company philosophy is
neither very extensive nor very satisfactory. But one dictionary
definition of philosophy does apply: "general laws that furnish
the rational explanation of anything." In this sense, a company
philosophy evolves as a set of laws or guidelines that gradually
become established, through trial and error or through
leadership, as expected patterns of behavior.
In discussing the philosophy of International Business
Machines Corporation, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., the chairman,
says:
I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive
and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs
on which it premises all its policies and actions.
Next, I believe that the most important single factor in
corporate success is faithful adherence to those beliefs... .
In other words, the basic philosophy, spirit and drive of an
organization have far more to do with its relative achievements
than do technological or economic resources, organizational
structure, innovation and timing. All these things weigh heavily
on success. But they are, I think, transcended by how strongly
the people in the organization believe in its basic precepts and
how faithfully they carry them out.'
Some typical examples of basic beliefs that serve as guidelines
to action will clarify the concept. Although such basic beliefs
inevitably vary from company to company, here are five that I find
recurring frequently in the most successful corporations:
1. Maintenance of high ethical standards in external and
internal relationships is essential to maximum success.
2. Decisions should be based on facts, objectively considered
- that I call the fact-founded, thought-through approach to
decision making.
3. The business should be kept in adjustment with the forces
at work in its environment.
4. People should be judged on the basis of their performance,
not on nationality, personality, education, or personal traits
and skills.
5. The business should be administered with a sense of com-
petitive urgency.
These five common-denominator elements - combined with
other beliefs - are informal supplements to the more formal
processes of management. A brief discussion of each will show
how useful and how powerful a company philosophy can be,
once it provides effective guidelines for "the way we do things
around here."
High Ethical Standards
In dealing with the value of high ethical standards in a
business, I don't want to belabor the obvious. But I do want to
point up a few nuances that sometimes escape even executives
of high principle.
Since the whole purpose of a system of management is to
inspire and require people to carry out company strategy by
following policies, procedures, and programs, no management
should overlook the set of built-in guidelines that every employee
with a good family background brings to the job. Since anyone
who has been well trained in Judaic-Christian ethics instinctively
acts in accordance with those principles, it is sheer
shortsightedness for any management to overlook the great practical
value of these powerful guidelines of conduct.
The business with high ethical standards has three primary
advantages over competitors whose standards are lower:
①
A business of high principle generates greater drive and
effectiveness because people know that they can do the right
thing decisively and with confidence. When there is any doubt
about what action to take, they can rely on the guidance of
ethical principles. I can think of three companies - the leaders
in their respective industries - whose inner administrative drive
emanates largely from the fact that everyone feels confident that
he can safely do the right thing immediately. And he also knows
that any action which is even slightly unprincipled will be
generally condemned.
②
A business of high principle attracts high-caliber people
more easily, thereby gaining a basic competitive and profit
edge. A high-caliber person, because he prefers to associate with
people he can trust, favors the business of principle; and he
avoids the employer whose practices are questionable. So, in taking
his first job or in changing jobs, he takes the trouble to find out.
For this reason, companies that do not adhere to high ethical
standards must actually maintain a higher level of compensation
to attract and hold people of ability. A few large companies have
to "reach" for able people with higher compensation simply
because low standards of relationships among people produce
a "jungle" atmosphere in which it is less agreeable to work.
③
A business of high principle develops better and more profitable
relations with customers, competitors, and the general public,
because it can be counted on to do the right thing at all times.
By the consistently ethical character of its actions, it builds
a favorable image. In choosing among suppliers, customers resolve
their doubts in favor of such a company. Competitors are
less likely to comment unfavorably on it. And the general public
is more likely to be open-minded toward its actions and receptive
to its advertising and other communications.
Consider the example of Avon Products, Inc., the house-to-house
cosmetics business. Since 1954 Avon's net profit has been
increasing at an average of over 19 percent a year, compounded,
and in 1963 its return on investment reached 34 percent. According
to an article in the December 1964 issue of Fortune, Avon's founder,
David H. McConnell, "was resolved to be different from the swarms
of itinerant peddlers who were at that time selling goods of
indifferent quality to housewives, and then moving on, rarely
to be seen again." The founder's son carried on his father's belief
in high principle. Citing comments by competitors and suppliers
on the company's high ethical standards, the article notes that
Avon's present chairman, John A.Ewald, its president, Wayne Hicklin,
and a top-management executive now deceased "did a great deal
to ensure that the McConnells' high ethical standards would
continue to be diffused throughout the organization as it expanded."
There should be no need to dwell on these well-recognized
values. But too often, I find, they tend to be taken for granted.
My point in mentioning them is to urge executives to actively
seek ways of making high principle a more explicit element in
their company philosophy. No one likes to declaim about his
honesty and trustworthiness; but the leaders of a company can
profitably articulate, within the organization, their determination
that everyone shall adhere to high standards of ethics. That is
the best foundation for a profit-making company philosophy and
a profitable system of management.
The End
009
Address at Gettysburg
by Abraham Lincoln
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth
on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives that that
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that
we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot
consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far
above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little
note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last
full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.
The End
0010
Back to Basics
『IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE
Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies 』
by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.
Chapter 9
Hands-On, Value-Driven
Let us suppose that we were asked for one all-purpose bit of
advice for management, one truth that we were able to distill
from the excellent companies research. We might be tempted
to reply, "Figure out your value system. Decide what your
company stands for. What does your enterprise do that gives
everyone the most pride ? Put yourself out ten or twenty years
in the future: what would you look back on with greatest
satisfaction ?"
We call the fifth attribute of the excellent companies,
"hands-on, value-driven." We are struck by the explicit
attention they pay to values, and by the way in which their
leaders have created exciting environments through personal
attention, persistence, and direct intervention - far down the line.
In Morale, John Gardner says: "Most contemporary writers are
reluctant or embarrassed to write explicitly about values."
Our experience is that most businessmen are loathe to write about,
talk about, even take seriously value systems. To the extent that
they do consider them at all, they regard them only as vague
abstractions. As our colleagues Julien Phillips and Allan Kennedy
note, "Tough-minded managers and consultants rarely pay much
attention to the value system of an organization. Values are not
'hard' like organization structures, policies and procedures,
strategies, or budgets." Phillips and Kennedy are right
as a general rule but, fortunately, wrong - as they are the first
to say - about the excellent companies.
Thomas Watson, Jr., wrote an entire book about values.
Considering his experiences at IBM in A Business and Its Beliefs,
he began:
One may speculate at length as to the cause of the decline and
fall of a corporation. Technology, changing tastes, changing
fashions, all play a part.... No one can dispute their importance.
But I question whether they in themselves are decisive.
I believe the real difference between success and failure
in a corporation can very often be traced to the question of
how well the organization brings out the great energies and
talents of its people. What does it do to help these people find
common cause with each other ? And how can it sustain this common
cause and sense of direction through the many changes which take
place from one generation to another ?
Consider any great organization - one that has lasted over
the years - I think you will find that it owes its resiliency
not to its form of organization or administrative skills,
but to the power of what we call beliefs and the appeal
these beliefs have for its people.
This then is my thesis: I firmly believe that any organization,
in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of
beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions.
Next, I believe that the most important single factor in corporate
success is faithful adherence to those beliefs.
And, finally, I believe if an organization is to meet the challenge
of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything
about itself except those beliefs as it moves through corporate life.
In other words, the basic philosophy, spirit, and drive of
an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements
than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure,
innovation, and timing.
All these things weigh heavily in success. But they are, I think,
transcended by how strongly the people in the organization believe
in its basic precepts and how faithfully they carry them out.
Every excellent company we studied is clear on what it stands for,
and takes the process of value shaping seriously. In fact, we wonder
whether it is possible to be an excellent company without clarity
on values and without having the right sorts of values.
Led by our colleague Allan Kennedy, we did an analysis of
"superordinate goals" about three years ago.
(We called it that
because that was the way the McKinsey 7-S framework was labeled
at the time. Since then we have changed the term to "shared
values"; but although the wording has changed, we have always meant
the same thing: basic beliefs, overriding values.)
The study preceded the excellent companies survey, but the result
was consistent with what we subsequently observed. Virtually all of
the better-performing companies we looked at in the first study had
a well-defined set of guiding beliefs. The less well performing
institutions, on the other hand, were marked by one of two
characteristics. Many had no set of coherent beliefs. The others
had distinctive and widely discussed objectives, but the only ones
that they got animated about were the ones that could be quantified
- the financial objectives, such as earnings per share and growth
measures. Ironically, the companies that seemed the most focused
- those with the most quantified statements of mission, with
the most precise financial targets - had done less well financially
than those with broader, less precise, more qualitative statements
of corporate purpose.
(The companies without values fared less well, too.)
So it appeared that not only the articulation of values but also
the content of those values (and probably the way they are said)
makes the difference. Our guess is that those companies with
overriding financial objectives may do a pretty good job of
motivating the top fifteen - even fifty. But those objectives seldom
add much zest to life down the line, to the tens of thousands
(or more) who make, sell, and service the product.
Surprisingly, but in line with Gardner's observation, only
a few brave business writers have taken the plunge and written
about values. And none of those who have is more articulate
than Philip Selznick, whom we introduced in Chapter 4.
In Leadership and Administration, he talks about values and
sketches the leader's hands-on role:
The formation of an institution is marked by the making of value
commitments, that is, choices which fix the assumptions of policy
makers as to the nature of the enterprise, its distinctive aims,
methods, and roles. These character defining choices are often
not made verbally, they might not even be made consciously....
The institutional leader is primarily an expert in the promotion
and protection of values.... Leadership fails when it concentrates
on sheer survival. Institutional survival, properly understood,
is a matter of maintaining values and distinctive identity.
Henry Kissinger has stressed the same theme:
"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are
to where they have not been. The public does not fully understand
the world into which it is going. Leaders must invoke an alchemy
of great vision. Those leaders who do not are ultimately judged
failures, even though they may be popular at the moment."
In fact, the theoretical case goes deeper. Values are not usualy
transmitted, as Selznick implies, through formal written
procedures. They are more often diffused by softer means:
specifically the stories, myths, legends, and metaphors that
we've already seen. On the importance of myth as a way of
transmitting the value system, Selznick is once again instructive:
To create an institution you rely on many techniques for infusing
day-to-day behavior with long-run meaning and purpose.
One of the most important of these techniques is the elaboration
of socially integrating myths. These are efforts to state,
in the language of uplift and idealism, what is distinctive
about the aims and methods of the enterprise.
Successful myths are never merely cynical or manipulative....
To be effective, the projected myth must not be restricted
to holiday speeches or to testimony before legislative committees.
It requires some interpreting and the making of man' diverse
day-to-day decisions. The myth helps to fulfill the need.
Not the least important, we can hope that the myth will contribute
to the unified sense of mission and thereby to the harmony of
the whole.
In the end, whatever the source, myths are institution builders.
The art of creative leadership is the art of institution building.
the reworking of human and technological materials to fashion
an organism that embodies new and enduring values.
And so, as it turns out, the excellent companies are unashamed
collectors and tellers of stories, of legends and myths in support of
their basic beliefs. Frito-Lay tells service stories. J&J tells quality
stories. 3M tells innovation stories.
Another of our colleagues, John Stewart, is fond of observing:
"If you want to know a good company's shared values, just look at its
annual report." Sure enough, the annual reports and other publications
of the excellent companies make clear what they're proud of and
what they value.
Delta Airlines: "There is a special relationship between Delta
and its personnel that is rarely found in any firm, generating a team spirit
that is evident in the individual's cooperative attitude toward others,
cheerful outlook toward life, and pride in a job well done."
Dana: "The Dana style of management is getting everyone involved
and working hard to keep things simple. There are no policy or procedure
manuals, stacked up layers of management, piles of control reports,
or computers that block information and communcation paths....
The Dana style isn't complicated or fancy. It thrives on treating people
with respect. It involves all Dana people ｉn the life of the company."
Caterpillar: "Availability of parts from dealers and from Caterpillar
parts distribution facilities combined was at a record high level in 1981."
And, "Caterpillar dealers are consistently mentioned by customers
as a prime reason for buying Caterpillar products. Many of these dealerships
are in their second and third generations of affiliation with the company."
Digital: "Digital believes that the highest degree of interaction in any of
its activities needs to be in the area of customer service and support."
J&J: "Back in 1890, Johnson & Johnson put together the original first-aid kit
in response to a plea from railroad workers who needed treatment
on the scene as they toiled to lay tracks across America. Ninety years later
the name Johnson & Johnson is still Synonymous with home wound care."
Looking at the examples above, one can understand why
reviewers of the excellent companies material sometimes say:
"Well, your generalizations are nice, but every company does it
a little bit differently." The industry environment, if nothing
else, dictates that Dana stress themes that are different from,
say, those at J&J. Moreover, virtually every one of these
companies has had its set of beliefs grooved by a unique individual.
Accordingly, each company is distinct; that is why most were
so willing to share information with us. Nobody, they believe,
can copy them.
On the other hand, we find among the excellent companies
a few common attributes that unify them despite their very
different values.
First, as our original survey intimated, these values are almost
always stated in qualitative, rather than quantitative, terms.
When financial objectives are mentioned, they are almost always
ambitious but never precise. Furthermore, financial and strategic
objectives are never stated alone. They are always discussed
in the context of the other things the company expects to do well.
The idea that profit is a natural by-product of doing something well,
not an end in itself, is also almost universal.
A second attribute of effective value systems is the effort
to inspire the people at the very bottom of the organization.
Suppose that financial objectives were meaningful to 1,000 people,
or five times that many. Even that impact doesn't go far
in today's large enterprise. IBM has more than 340,000 people
and Digital more than 60,000. The target of a business philosophy
is best aimed, in Kyoto Ceramic chairman Kazuo Inamori's words,
at "getting the best from the man with fifty percent ability."
The best service-driven companies clearly understand this, and
that is how they are able to deliver so thoroughly on service.
But even the good, cost-driven manufacturing companies seem
to understand the same thing. Blue Bell, which is particularly
cost-and operations-conscious, won't sacrifice quality, especially
on its bellwether Wrangler jeans. Chairman Kimsey Mann says
unequivocally, "Nobody around here will try to save a dime
by taking an extra belt loop off the Wrangler jean." He reasons
that the saving of a dime is a target that is important
to a bunch of division managers and factory managers. But quality
and the image of quality affect everybody - must affect everybody
- from the newly hired seamstress in the backwoods of North Carolina
to Mann himself.
The story about Blue Bell leads us to a third point about
the content of beliefs. As James MacGregor Burns has said,
"The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify
the dominant contradiction at each point in history.
" Any business is always an amalgam of important contradictions
- cost versus service, operations versus innovation, formality
versus informality, a "control" orientation versus
a "people" orientation, and the like. It is noteworthy,
we feel, that the value systems of the excellent companies
do come down rather clearly on one side of these apparent
contradictions. The charge that the effective belief systems
are mere "boilerplate," therefore, is quite unwarranted.
The specific content of the dominant beliefs of the excellent
companies is also narrow in scope, including just a few basic values:
1. A belief in being the "best"
2. A belief in the importance of the details of execution,
the nuts and bolts of doing the job well
3. A belief in the importance of people as individuals
4. A belief in superior quality and service
5. A belief that most members of the organization should be
innovators, and its corollary, the willingness to support failure
6. A belief in the importance of informality to enhance
communication
7. Explicit belief in and recognition of the importance of
economic growth and profits.
James Brian Quinn believes that a company's superordinate goals
"must be general. But they must also clearly delineate 'us'
from `them." Nothing does it better than "being the best" at something
as is abundantly shown. David Ogilvy notes, "I want all our people
to believe they are working in the best agency in the world.
A sense of pride works wonders." Emerson's Charles Knight adds,
"Set and demand standards of excellence. Anybody who accepts
mediocrity - in school, in job, in life - is a guy who compromises.
And when the leader compromises, the whole damn organization
compromises." In discussing his service goal for IBM, Thomas Watson, Jr.,
is crystal clear and ambitious: "We want to give the best customer
service of any company in the world."
While the most viable beliefs are soaring in one way or another,
many merely emphasize the details of execution but in a fervent way.
For instance, "We believe that an organization should pursue
all tasks with the idea that they can be accomplished in a superior
fashion," says IBM's Watson. "IBM expects and demands a superior
performance from its people in whatever they do. I suppose a belief
of this kind conjures up a mania for perfection and all the psychological
horrors that go with it. Admittedly, a perfectionist is seldom
a comfortable personality. An environment which calls for perfection
is not likely to be easy. But aiming for it is always a goad to progress."
Andrall Pearson, president of Pepsi Co, articulates a similar belief
in improving execution at all levels: "We have learned from experience
that the best new-product ideas and competitive strategies are wasted
if we don't execute them effectively. In fact, in our kinds of businesses,
executing extremely well is often more productive - and practical - than
creating fresh ideas. Superb execution is at the heart of many of our
most remarkable successes, such as Frito-Lay in snacks and Pepsi-Cola
in grocery stores."
One theme in the belief structure that came up with surprising
regularity was, in David Packard's words, "innovative people at all
levels in the organization." The excellent companies recognize that
opportunity finding is a somewhat random and unpredictable process,
certainly not one that lends itself to the precision sometimes
implied by central planning. If they want growth through innovation,
they are dependent on lots of people, not just a few in central R&D.
A corollary to treating everyone as innovator is explicit support
for failure. Emerson's Charles Knight, J&J's James Burke, and
3M's Lewis Lehr explicitly talk about the need to make mistakes.
Steven Jobs, originator of the hugely successful Apple computer.
which in 1981 approached $750 million in annual sales, says:
"I still make mistakes, a lot. About two weeks ago I was having
breakfast with some of our marketing people and I started talking
about all the things that were wrong in a way that none of them
could do anything to resolve. I had about fifteen people really
pissed at me so I wrote them a letter about a week later.
In the last paragraph I told them that I was just in Washington
and people were asking me 'How does Apple do it?' I said, 'Well,
we hire really great people and we create an environment where
people can make mistakes and grow.
The last common theme, informality to foster communications,
is at the heart of the HP Way, to cite only one example, and
therefore the company makes specific points of its use of first
names, managing by wandering around, and its feeling of being
one big family. All three amount to explicit direction by the
organization's top leadership that the chain of command should
be avoided in order to keep communications flowing and encourage
maximum fluidity and flexibility.
It is obvious to managers like Thomas Watson, Sr., that values
are paramount. But how are they laid down ? Here, too, we found
striking correlations. As the excellent companies are driven
by coherent value systems, so virtually all of them were marked
by the personality of a leader who laid down the value set:
Hewlett and Packard at HP, Olsen at Digital, Watson at IBM,
Kroc at McDonald's, Disney at Disney Productions, Treybig at
Tandem, Walton at Wal-Mart, Woolman at Delta, Strauss at Levi
Strauss, Penney at J. C. Penney, Johnson at J&J, Marriott at
Marriott, Wang at Wang, McPherson at Dana, and so on.
An effective leader must be the master of two ends of
the spectrum: ideas at the highest level of abstraction and
actions at the most mundane level of detail. The value-shaping
leader is concerned, on the one hand, with soaring, lofty visions
that will generate excitement and enthusiasm for tens or hundreds
of thousands of people. That's where the pathfinding role is
critically important. On the other hand, it seems the only way
to instill enthusiasm is through scores of daily events, with
the value-shaping manager becoming an implementer par excellence.
In this role, the leader is a bug for detail, and directly
instills values through deeds rather than words:
no opportunity is too small. So it is at once attention to ideas
and attention to detail.
Attention to ideas - pathfinding and soaring visions - would
seem to suggest rare, imposing men writing on stone tablets.
But our colleagues Phillips and Kennedy, who looked at how
leaders shape values, imply that this is not the case:
"Success in instilling values appears to have had little to do
with charismatic personality. Rather, it derived from obvious,
sincere, sustained personal commitment to the values the leaders
sought to implant, coupled with extraordinary persistence
in reinforcing those values. None of the men we studied relied
on personal magnetism. All made themselves into effective leaders."
Persistence is vital. We suspect that is one of the reasons
why we see such long periods of time at the helm by the founding
fathers: the Watsons, Hewlett and Packard, Olsen, and so on.
Leaders implement their visions and behave persistently simply
by being highly visible. Most of the leaders of the excellent
companies have come from operational backgrounds. They've been
around design, manufacturing, or sale of the product, and
therefore are comfortable with the nuts and bolts of the business.
Wandering about is easy for them because they are comfortable
in the field. These leaders believe, like an evangelist,
in constantly preaching the "truth," not from their office
but away from it--in the field. They travel more, and they
spend more time, especially with juniors, down the line.
This trait, too, is explicitly recognized. Harry Gray of
United Technologies writes his own ad copy. says Business Week.
Gray was trained as a salesman. He says that one of the reasons
he does so well (for his Pratt & Whitney Aircraft division)
against General Electric's aircraft-engine division is that
"I show up in places with the customers where I never see
the top management of General Electric." Lanier's chairman,
Gene Milner, and its president, Wes Cantrell, are the same.
Says Cantrell, "Gene and I were the only president or chairman
at last year's major word-processing conference." Or,
as his fellow executives have been heard to comment of T. Wilson,
Boeing's chief executive, "He's still out in the shop." and,
when the occasion arises, "He still makes a few crucial design
decisions."
Walking about is an official cornerstone of some policies.
Hands-on management at HP was defined thus by R&D executive
John Doyle:
Once a division or department has developed a plan of its own
- a set of working objectives - it's important for managers and
supervisors to keep it in operating condition. This is where
observation, measurement, feedback, and guidance come in.
It's our "management by wandering around." That's how you find
out whether you're on track and heading at the right speed and
in the right direction. If you don't constantly monitor how
people are operating, not only will they tend to wander off track
but also they will begin to believe you weren't serious about
the plan in the first place. So, management by wandering around
is the business of staying in touch with the territory all
the time. It has the extra benefit of getting you off your chair
and moving around your area. By wandering around I literally mean
moving around and talking to people. It's all done on a very
informal and spontaneous basis, but it's important in the course
of time to cover the whole territory. You start out by being
accessible and approachable, but the main thing is to realize
you're there to listen. The second is that it is vital to keep
people informed about what's going on in the company, especially
those things that are important to them. The third reason
for doing this is because it is just plain fun.
David Ogilvy makes much the same point: "Do not summon
people to your office - it frightens them. Instead go to see them
in their offices. This makes you visible throughout the agency.
A chair man who never wanders about his agency becomes a hermit,
out of touch with his staff."
A leading exponent of the art of hands-on management was
United Airlines' Ed Carlson. He describes his approach after taking
the helm at United with a background only in the hotel business.
United was losing $50 million a year at the time. Carlson turned it
around, at least for a while:
I travelled about 200,000 miles a year to express my concern
for what I call "visible management." I often used to say
to Mrs. Carlson when I'd come home for a weekend that I felt
as though I were running for public office. I'd get off
an airplane, I'd shake hands with any United employees I could
find. I wanted these people to identify me and to feel sufficiently
comfortable to make suggestions or even argue with me if that's
what they felt like doing. One of the problems in American
corporations is the reluctance of the chief executive officer
to get out and travel, to listen to criticism. There's a tendency
to become isolated, to surround himself with people who won't
argue with him. He hears only the things he wants to hear
within the company. When that happens you are on the way to
developing what I call corporate cancer.... Let's be specific.
Robb Mangold is senior vice president of United Airlines'
Eastern division. If he resented my visits to Boston, LaGuardia,
or Newark, then what I practiced by way of visible management
won't work. These people knew I wasn't out for personal glory.
I wasn't trying to undermine them. What I was trying to do
was create the feeling that the chief executive officer of
the company was an approachable guy, someone you could talk to....
If you maintain good working relations with the people
in line positions you shouldn't have any trouble. Whenever I
picked up some information, I would call the senior officer
of the division and say that I had just gotten back from visiting
Oakland, Reno and Las Vegas, and here is what I picked up.
We have talked about the leader as hands-on manager, role model,
and hero. But one individual apparently is not enough; it is the
team at the top that is crucial. The senior managers must set the
tone. In instilling critical business values, they have no alternative
but to speak with one voice, as Philip Selznick states: "An
important principle is the creation of a homogeneous staff.
The development of derived policies and detailed applications
will be guarded by shared and general perspectives." Carlson took
this point seriously. When he started those 200,000-mile years,
he insisted that his top fifteen people do the same. During
the first eighteen months of the Carlson reign, all fifteen
spent 65 percent or more of their time in the field.
A practical way in which homogeneity at the top is reinforced
is regular meetings. At Delta Airlines and Fluor, all senior
management gathers together informally once a day around the coffee
klatch. At Caterpillar, the senior team meets almost daily without
any agenda just to check expectations and swap agreements about
how things are going. Similar informal rituals occur at J&J and
McDonald's.
Obviously, too much homogeneity can lead to a "yes-man"
syndrome. But remember Dean Acheson's admonition to Richard
Neustadt: Presidents need confidence, not warning. Around the
critical business values, lots of yea-saying and reinforcement
really do seem to be essential.
A final correlation among the excellent companies is the
extent to which their leaders unleash excitement. Remember that
HP managers are evaluated in terms of their ability to create
enthusiasm. At Pepsi Co, president Andy Pearson says: "Perhaps
the most subtle challenge facing us in the decade of the eighties
is to ensure that Pepsi Co remains an exciting place to work."
In the same vein, Chuck Knight of Emerson says: "You can't
accomplish anything unless you have some fun." And David Ogilvy
urged his organization: "Try to make working at Ogilvy & Mather
fun. When people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce
good advertising. Kill grimness with laughter. Maintain
an atmosphere of informality. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of
sad dogs that spread gloom."
Clarifying the value system and breathing life into it are
the greatest contributions a leader can make. Moreover, that's
what the top people in the excellent companies seem to worry
about most. Creating and instilling a value system isn't easy.
For one thing, only a few of all possible value systems are
really right for a given company. For another, instilling
the system is backbreaking work. It requires persistence and
excessive travel and long hours, but without the hands-on part,
not much happens, it seems.
The End
011
My Fair Lady
Chapter 9 Where Are My Slippers ?
by Alan Jay Lerner
Higgins was outside his house in Wimpole Street late that afternoon.
He couldn't stop thinking about Eliza. Now he knew that he wanted
her with him. She was part of his world.
(singing)
I've grown accustomed to her face !
She almost makes the day begin.
I've grown accustomed to the tune
She whistles night and noon.
He couldn't stop thinking about Eliza・・・
「 I've grown accustomed to her face ! 」
(singing)
Her smiles. Her frowns.
Her ups, her downs,
Are second nature to me now;
Like breathing out and breathing in.
I was serenely independent and content before we met;
Surely I could always be that way again and yet
I've grown accustomed to her looks;
Accustomed to her voice:
Accustomed to her face.
He stopped singing. 「 Marry Freddy ! 」 he said angrily.
「 What a stupid idea ! What a heartless thing to do !
She won't be happy. She'll come knocking on my door
one night ・・・ I'm really a most forgiving man ・・・
but I'll never take her back ! Never ! Marry Freddy ! Ha ! 」
He took his key out of his pocket but suddenly stopped.
He did not know quite what to do without Eliza. He needed her.
He was in his work-room that evening, but he couldn't work.
He walked round and round the room. He stopped next to
his recording machine and turned it on. Eliza's voice
came out into the room. He sat down with his back to the
machine and listened, his head down.
「 I want to be a lady in a flower shop 」, her voice said,
「 instead of selling flowers at the corner of Tottenham
Court Road. He said he could teach me, but he bullies me
all the time. 」
Very softly Eliza walked into the room behind him.
She stood looking at him. 「 She was so wonderfully low,
so terribly dirty 」, Higgins said sadly to himself,
remembering her first visit to this room.
「 I washed my face and hands before I came, you know. 」
Eliza said.
Eliza turned off the machine. 「 I washed my face and hands
before I came, you know 」 she said.
Higgins sat up straight in his chair. Most of all he wanted
to laugh loudly, to run to her. Instead, he sat back
in the chair again, pushed his hat down over his eyes and
very softly said, 「 Eliza, where are my slippers ? 」
Eliza wanted to cry. She understood him so well.
The End
使える英語を身につける英語トレーニング教室（６０分間）の１例：
①
全員で音読トレーニング。
②
英語ニュース放送の聞き取りトレーニング。
③
パソコンで複写トレーニング。
④
全員で複写文の音読トレーニング。
⑤
複写文について討論トレーニング。
⑥
英語トレーニングについての各人の意見提案発表、
あるいは、英語の歌の披露。
以上
『生きる場を広げるため学び続ける仕組みを創れ』
未経験のこと、すなわち、今までやったことのないことに挑戦すると、
失敗はつきものである。従って、うまくいかないことや、挑戦失敗を、
苦にしたり、悔やんだり、悩んだりすることはない。
しかし、挑戦失敗を教訓にして、学び続けることは必要である。
学び続けることによって新しく蓄積されていく知識・情報が生きる場を
広げる力（ちから）そのものなのである。
高江常男さんが、何万回もの失敗を乗り越えて、あきらめずに、
学び続けた生き方に深い感銘を受けている。
学び続けることは最高の幸福です。
意識も頭も身体も、使わないと、どんどん錆びつく！
学び続けることは
廃用性萎縮を防ぐ最良の健康法です。
２０１５年１２月 文化出版局 発行
志村冨美子・横浜レース教室、八王子レース教室、本郷台レース教室
ＴＥＬ：０４５－３５２－７１８４
以上