In 1951, Toyota began an activity in which employees submit creative ideas for improvement. Today it is called the sōi kufū teian seido, the creative idea suggestion system. In March 1953, Toyota adopted the company slogan Yoi shina, yoi kangae, good products, good ideas.
The cumulative number of suggestions passed one million in 1974, ten million in 1984 and forty million in 2011.
In October 2004, Suzuki Ichirō broke the major league record for hits in one season. Afterwards he said: Chicchai koto o kasaneru koto ga, tondemonai tokoro ni tadoritsuku tada hitotsu no michi nan da na to, ima, kanjite imasu. “Now I feel that piling up small things is the only way to reach an extraordinary place.”
Sources give his words in slightly different forms.
Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru (塵も積もれば山となる): even dust, piled up, becomes a mountain. Very small things, when many of them pile up, become something large.
Ishi no ue ni mo sannen (石の上にも三年): three years even on a stone. A cold stone grows warm when a person sits on it for three years. Patient endurance always brings success.
Isogaba maware (急がば回れ): if in a hurry, go around. A safe, sure way reaches the goal sooner than a dangerous shortcut.
Meshitaki sannen, nigiri hachinen: three years cooking the rice, eight years shaping the nigiri. The saying describes the long apprenticeship of a sushi chef.
On October 29, 2015, the entrepreneur Horie Takafumi attacked it on Twitter: “Sushi restaurants that are any good today don’t do such leisurely training. Sense matters more.” The news site J-CAST reported on the dispute that followed.
Mainā chenji (マイナーチェンジ): minor change. A small revision, especially a partial model change of a car.
Furu moderu chenji (フルモデルチェンジ): full model change. A complete change of a car’s model, together with improvements in its functions.
Fueki ryūkō (不易流行): the unchanging and the changing. It is a principle of haikai poetry in the school of Matsuo Bashō. A Japanese dictionary explains it this way: the changing fashion that seeks novelty is in fact the unchanging essence of haikai, and the unchanging and the changing must be joined at the root.
Another dictionary notes that no example of Bashō explaining it himself is found. His disciples Kyorai, Dohō and Kyoriku developed it in their writings on haikai.
Japan’s national curriculum guidelines, the gakushū shidō yōryō, took their present form as an official notice in 1958. The Ministry of Education says that since then they have been revised about every ten years.
The ministry’s page lists revisions in 1989, in 1998 and 1999, and in 2008 and 2009, followed by a partial revision in 2015.
On November 30, 2010, a revised Jōyō Kanji Hyō, the official list of kanji for general use, was issued as a cabinet notice. It added 196 characters and removed 5, for a total of 2,136.
The revision was built on the list of 1,945 characters set in 1981.
In April 1962, the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers launched a magazine for the factory floor, Genba to QC. In its first issue, Ishikawa Kaoru introduced the QC circle, a small group in one workplace that carries out quality control on its own initiative.
The definition describes managing and improving the workplace continuously, with everyone taking part.
A verse attributed to the tea master Sen no Rikyū reads: Kiku sahō mamori tsukushite yaburu tomo hanaruru tote mo moto o wasuru na. Keep the rules and forms completely. Even when breaking them, even when leaving them, do not forget the root.
The verse is linked to shuhari, the stages of learning a traditional art. Shu is holding to the basics. Ha is adapting them. Ri is developing one’s own way.