Patron Leadership Archives - understand-culture

People Before Products

Mono o tsukuru mae ni hito o tsukuru. Make people before making things. Panasonic attributes these words to its founder, Matsushita Kōnosuke. The company gives no date or place for them.

In February 2022, Panasonic’s newsroom reprinted a message by its group CEO, Kusumi Yūki. He wrote that the company should make the fullest use of the talent that society has entrusted to it, and so strengthen its competitiveness. This, he wrote, is what he believes the founder meant by making people before making things.

Red Beard

Kurosawa Akira’s film Akahige (Red Beard) opened in Japan on April 3, 1965. It is based on Yamamoto Shūgorō’s Akahige shinryōtan. A young doctor, Yasumoto, has studied medicine in Nagasaki. He comes to live as an apprentice at the Koishikawa Yōjōsho, the shogunate’s clinic for the poor in Edo. Its director is known as Red Beard.

The film database eiga.com describes the story as the bond between the director and the young doctor. In its synopsis, Yasumoto resists the director at first and slowly comes to respect him. The cast is led by Mifune Toshirō and Kayama Yūzō.

The Regeneration Factory

Nomura saisei kōjō, the Nomura regeneration factory, was the name for the baseball manager Nomura Katsuya’s skill at reviving players who had struggled elsewhere. The sports magazine Number calls the pitcher Tabata Kazuya its finest product. Tabata came to the Yakult Swallows from Daiei. In his first season under Nomura, he started 25 games and went 12 and 12. In his second, he went 15 and 5.

Nomura later said, as Number reports: Tabata ni kagirazu, puro yakyū senshu wa honno hitokoto no adobaisu de kawaru kēsu ga ōō ni shite aru. This is true not only of Tabata. A professional ballplayer is often changed by a single word of advice. Mostly, Nomura added, it is because the player’s earlier thinking was wrong.

The Stable’s Mother

In a sumo stable, the stablemaster’s family and all the wrestlers “eat rice from the same pot” and “live under one roof,” as an article on nippon.com puts it. The article calls the stablemaster’s wife, the okamisan, probably the most important person behind the scenes. She manages the money, arranges the parties of supporters and deals with patrons. She also serves as mother to every wrestler and teaches them manners.

Repaying the Teacher

On March 8, 2018, the shogi player Fujii Sōta met his own teacher, Sugimoto Masataka, in an official game for the first time. Fujii won in 111 moves.

On June 20, 2020, they met again, and Fujii won in 95 moves. Daily Sports wrote that Fujii had once again made an ongaeshi, a repayment of a debt of gratitude, to his teacher.

Not One Dismissal

In 1929, during the depression, Matsushita Kōnosuke refused to cut the workforce of Matsushita Electric. Dakara, hitori mo kaiko shitara akan. So not a single person is to be dismissed.

Production was cut in half, and the factories worked half days. Shikashi jūgyōin no kyūryō wa zengaku o shikyū. But the employees were paid their full wages. In return, the employees were asked to put all their effort into selling the stock.

Parent Role and Child Role

Oyabun kobun (親分子分): parent role and child role. The encyclopedia Mypedia defines it as a relationship of domination and subordination that a protector forms with a dependent within a social group, especially one that involves the whole person and resembles that of parent and child.

Another encyclopedia notes that the phrase now calls to mind the yakuza or political factions. In sociology and folklore studies, however, it is a key term for understanding the structure of Japanese society.

The Go-Between

Nakanishi Keiji, who works to revive the nakōdo, the go-between, told J-CAST News how marriages used to begin. Kinjo no hito ya kaisha no jōshi, shinseki to itta daisansha ga wakai futari o hikiawasete senaka o oshite ita. Neighbors, a boss at the company, relatives and other third parties brought the young couple together and gave them a push.

In the Zexy wedding trend survey of 2009, only 1.1 percent of couples had a nakōdo.

Show Them, Tell Them

Yatte mise, itte kikasete, sasete mite, homete yaraneba, hito wa ugokaji. Show them how, tell them, let them try, and praise them. Otherwise people will not move.

A publication of the city of Hamura attributes the saying to Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, commander of the Combined Fleet. The magazine Bungeishunjū calls it a well-known maxim for leaders, used in management training. Neither names an original document, and their wording differs slightly.

The Vocabulary of Indebtedness

Ongaeshi (恩返し): returning a favor received, as in sewa ni natta hito ni ongaeshi suru, to repay someone who has looked after one.

Giri (義理): what one must do for others, or return to them, because of one’s position or as a moral duty in social life. An encyclopedia notes that always returning gifts given at weddings, funerals and other ceremonies is also called girigatai, being true to one’s obligations.

On o ada de kaesu (恩を仇で返す): to repay a favor with harm.