Yamada Akio, founder of the company Mirai Kōgyō, said: Uchi ni wa hōrensō wa nai. We have no hōrensō. He did not mean the vegetable, he added, but the abbreviation for reporting, informing and consulting with a boss.
At his company, he said, even in product development the person in charge decides alone and finishes the product alone. He criticized today’s control-minded management, in which bosses do not trust employees, meddle in every detail and treat them like children.
The Diet’s commission on the Fukushima accident found that Tokyo Electric Power had told the nuclear regulator, its usual point of contact, that venting work was under way. It found no evidence that this had reached the top of the trade ministry or the prime minister’s office.
The commission concluded that the regulator’s failure to function and the lack of information at TEPCO headquarters built distrust between the prime minister’s office and TEPCO. It led the prime minister to go to the plant himself and give instructions there.
Early on March 15, 2011, Prime Minister Kan Naoto went to TEPCO headquarters, where a joint response headquarters of the government and TEPCO was set up.
In December 2023, Toyota chairman Toyoda Akio spoke about the certification scandal at Daihatsu. He said it came down to how employees are treated every day, and used an English phrase: “There is the phrase Bad News Fast.”
He then described what often happens to it in practice: “People are told, bring me the bad news. I was told that too, long ago. When I actually brought it, I was scolded.”
A Japanese training company’s guide to raising new employees divides reports into two kinds. The shūryō hōkoku, the final report, is required when a task is done. The chūkan hōkoku, the interim report, is made while the work is still in progress, to share how far it has gone or to confirm the method.
The guide says that the interim report lets the person who assigned the work see that it is moving. It can also stop a new employee who is heading in the wrong direction.
In July 1995, Daiwa Bank learned that a trader in New York had lost 1.1 billion dollars in unauthorized trading over 11 years. The United States authorities were told only on September 18. Japan’s Ministry of Finance had also kept them uninformed.
United States regulators then gave Daiwa 90 days to close or dispose of its operations in the United States.
On January 15, 2024, an outside doctor told Kobayashi Pharmaceutical that people who had taken its supplements containing red yeast rice, beni kōji, were suspected of suffering health damage. The company began a voluntary recall about two months later and made the damage public on March 22.
The governing party Komeito called the two-month delay deeply regrettable. Clear deadlines for reporting such cases, set by severity, were then planned.
Jizen hōkoku (事前報告): a report to the people concerned before something happens.
Jigo hōkoku (事後報告): a report of the result after something is finished. A Japanese business magazine notes that a report after the fact is often acceptable, but that a report in advance is safer when a deal changes or needs confirmation.
Hōrensō means spinach. It is also made of the first syllables of three workplace words: hōkoku (report), renraku (inform) and sōdan (consult).
Around 1982, Yamazaki Tomiji, president of Yamatane Securities, started a “spinach campaign” in his company. His book on it, Hōrensō ga kaisha o tsuyoku suru (Spinach Makes a Company Strong), appeared in 1986. One account says the idea came from his father.
On a Toyota assembly line, a worker who notices a problem activates the andon and calls a supervisor. If the problem can be fixed on the spot, the line keeps running. If not, the line stops at a set position.
The system rests on three conditions. A worker can call. When someone calls, a person always comes. The person who called is not blamed.
In 2000, it became known that Mitsubishi Motors had hidden defect reports from customers and repaired vehicles in secret.
On January 10, 2002, a wheel came off a Mitsubishi truck in Yokohama and struck a mother and her two children. The mother, 29, died. The company blamed poor maintenance. In March 2004, it withdrew that explanation and announced a recall. In April 2004, police arrested seven former top executives of Mitsubishi Motors and Mitsubishi Fuso.