It has been ten years since I began saying that "Obun Printing is not a printing company, but an information-processing company."

Yet, we have 14 printing machines and 3 DocuTech machines (an on-demand printing and book-binding system), making up the total equipment at the Sakado Factory and Print PACS in Itabashi. Available binding methods range from "folding" to "saddle-stitch," "perfect binding," and "notch binding." There are 100 permanent employees and 70 part-time employees working day and night in our manufacturing division. As shown by these data, Obun Printing is undoubtedly a printing company.

Then why do I claim that Obun Printing is not a printing company? Because I believe that the scope of our business services must include script making, which functions as the starting point of information, and processing such a script into printed matter, or other kinds of media as required.

In other words, the characteristics of Obun Printing lie in its ability to make script in the broad sense (planning, writing, design, translation, etc.) and to develop it into web, CD-ROM and other kinds of media.

The concept of "e-printer" is perhaps a bit difficult to understand. So, let's divide it into "e-" and "printer." First, I'd like to explain the more familiar word, "printer." The printing operation is a part of the manufacturing industry as well as the device industry. There are three prerequisites for a manufacturing business to develop: competitive price, quick turn around, and high quality. Furthermore, the principles for the device industry are that production facilities operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and they must be regularly upgraded.

Our Sakado Factory adopted the double-shift system in the second half of 1997. Our Plate-making Division (which produces aluminum plates to attach to printing machines, and employees 4 permanent employees, 7 part-time employees, and 2 dispatched employees) is in operation around the clock.

Our CS Division, which governs production control, has a similar system, and the employees work flexible schedules without core work hours. Our Printing Division (30 permanent employees, 6 part-time employees) operates on two shifts from 7:00 am to 0:30 am. The folding machine section of our Bookbinding Division (26 permanent employees, 29 part-time employees) also introduced a full-scale 2-shift system in the middle of December.

For the current fiscal year, our plan for capital investment is one notch binder (bookbinding system for paperbacks) for the Sakado Factory (100 million yen), two lines of the most recent DocuTech system for Print PACS in December (100 million yen), and one large double-sided, two-color printer for the Sakado Factory in February (200 million yen). As shown by these facts, our investment in both personnel and equipment has been strong in order to enhance the productivity of our Manufacturing Division.

Regarding the information-processing industry, we are aiming to be one of the leading companies in this field. During the last few of years, information-processing technology has required us to become more Internet-oriented.

Therefore, in order to clearly express the direction, we decided to add the letter of "e," which stands for "electronic," as in "e-mail." Our products in this regard include a unique expertise with the Internet, such as proprietary software like "electronic catalog," and an automatic typesetting system technology utilizing AppleScript (a computer language to develop software). Furthermore, we have high-speed telecommunication technology for large-volume data, as well as a "cross-media" technology that automatically produces content into various media, including printed matter, CD-ROM, and web pages with user-specific format, and outputs the content. Even many big printing companies do not have such unique expertise.

I believe that becoming one of the winners in this business can be achieved through an unrivaled level and capacity in both unique technology, and the traditional printing field.

The other day, the Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, made a stopover in Switzerland only for six hours to make a speech at the Davos Forum. Hearing this, I felt that Mr. Mori doesn't know much about communication.

Perhaps he thought that just giving a speech, that is, one-way communication, was enough to make himself understood. I have to say his way of thinking is nothing but shallow.

Communication is rooted in conversation. You express your idea, while at the same time listen to what the other person says. If once is not enough for mutual understanding, it is necessary to patiently discuss a second or third time. But, still, there are times when you cannot understand each other. It is hard, but that is what communication is about.

Some people just talk on and on one-sidedly, or break in while other people are talking. These are typical bad communicators. Generally, such people are not well liked, and others avoid working with them.

Working in a company is first of all about teamwork. So, being a bad communicator limits your activities. If communication bothers you, you should work on your own.

On the other hand, people who pay respect to others are good communicators. As the first step to becoming a good communicator, why don't you begin by listening to what people around you say?

A well-known writer once said, "Everyone beside me is a mentor." I think ordinary people try to find somebody around whom we regard as a "mentor."

Moreover, it is best if you can find such a person physically close to you so that you can ask questions directly to your counselor. A face to face talk will be the quickest and most useful solution to an issue that has no clearly defined form.

Also, having a mentor means having a goal. You wish to become like your mentor some time in the future, and the idea makes you work hard to reach the specific goal you are aiming for.

On the other hand, there is the phrase "hanmen kyoshi" (a person who serves as an example of how not to behave). You can learn a lot from such a person, such as "I don't want to be like him/her," or "that kind of remark makes others feel unpleasant." Thinking like this, a "hanmen kyoshi" also serves as a good mentor.

So, if you continue to make efforts toward your goal of becoming like your mentor, one day you will find their imperfection, the thing that makes them undesirable as mentor. At that moment, you can actually feel that you have made considerable growth. You may also experience a sort of mixed sadness and delight when you discover your mentor's negative characteristic.

Needless to say, it takes a considerable amount of time and effort until you reach such a moment.

I had an opportunity the other day to give a lecture. When I received the request, I reviewed my lectures in the past and cleaned up several weak points.

First of all, although it might be obvious, in one-way communication the audience is just listening, and has no chance to ask the speaker a question. As a result, it sometimes happens that they can't thoroughly understand at the end.

Secondly, the thread of the speech that the speaker and the audience have in mind is not necessarily the same. The speaker may believe his scenario to be the best, but the audience wants to listen to the point that interests them. So, the ideal plot differs between the speaker and the audience.

I discovered these points by adopting the listeners' viewpoint. Naturally, I decided to revise my next speech with consideration to them.

First I handed out drafts to the listeners and described the rough outline of each topic. Then I told them that questions would be warmly welcomed to improve two-way communication between the speaker and the listeners so as to deepen mutual understanding.

The two-hour, interactive lecture achieved a greater outcome than I expected. I could cover almost all the issues that I intended to convey, and the questions from the audience were livelier than I anticipated.

I developed that sort of lecture style because the audience and I both arranged our schedules to be there, and I wished to share a productive time through true communication between the speaker and the listeners.

After a long interval, I gave a speech to seven new employees last month. For a couple of years, we had only hired people with certain expertise or prior experience. So, this was the first company orientation for new graduates in three years. This is what I told them.

"Whether your job interesting or not is up to you." You will have various trainings from today, and the first thing I want you to do is just try to absorb what you learn. After half a year or so, you will be able to do what you learned by yourself. Yet, at the same time you may start to feel your job is boring. Then, by what means can you make your job "not boring?" The answer is, by "changing the way you do the job." Your job can become gradually interesting if you begin thinking of a simpler, quicker and more accurate way of doing it, although this is not easy. Once you begin thinking like this, though, you will be amazed at how a you can always find the answer. This is the art of making your job interesting.

I also hope that you all grow and develop dynamically. I want you to become professionals on the training ground of Obun Printing. As a starting point, you should "utilize the company," then you will get to like it. Once you like it, you feel like making your place in it more interesting. This is the kind of person companies don't want let go. Such people actively strive for self-improvement, and eventually find a more interesting home to work for. Then come the letter of resignation to the company. The company wants to keep such people. But, sometimes it is not possible, and the person resigns. Consequently people leave the office, and other people miss them. The day may be their mandatory retirement day, or may be five years after entering the company.

When a company has cultivated an excellent employee, and the employee leaves the company, the company can't exist for long if such a thing happens again and again. So, there is always a battle between the company and its employees who are trying to leave. When a company can't send the message that "you can do something interesting here" any more, the company loses the battle. So, the management executives of the company do their best not to lose.

Yet, everybody leaves the company some day, and how wonderful it is to have the day, hearing many people say things like "I will miss you," and "we still need you." So, I want you all struggle for that day.

You might feel this story is not suitable for a company orientation. But I think visualizing a final image is nonetheless important. Because a final image represents a target, and having a target gives you energy. I believe if you have a lot of energy, you can overcome any obstacle, and keep hanging on to achieve the goal.

I look forward to closely watching your continued growth and development in the future.

When approaching problem solving, one of your first problems may be whether you perceive a "problem" as a "problem" or not. If you do, you will try to find the solution to it, but if you don't recognize it as a problem, nothing happens. Facing such a situation, one person may think it is a problem, but another person doesn't. Why does such a thing happen? Thinking about this matter, I have been examining my way of looking at things.

I always think about the ideal situation, or how it "should be." Therefore, a "problem" is the gap between this ideal situation and reality.

Then, if you can't see the problem, it means either that you cannot imagine the ideal situation, or simply accept the reality as it is. So, "problem solving" starts from recognizing the "ideal situation," and when you master this, you should begin to find many signs of the problem.

Now, let me digress a bit. Recently, I found a great book called "Shippaigaku-no-susume" (Learning from the theory of failure) by Yotaro Hatamura, published by Kodansha, Ltd. In this book, the author refers to Heinrich's Theory. The theory considers how failures develop, and states that "behind every major accident, there are 29 minor accidents and 300 threatening experiences." According to this theory, if you can clear away those 300 threatening experiences, a major accident can be prevented.

Who in our company has had one of these 300 threatening experiences, or felt "something is wrong?" It must be the people working on the front line of their worksites. Finding the gap between the "ideal situation" and the "reality," and eliminating it-this attitude represents the practice of problem solving, one of six core values at Obun Printing.

Our training center was built in Fujimi Kogen in Nagano Prefecture in 1989, and was the first year for systematic employee training. Our company retreat facility was built in 1987 as part of our benefit provisions. It has four twin-bedrooms, and the upper floor can accommodate four people, for a total capacity of 12 people. We began using this facility for our regular "lodge-gathering," and the name of which was changed to "executive managing director's school," and is now called "president's school," in line with my new office.

The gathering starts at 9:30 in the morning and ends at 6:00 in the afternoon. Afterwards, all participants go to a hot spring with outdoor bath, and have dinner at a restaurant. Then, they go back to the lodge and continue to talk over drinks. I am not nocturnal, and go to bed quite early, yet other participants are likely to keep on talking until three or four o'clock in the morning, despite the fact that they came to this place the night before. Two-day sessions such as this have been conducted two or three times annually for about10 years.

Last May, a gathering for our mid-level employees was held, and they talked about the "six values of Obun Printing," "fairness and equality," and "your role." When there is something I especially want to convey communication tends to be one-sided, but I tried to make the communication more of a "dialog" style as much as possible. Also, I made the participants think of profound themes-such as the difference between fairness and equality, and what things should be treated fairly, and what equally. The only people who usually don think about such things are those in the general affairs department who decide on the personnel system.

I chose such themes because I want my employees to habitually think about the essence of events and concepts.

All participants seriously tackled these themes, though for the first half hour they looked as if they were thinking "What does the President want to say?" and "I'd rather finish my urgent job first than listening to such a story." So for a moment I wondered if my themes were really appealing, feeling half sad and half depressed.

As time advanced, however, I noticed their eyes were sparkling. Feeling their enthusiasm for the content, the issues I wanted to tell them came up inside me one after another, and my way of talking became very energetic.

There are several things which have been the driving force for continuing this "President's school" for so many years-the pressure of staying closely with the participants for seven hours, conversation over outdoor bathing and dinner, and other aspects. It is truly wonderful to have such communication with my employees.

As long as I serve as President, I want to continue this "President's school."

If you hear the word "reset," what comes to mind? Resetting your computer, perhaps? When you try to recover your computer system, you might have to reluctantly push the reset button. This will delete instantly all the data you've been working on. It's a very bitter experience that's probably happened to everyone at least once.

I think the economic environment currently surrounding Japan is asking us to reset ourselves. I can hear it saying to us, "That was then, this is now," and "Don't be tied to the past."

In fact, on August 9, 2001, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported widely on the hollowing-out of Japan's manufacturing industry. Increasingly, production bases have been transferred to the countries of Southeast Asia, and especially to China. It's just a matter of time until the printing of users' manuals, one of our key products, is carried out overseas. This shouldn't be wondered at, since on the cost front domestic production is no match for overseas production, except for exceptionally short-term delivery.

The average wage of a worker in China is about 20 times less than ours. This fact means that we must boost productivity by 20 times to outpace China, something beyond the human limit.

So, what should our Sakado Factory do to overcome this problem in the manufacturing industry? Against low-cost products from China and Southeast Asian countries, I think it must fight back with ultrahigh-quality printing or extra-quick delivery, rather than a cost strategy (although cost reduction is always of great importance, naturally). Otherwise, our Sakado site isn't worth keeping.

Also, in considering our Head Office's activities, we must regard them as the provision of solutions to our clients or as a service business, not as a pre-press operation, which is part of the manufacturing industry.

Therefore, what should we actually offer our clients? If we can find the answers, and take action for them, we can certainly be a reliable vendor for our clients and maintain good relationships with them.

Since this theme is too complex to talk about on just one occasion, I've tentatively added "Part I" to the title.

What led me to consider this subject was a personnel evaluation for our company employees. Because of it, recently I was criticized by one of my executives. He said my evaluation of a certain employee had changed almost completely all of a sudden: it had been high, and then it had plunged.

Recalling the past, I've heard a similar criticism several times. At the time, I couldn't explain why my evaluation of the person changed, but gradually I figured out the reason.

My evaluation changed as I looked at different aspects of the person. For instance, if the person is involved in two completely different jobs in sequence, it's very likely that person behaved differently and other people feel it's amazing. Actually, it's a matter of course and doesn't mean the person has changed; he or she's still perfectly the same person.

Human beings might change according to the condition. If you made a fortune from gambling, would you quit your job and just have fun for the rest of your life? Or if you went bankrupt and faced an enormous amount of debt, what would you do?

Maybe these examples are too extreme, but I believe everybody should show his/her true personality in such extreme conditions. Therefore, a person's behavior can't be the same in both an upturn and downturn.

Today, things change rapidly and drastically. In this context, I think leaders shouldn't forget their goals, and should keep their minds calm and observe clearly the meaning of everything happening in the world.

Incidentally, what would I do if I became a millionaire or faced an enormous debt? In the former case, I think I'd continue to work after enjoying a one-month holiday, because I don't feel fulfilled just spending money and time for fun. And in the latter case, I'd just keep working hard for the rest of my life. There'd be no other choice.

Recently, an acquaintance told me of an impressive passage by the Japanese writer Roka Tokutomi.

"Don't be afraid of a rebellion. Don't be afraid of a rebel. Don't be afraid of becoming a rebel. Something new always turns out to be a rebellion."

The original Japanese text sounds like a quatrain, but I guess I'm not the only one who feels the last sentence finely sharpens the whole passage.

Several years ago, our company circulated a questionnaire to all employees, which included the question "What do you want to preserve as our company's corporate culture?" Many employees responded, "The spirit of challenge.

Does this mean our company has lots of employees who would be willing to rebel if necessary? Personally, I don't feel we have such an "explosive" atmosphere here.

In any case, the more you think about the passage, the more impressive the last sentence becomes. We should adopt the attitude it expresses.

Even if you form a correct judgment, if you can't make up your mind about it, the judgment will mean nothing. Moreover, if you can't take any action based on your decision, the entire process becomes mere nonsense.

I'd like to present my observations on "judgment and decision-making." In the first sentence above, I wrote "correct judgment," yet it's difficult to define what that means. It might be the result of the judgment, but the result one achieves may vary according to the point in time. For instance, compare something one month after and one year after.

In other words, some judgments have an immediate effect, and others may require a certain period of time to take effect. Therefore, if the result differs eventually as time goes by, it's better to tell others beforehand, for example, "This decision is made to overcome the current situation."

On the subject of decision-making, it's something difficult to practice. A smart person can't necessarily be a quick decision-maker; in fact, such is often the case.

If you can't make a decision, everything you've done concerning it-including the time spent thinking about the matter and the judgment you finally reach-will be for nothing.

It's true, however, that decision-making takes courage. In addition, when your decision involves others, you must have the ability to explain it to them. You need to explain the reason why you want to do something and make others understand your decision. If you can do that, then others will fully understand the judgment and work actively for it. If you can't, then they won't. The difference is truly significant.