The following were my comments on the New Year card we sent out this year.
It may seem that "tough" is not an appropriate word for a New Year greeting. But in fact I am simply making a pun on the Japanese word taihen, which translates as "tough" but is written with two characters meaning "big" and "change." It is this meaning of "big change" that I wish to stress.

Now into its 55th year of business, Obun Printing has a long history of adapting to the changing needs of the times. But today's world is changing faster than ever. Consequently we too must change faster than ever if we are going to continue providing satisfaction to our customers.
Accordingly, my New Year's message stresses the fact that we are in the midst of tremendous changes.

And if you should find any area of activity where we are not changing to your satisfaction, please call this loudly to our attention. We look forward to serving your evolving needs this year and in many years to come.

I am a faithful subscriber to the Nikkei, the Nikkei Sangyo, and the Mainichi daily newspapers, and it has been my habit to spend an hour with these papers each morning before leaving for work. If I happen to wake up late, then I read the papers in the train. I try to get through them before arriving at my office.

When I come across articles that I think others should read, I sort them and distribute them to our directors, section heads, team leaders, and union leaders.

I have been sending out these communications for so long that I cannot even remember when I started. Back in the days when paper was the standard medium (how strange it feels for someone in my position to have to say that), I would distribute my comments in our house journal or in the form of printed communications that I referred to (after my own name) as Ryu-municiations.

When I come across an article wherein a socially respected commentator is expressing an opinion that I happen to share, I quickly clip the piece and send it out so as to announce: "Look, this important person is saying the same thing that I say. So please—at least sometimes—listen to what I say."

It's an unfortunate fact that people tend to base their trust on a speaker's status, job description, or experience. While to some extent this seems inevitable, it does not seem fair to ignore someone simply because that person lacks standing or experience. Wouldn't it be best if we judged each person's opinion on the merits of the opinion, rather than the standing of the person?

I myself am not free of this general tendency, and I certainly cannot say that I totally ignore a person's status or position when judging their argument.

Just the same, I hope that some day my opinions will begin to stand on their own, so that I will not feel the need to get sponsorship from others.

Let met tell you about some opinions I have heard from two of our employees, and my own thoughts in response. Perhaps I should be responding directly to the people involved, but I think my feelings are pertinent to the company as a whole, so I'd like to make them known.
The first person says, "I think we should be doing any kind of work that generates a profit. In particular, I think we should be eager to accept work that relates to gambling, sex, and other such topics."

This is the "Any means to success" approach. I do not agree with it.

There are plenty of companies out there that accept this type of work, and so there must be many people who agree with this approach. Of course we're not talking here about potentially illegal work, which is beyond consideration. But, when it comes to legally acceptable work, the question of what kind of content to accept is really a matter of management's principles, managers' tastes, and management's vision of the future.

Personally, I do not wish to be involved in the production of materials that promote hedonistic lifestyles.

Religious freedom is a basic human right, and religious feelings must be respected. An employee with strong religious beliefs would probably be quite uncomfortable working on materials that promote opposing beliefs. And if our company should come to be associated with a specific religion, we might find it difficult to attract new talent. Religion is a very delicate issue, and I think it is important to keep our business very separate from it.

The second person says, "We become more cost-competitive by shifting overseas." Here I do not disagree. But the important question is how to go about advancing our activities abroad.
My own opinion is that the best choice, wherever possible, is to build alliances with local companies. In such an alliance, we bring in our ability to understand true customer needs, while the local firm contributes its understanding of the local conditions and language. I believe that this type of combination puts us in a position to offer the very best solutions to customers.

And there is also a chance that the synergy of an alliance may enable the development and implementation of new production methods that we could not achieve on our own. If, on the other hand, we go in alone and simply repeat and rehash what we are doing in Japan, we may find ourselves stalled in our efforts, or even moving backwards. Clearly, this is not something I would wish to see.

So, for my own part, I think the best way to proceed is by building alliances.

Reading Jack Welch's Straight from the Gut, I was deeply and lastingly impressed. I felt like sharing this feeling with the employees at my company, so I asked my managers to read the book and write a report on what we can achieve for Obun Printing based on Mr. Welch's thoughts. I was happy to find that more than 40 people submitted reports on the book.

Reading their reports made me even happier; knowing that there are a lot of wonderful personnel working at my company. I felt strongly that people with such quick and positive minds are sure to learn and grow even further, and take Obun Printing beyond its current level.

In the past, I conducted a Shacho-Juku (Encounter with the CEO), where I served as a lecturer. From now on, though, I thought I should learn from my company's employees. So I quickly organized a workshop named Shacho-Kyoiku-Juku (School to Educate the CEO) starting from mid-February.

The workshop is held weekly as an opportunity for face-to-face discussion, welcoming three people in the CEO's office from 6 to 8 p.m.

As the participants usually haven't had such close contact with me, sometimes they seem a bit shy at the workshop. But I expect them to become more frank after the second or third sessions.

I'm sure that continuing this Shacho-Kyoiku-Juku will help their potential ability eventually blossom and bring much more abundant fruit to Obun Printing than my own humble efforts for the Company.

"Yikki-ichiyu (wavering between joy and sorrow)" is an expression that can be used to reprove or cheer up someone who's experienced a good or bad result. For example, you might tell someone who's been overwhelmed by an event not to waver between joy and sorrow.

I use this expression to caution myself since my own mood can change from glad to sad by turns, and vice versa. For instance, I just received a good piece of news that our company won a job involving production of an annual report. This made me quite happy, so my less than cheerful face suddenly lit up with a big smile.

It's true that people go through lots of experiences in life involving delight, suffering, sorrow and so on in. So long as you keep that in mind, you can warn yourself that a currently good situation won't last forever. And if a situation turns bad you can deal with that too, since you're prepared for it. Besides, even if a sudden hardship befalls you, you can overcome it eventually as long as you deal with the matter positively, in the belief that the hardship won't last for the rest of your life.

I don't remember when and who gave it to me, but on the desk in my study there's a thick sheet of square-cut paper (shikishi). On it is written, "You may experience hardship for certain periods in your life, but your whole life cannot be lived in hardship." I think this is an excellent saying.

Let me go back a ways, to the time when I was captain of my high school ping-pong team. One day I looked around at my teammates and I said:

I need to know whether you love ping-pong, or whether you just like it. People who love it, please stay. The rest of you, please quit.

In those days ping-pong was very popular, and too many people had joined the team. At any given time most of the people on the team were unable to get near a table, and were just standing around making practice swings and picking up stray balls.

I myself has been playing in ping-pong meets since elementary school, and had started practicing seriously in junior high. But some of the people on the team were just there to kill free time. Those of us who were serious could not easily abide the presence of those who were not. And, since we had too many people, it was necessary to ask some to leave.

And so I drew a distinction between love and like.

In fact, this is simply the distinction between those who take the endeavor seriously and those who do not. This distinction comes up again and again, wherever you have a group of people working together.

If I am going to be a leader, I want to be a leader of people who take the effort seriously. When you're serious, you get a true feeling of satisfaction from the process itself. You also get a tremendous sense of accomplishment when you succeed. And when you fail, the discomfort you feel somehow turns into an energy that drives you to work harder. So you are constantly driven, and the energy level keeps going up and up.

There are many kinds of pleasure in life, it is true. But for me, one of the very highest is the sense of accomplishment I feel from achievements made through serious effort. I would hope that everyone at Obun feels exactly the same way.

The following is the abstract of a proposal we submitted to one of our customers. It expresses my belief that maintaining ethical standards is essential for our management.

"Management Based on Ethical Standards"
One of the main goals in the management of a company is the pursuit of profit. However, we believe that the means and processes employed to achieve the desired results are also important. It's sometimes observed that companies will use any means to achieve their goals. That's wrong, of course, because ethical standards work as fundamental rules in human society, and this should never change. Consequently, the means and processes used to attain goals must be monitored in accordance with ethical standards.

We have followed this guiding principle faithfully for 56 years, since the foundation of Obun Printing. In addition, we adopt the same attitude toward our cooperative companies and clients, as well as our employees. Behavior that reflects our ethical standards, shown to all of our stakeholders including clients and employees—this is a fundamental principle at Obun Printing.

We may say that any company's strength is the "sum total of each employee's strength." That's why I once disagreed strongly with a sales representative when he said it was difficult to make one sale since the Company didn't have a special characteristic that appealed to customers.

Quite honestly, I believe we have outstanding strong points among printing companies of similar size. But I'm afraid some employees may not recognize this. Judging from our company name, for example, you might assume that most employees speak and read English. That's not the reality unfortunately, but in fact we're one of the few printing companies in Japan that can provide a wide variety of services such as translation of different types of contents into more than 10 foreign languages and that knows typesetting rules in foreign languages and typography enabling the appropriate selection of font type.

As for digital products, very few companies have special techniques for developing cross-media publishing and providing programmed typesetting services. To learn more about the services we provide, please refer to the "service menu," which we renewed recently. There you'll find we're a very unique printing company.

I should repeat, the Company's strength is "the sum total of each employee's strength." Given that, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask all of our employees, "What's your particular strong point?" Building confidence in yourself will lead to your confidence in Obun Printing.

"So many people, so many minds." Likewise, each business person has a different philosophy and style for his or her company management. It may be said that the nature of business management is the same even if the business fields are different. However, the methodology and priority of the issues involved differ substantially.

A long time ago, I had a one-on-one talk with the president of a company listed on the first section of a stock exchange. In the course of the discussion he said to me, "You and I have different opinions, but you don't have to imitate me. It's better to keep your own style." This gave me encouragement, because it was an endorsement from someone who was more experienced in company management.

Still, everyone wants to imitate, or follow and adapt, the actions of a successful person. As for myself, I encourage our employees to learn from others and take in good ideas. The concept of best practices and benchmarking is based on imitation. Since these concepts have been widely accepted, I have greater confidence in my own belief.

Nevertheless, there's one big problem. Every company has its own culture. Trying to introduce a new style of business management just because it's good, though it may not fit your company culture, will cause confusion. It could also damage employees' motivation, besides having other negative effects. To introduce a new business management style successfully, it's necessary to introduce it in a timely manner in line with the company culture.

This point is something I understand as a theory, but still it's often difficult to monitor whether a new style of business management has been introduced effectively at our company. To find out for sure, there's no other way than to ask our employees what they really think or judge from our business performance.

Last year my exercise was basically limited to a weekly visit to the golf driving range. Recently, however, I've become more involved with ceramics—which I first took up four years ago—and so now whenever I'm off from work I'm busy at the lathe. As a result, my exercise dropped down to one decent walk each weekend, which hardly seemed sufficient. So now I'm starting up again with early morning walks to the park, where I exercise along with the radio for 15 minutes, starting at 6:25. To get out so early I have to wake up at about 5:30, which means I have fewer chances to go out drinking—an additional benefit for my health.

What I've learned from the radio exercise is that my body has gotten stiffer than I could have imagined. I've been exercising since I was a student, and even in those days my body was relatively stiff. And that's got worse.

And so the thought suddenly came to me: If the body gets so terribly rusty, what about the mind? What about the spirit?

Communication is the key to building trusting relationships. While we now live in the age of email, true communication remains rooted in face-to-face conversation. If you are not in the presence of the other person, then you cannot observe the expression on their face, their shifts in attitude, their eyes, their clothes, and their demeanor. All of these are important elements in establishing mutual understanding.

Some people say they are bad at communicating. When I ask them why they think so, they almost always respond that it's because they do not speak well. But in my experience, the better a person is at talking, the worse he or she is at communicating. The good talkers tend to monopolize the conversation. The other person doesn't get enough chances to speak—even though it is actually the sense of being heard that makes for satisfying communication. People who lack confidence in their speaking may feel inferior next to glib talkers, but this is a misconception they should immediately discard.

The good communicator is the person who listens. Start by listening carefully, then take some time to think, and only then begin to speak. You will find that the other person will respond by actually listening to you. And then just continue going back and forth, each person listening carefully and both people getting their message across. That's what true communication is.

If you asked me what words are for, I would say that they are for communicating. And I would say that letters and characters are for recording. Consequently, we should be careful to use words correctly. And we should remember, as we use our words, that they are part of our culture. If we use words only as a means of communication, then we do not take full advantage of the unique characteristics of our native Japanese.

One of these special features, of course, is our "respect language." When we use language in a way that expresses the nature of our relationship with another, we are showing true respect—and this is a beautiful thing. I also think (although perhaps I am prejudiced) that the Japanese language has a lovely sound. (In any case, it is probably better to avoid discussion of aesthetics, which is so prone to subjectivity.)

And then there is the beauty of our written language, with its remarkable mixing of kanji and kana, something that seems particularly profound when we are busy writing. I think we should be grateful that our writing system remains so close to its pictographic roots.
Perhaps I have been carrying on too long, but allow me to make one final comment as one who is interested in language. Let's work to use our language a little bit more correctly.

The other day, I read an essay by a prominent business manager in Japan. In this essay he referred to his wife as okusan. In recent times we hear younger men using this expression—men in their 20s and 30s, and perhaps even into their 40s. But this business manager is now in his middle 60s—an age where this usage is quite jarring. I find myself wishing he had used a term like kanai, or tsuma, or perhaps even nyobo.