Akio Morita Quotes

curiosity is the key to creativity

No matter how good or successful you are or how clever or crafty, your business and its future are in the hands of the people you hire. To put it a bit more dramatically, the fate of your business is actually in the hands of the youngest recruit on the staff.

Mistakes and miscalculations are human and normal, and viewed in the long run they have not damaged the company. I do not mind taking responsibilty for every managerial decision I have made. But if a person who makes a mistake is branded and kicked off the seniority promotion escalator, he could lose his motivation for the rest of his business life and depreive the company of whaever good things he may have to offer later. If the casues of the mistake are clarified and made public, the person who made the mistake will not forget it and others will not make the same mistake. I tell our people “Go ahead and do what you think is right. If you make a mistake, you will learn form it. Just don't make the same mistake twice.

By then the trade problems between Japan and the United States were a central topic of conservation. In fact, many nasty things were being said about Japan in the United States because of the bilateral trade imbalance between Japan and the U.S. Some people were accusing Japan of sending a torrent of merchandise to the U.S., which was forcing Americans out of jobs.

He took a page out of Sony’s book, because Sony was originally called Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, and [cofounder] Akio Morita said they needed something much more approachable.

But in 1947, an American working in Japan turned that thinking on its head. His name was W. Edwards Deming, and he was a statistician who was known for his expertise in quality control. At the request of the U.S. Army, he had traveled to Asia to assist with planning the 1951 Japanese census. Once he arrived, he became deeply involved with the country’s reconstruction effort and ended up teaching hundreds of Japanese engineers, managers, and scholars his theories about improving productivity. Among those who came to hear his ideas was Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony Corp.—one of many Japanese companies that would apply his ideas and reap their rewards. Around this time, Toyota also instituted radical new ways of thinking about production that jibed with Deming’s philosophies.

I have always believed that a trademark is the life of an enterprise and that it must be protected boldly. A trademark and a company name are not just clever gimmicks-they carry responsibility and guarantee the quality of the product. If someone tries to get a free ride on the reputation and the ability of another who has worked to build up public trust, it is nothing short of thievery. We were not flattered by this theft of our name.

The Japanese government takes away more than 50 percent of our profits, and that in a sense makes it a majority partner. So from our government’s viewpoint, it wants its partner to work hard and make a profit. By doing so, business is able to keep people employed, enabling the company and its employees to pay taxes rather than to go on the public dole. This is done with a long-range viewpoint.

I have always believed that a trademark is the life of an enterprise and that it must be protected boldly. A trademark and a company name are not just clever gimmicks-they carry responsibility and guarantee the quality of the product. If someone tries to get a free ride on the reputation and the ability of another who has worked to build up public trust, it is nothing short of thievery. We were not flattered by this theft of our name.