Akio Morita Best Quotes & Sayings

In the United States businessmen often do not trust their colleagues. If you trust your colleague today, he may be your competitor tomorrow, because people frequently move from one company to another. — Akio Morita

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. — Akio Morita

If we face recession, we should not lay off employees; the company should sacrifice a profit. It's management's risk and management's responsibility. Employees are not guilty; why should they suffer? — Akio Morita

From a management standpoint, it is very important to know how to unleash people's inborn creativity. My concept is that anybody has creative ability, but very few people know how to use it. — Akio Morita

Carefully watch how people live, get an intuitive sense as to what they might want and then go with it. Don't do market research. — Akio Morita

(Japanese Government believes that if you have a big laboratory with all the latest equipment and good funding it will automatically lead to creativity. It doesn't work that way. — Akio Morita

I believe it is a big mistake to think that money is the only way to compensate a person for his work. People need money, but they also want to be happy in their work and proud of it. — Akio Morita

The most important mission for a Japanese manager is to develop a healthy relationship with his employees, to create a familylike feeling within the corporation, a feeling that employees and managers share the same fate. — Akio Morita

I knew we needed a weapon to break through to the US market, and it had to be something different, something that nobody else was making. — Akio Morita

We don't believe in market research for a new product unknown to the public. So we never do any. — Akio Morita

An enemy of innovation could be your own sales force. — Akio Morita

We want to keep the company healthy and its employees happy, and we want to keep them on the job and productive. — Akio Morita

We all learn by imitating, as children, as students, as novices in the world of business. And then we grow up and learn to blend our innate abilities with the rules or principles we have learned. — Akio Morita

Once you have a staff of prepared, intelligent, and energetic people, the next step is to motivate them to be creative. — Akio Morita

While the United States has been busy creating lawyers, we have been busier creating engineers. — Akio Morita

If you don't want Japan to buy it, don't sell it. — Akio Morita

If we do our best and make efforts, a peaceful and great future will become ours without fail. Whether we succeed or not depends on the strength of our resolve and the amount of our endeavor. — Akio Morita

There are three creativities: creativity in technology, in product planning, and in marketing. To have any one of these without the others is self defeating in business. — Akio Morita

To gain profit is important, but you must invest to build up assets that you can cash in in the future. — Akio Morita

I often say to my assistants, "Never trust anybody," but what I mean is that you should never trust someone else to do a job exactly the way you would want it done. — Akio Morita

The remarkable thing about management is that a manager can go on for years making mistakes that nobody is aware of, which means that management can be a kind of a con job. — Akio Morita

curiosity is the key to creativity — Akio Morita

All you need is the best product in the world, the most efficient production in the world and global marketing. — Akio Morita

A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management. — Akio Morita

We want everybody to have the best facilities in which to work, but we do not believe in posh and impressive private offices. — Akio Morita

Our plan is to lead the public with new products rather than ask them what kind of products they want, — Akio Morita

The public does not know what is possible. We do. — Akio Morita

I have always made it a point to know our employees, to visit every facility of our company, and to try to meet and know every single employee. — Akio Morita

Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of work, any kind of work, as honorable. — Akio Morita

If you go through life convinced that your way is always best, all the new ideas in the world will pass you by. — Akio Morita

The "patron saint" of Japanese quality control, ironically, is an American named W. Edwards Deming, who was virtually unknown in his own country until his ideas of quality control began to make such a big impact on Japanese companies. — Akio Morita

The only sure thing is that in business there are no sure things. — Akio Morita

Without an organisation that can work together, sometimes over a very long period, it's difficult to see new projects to fruition. — Akio Morita

When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for the job, I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him. — Akio Morita

The company must not throw money away on huge bonuses for executives or other frivolities but must share its fate with the workers. — Akio Morita

Of course we have to make a profit, but we have to make a profit over the long haul, not just the short term, and that means we must keep investing in research and development - it has run consistently about 6 percent of sales at Sony - and in service. — Akio Morita

We treat employees as a member of the family. If management take the risk of hiring them, we have to take the responsibility for them. — Akio Morita

My solution to the problem of unleashing creativity is always to set up a target. The best example of this was the Apollo project in the United States. — Akio Morita

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. — Akio Morita

I consider it my job to nurture the creativity of the people I work with because at Sony we know that a terrific idea is more likely to happen in an open, free and trusting atmosphere than when everything is calculated, every action analysed and every responsibility assigned by an organisation chart. — Akio Morita

Never break another man's rice bowl. — Akio Morita

There is no secret ingredient or hidden formula responsible for the success of the best Japanese companies. — Akio Morita