1.
I believe one of the reasons we went through such a remarkable growth period was that we had this atmosphere of free discussion.
Akio Morita
2.
You can be totally rational with a machine. But if you work with people, sometimes logic often has to take a backseat to understanding.
Akio Morita
3.
Curiosity is the key to creativity.
Akio Morita
4.
A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management.
Akio Morita
5.
But make sure you don't make the same mistake twice.
Akio Morita
6.
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
7.
In the long run, 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.
Akio Morita
8.
To gain profit is important, but you must invest to build up assets that you can cash in in the future.
Akio Morita
9.
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
10.
We will try to create conditions where persons could come together in a spirit of teamwork, and exercise to their heart's desire their technological capacity.
Akio Morita
11.
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
12.
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
13.
Never break another man's rice bowl.
Akio Morita
14.
The public does not know what is possible. We do.
Akio Morita
15.
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
16.
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
17.
Once you have a staff of prepared, intelligent, and energetic people, the next step is to motivate them to be creative.
Akio Morita
18.
Advertising and promotion alone will not sustain a bad product or a product that is not right for the times.
Akio Morita
19.
All you need is the best product in the world, the most efficient production in the world and global marketing.
Akio Morita
20.
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
21.
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
22.
Americans make money by playing `money games,' namely mergers, acquisitions, by simply moving money back and forth ... instead of creating and producing goods with some actual value.
Akio Morita
23.
My chief job is to constantly stir or rekindle the curiosity of people that gets driven out by bureaucracy and formal schooling systems.
Akio Morita
24.
I established the rule that once we hire an employee, his school records are a matter of the past and are no longer used to evaluate his work or decide on his promotion.
Akio Morita
25.
There is no secret ingredient or hidden formula responsible for the success of the best Japanese companies.
Akio Morita
26.
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
27.
The only sure thing is that in business there are no sure things.
Akio Morita
28.
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
29.
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
30.
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
31.
Japanese attitudes toward work seem to be critically different from American attitudes.
Akio Morita
32.
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
33.
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
34.
America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.
Akio Morita
35.
Amenities are not of great concern to management in Japan.
Akio Morita
36.
Our plan is to lead the public with new products rather than ask them what kind of products they want.
Akio Morita
37.
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
38.
The important thing in my view is not to pin the blame for a mistake on somebody, but rather to find out what caused the mistake.
Akio Morita
39.
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
40.
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
41.
More people are interested in trying to shuffle paper assets around than building lasting assets by producing real goods.
Akio Morita
42.
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
43.
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
44.
Without an organisation that can work together, sometimes over a very long period, it's difficult to see new projects to fruition.
Akio Morita
45.
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
46.
(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
47.
Executives of the company must have the necessary qualities to direct the personnel by showing them the way to do things.
Akio Morita
48.
Management of an industrial company must be giving targets to the engineers constantly; that may be the most important job management has in dealing with its engineers.
Akio Morita
49.
Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of work, any kind of work, as honorable.
Akio Morita
50.
While the United States has been busy creating lawyers, we have been busier creating engineers.
Akio Morita
