‘Kaisya Ishin (Restoration of Companies)’ and ‘Zasetsu-ryoku (Capacity to Fail)’ by Kazuhiko Toyama

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Kazuhiko Toyama is known for his direct comments and actions.

His books "Company rots from its head (published in Japanese only)" or "Tenacity of one finger decided the contest (published in Japanese only)" might give you an impression that he is a radical, but I consider his works as clarifying the essence of the issues, and presenting to you views worth listening to.

He published a new book last year titled ‘Restoration of Companies ? A Guidebook to Capitalism in the Transition Period (published in Japanese only)’.  In this book, he makes his points very clear on what we must hold as the core values of capitalism and enterprise.  I found many parts where he clarifies things I did not understand well before.  Of course, since the book is on ‘cores’ and ‘essence’, he discusses not only about how a company should be organized, but also presents many keen observations about society as a whole.  Therefore, I strongly recommend reading this book not only to businesspeople, but also to those in the government sector or academia ? or anyone who is in positions responsible for running organizations in our society.

I said on twitter; ‘The book is a ‘must’ to all businesspeople.  But I also recommend it to officers, legislators, or anyone.  Don’t argue with me, just read the book because it concerns essential issues regarding the problems we have.’  I later found that someone read it right away and posted a comment on his blog . I was thrilled.  Thank you so much for your action.

Some of you may remember my recent posting on ‘failure’ (in Japanese) in which I mentioned this new book by Toyama, ‘Capacity to Fail (published in Japanese only).

Again, this book is great.  Like in other books, he writes in a light but firm tone, how important it is for any individual to experience a failure.  He lists about 50 (actually, 52…) valuable lessons to be learned by failing in something especially in your early stage of life.  In short, he talks about having a ‘backbone’.

The importance of learning lessons by experiencing a failure is significant.  One learns a lot from the process of overcoming failure.  Manuals are no good for such learning.  Come to think of it, the proverbs that exist in all parts of the world reflect such wisdom.

I recommend this book, especially to young people.  Old people might find hints here on how to support youth, things they can do for the young people, by reflecting on the paths they, the old people, have gone through.

It doesn’t make sense to regard someone as ‘no-good’ just because the person failed to get a job in the year they graduated.  Only Japanese society has such an employment system.

Everyone, please support the youth so that we may create a society that has opportunities for the future.