Today's Notables

Last November, I had the propitious opportunity to hear a lecture by Dr. Noda, honorary president at Tama University. He was one of the first presidents at Tama University and at Miyagi University. He has established himself as one of the most renowned university educators and I have always had hope I would be able to hear him speak. Dr. Noda is not the typical ivory tower professor; he has the vitality of an entrepreneur with the marketing prowess of a business executive. When Dr. Noda was a special studies graduate student in his twenties, he supervised the translation of Modern Management by Peter Drucker who is still considered the ultimate marketer. Since then, has continued ambitiously to study management. He was born in 1927 and is now 76 years old but gives no indication of a lessening in his vitality and marketing sense. The meeting I attended this time, he never read notes once and talked for 4 hours straight. I was extremely impressed. Those of us who are interested in management were very intrigued by his discussion.

During his talk, he touched upon the concept of friendship. Dr. Noda has done research with entrepreneurs and top managers of corporations that will go down in history for their expertise. The most successful managers usually almost always say that their successes have come from luck in meeting the right people. Following is a quote from Dr. Noda's column in the Nikkei Industry News: "There is a certain naturalness to "destiny" which is especially true when it comes to coincidence with knowing people. However, when it comes to meeting people who have played a definite major role in successes of major companies, you cannot emphatically say it is due to simple coincidence." When you think about his words, "People come across luck as is appropriate to their life," takes on much more meaning. For example, even if you meet someone purely by chance, if there was no mutual understanding or immediate impression, there would be no impetus for the development of a close relationship with an important person. Therefore, I think it is unnatural for a relationship to develop out of chance when meeting with the movers and shakers in business. The word "comradeship" is defined as the friendly ties that develop between people after getting to know their personality and personal views. In general, this means that when we meet people who have socioeconomic status, their friendship often results in many unexpected benefits. In order to enhance opportunities to meet such people, I think there must be something that attracts them to a person in the first place.

If we take a look back at our lives, we can see all the different people that have been in our lives at one time or another. As Dr. Noda suggested, the type of support depends largely on the level of the person, but just sharing a friendship over a number of years is a show of support. However, even if a meeting is by chance, the chance meeting cannot develop into a relationship by coincidence. At TK, we analyze the "moment of truth" to gauge customer satisfaction and the opportunity of meeting someone is when the moment of truth begins. That instant is very important. If we relate to customers, affiliated companies and even friends in good faith, we can associate over a long period of time. For example, we perform an exceptional service for a customer, they will come back. Over a period of time as this process repeats, the comradeship will develop. These are the crucial relationships that act as the mirror to see ourselves objectively.