Akio Morita

Akio Morita- "The key factor in industry is creativity."


My solution to the problem of unleashing creativity is always to set up a target.

Akio Morita

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

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 key factor in industry is creativity.

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

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

In all my years in business I can recall very few people I have wanted to fire for making mistakes.

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

Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.

Akio Morita

Advertising and promotion alone will not sustain a bad product or a product that is not right for the times.

Akio Morita

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

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

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

Akio Morita

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

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

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

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

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

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

I believe people work for satisfaction. 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

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

I established the rule that once we hire an employee, his schools records are a matter of the past, and are no longer used to evaluate his work or decide on his promotion.

Akio Morita

The American system of management, in my opinion, relies too much on outsiders to help make business decisions, and this is because of the insecurity that American decision makers feel in their jobs, as compared with most top Japanese corporate executives.

Akio Morita

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

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

What we in industry learned in dealing with people is that people do not work just for money and that if you are trying to motivate, money is not the most effective tool.

Akio Morita

The investor and the employee are in the same position, but sometimes the employee is more important, because he will be there a long time whereas an investor will often get in and out on a whim in order to make a profit.

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