“We want to keep the company healthy and its employees happy, and we want to keep them on the job and productive.”

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

If you don’t want Japan to buy it, don’t sell it.

The public does not know what is possible. We do.

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

Whether we succeed or not depends on the strength of our resolve and the amount of our endeavor.

From a management standpoint, it is very important to know how to unleash people’s inborn creativity.

Every action analysed and every responsibility assigned by an organisation chart.

People need money, but they also want to be happy in their work and proud of it.

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

I believe one of the reasons we went through such a remarkable growth period was that we had this atmosphere of free discussion.

An enemy of innovation could be your own sales force.

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

But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.

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.

More people are interested in trying to shuffle paper assets around than building lasting assets by producing real goods.

There are three creativities: creativity in technology, in product planning, and in marketing.

Employees are not guilty; why should they suffer?

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.

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.

We treat employees as a member of the family.

We define a true culture of quality as an environment in which employees not only follow quality guidelines but also consistently see others taking quality-focused actions, hear others talking about quality, and feel quality all around them.

Domestic employees are at the whim of their employers.

A boss who interrupts an employee a lot is called an extrovert, whereas an employee who interrupts a boss too often is called an ex-employee.

I have certain beliefs about how people should treat employees and how companies should be run, but I was really surprised though this process to learn that those beliefs are actually good business.