“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.”

Executives of the company must have the necessary qualities to direct the personnel by showing them the way to do things.

Curiosity is the key to creativity.

You can be totally rational with a machine.

Employees are not guilty; why should they suffer?

I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.

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.

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

We want everybody to have the best facilities in which to work, but we do not believe in posh and impressive private offices.

If management take the risk of hiring them, we have to take the responsibility for them.

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.

We don’t believe in market research for a new product unknown to the public. So we never do any.

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

If we do our best and make efforts, a peaceful and great future will become ours without fail.

I believe it is a big mistake to think that money is the only way to compensate a person for his work.

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

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

I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalities, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.

Ask yourself: would you be comfortable printing everything your employees, customers & partners have to say about your culture?

Every employee can affect your company’s brand, not just the front-line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.

Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.

Having a higher purpose is more than just about profits. You actually end up making more profits in the long run because employees really are a lot more engaged and customers see the higher purpose in the company.

The only way you finish with poverty is with jobs.

Choose the right employees and then set them loose.

Customers should be number 1, Employees number 2, and then only your Shareholders come at number 3.