Akio Morita Quotes

In the long run, no matter how good or successful you are or how clever or crafty, your business and its future are in the hands of the people you hire.

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

Curiosity is the key to creativity.

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

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.

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

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.

You can be totally rational with a machine. But if you work with people, sometimes logic often has to take a backseat to understanding.

Once you have a staff of prepared, intelligent, and energetic people, the next step is to motivate them to be creative.

Never break another man's rice bowl.

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.

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

America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.

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

My chief job is to constantly stir or rekindle the curiosity of people that gets driven out by bureaucracy and formal schooling systems.

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

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.

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. Employees are not guilty; why should they suffer?

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.

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

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.

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

My solution to the problem of unleashing creativity is always to set up a target. The best example of this was the Apollo project in the United States.

I consider it my job to nurture the creativity of the people I work with because at Sony we know that a terrific idea is more likely to happen in an open, free and trusting atmosphere than when everything is calculated, every action analysed and every responsibility assigned by an organisation chart.

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.