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 we do our best and make efforts, a peaceful and great future will become ours without fail. Whether we succeed or not depends on the strength of our resolve and the amount of our endeavor.
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 - it has run consistently about 6 percent of sales at Sony - and in service.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?