Looking Back at 2013

In December, we had the last off-site meeting of this year at Scholar Consult Co.

Here are the themes.

 What is the best decision of the year?

 And what is the worst decision of the year?

We were all given the theme suddenly and time to think ourselves.

This time I took part in with four ISOWA staffs, including Mr. Nakamura, a regular participant.

I thought they were thinking about their own worst decisions of the year.

But then they were told to speak about “my” worst decision.

They looked a little upset, but I was happy I would get their opinions.

After 10 minutes of thinking.

Here are the opinions.

I’m going to introduce what they wrote.

Mr. H

“Office Layout change”

When I first suggested it, apparently he was not happy about that.

But he said,

“Thanks to that suggestion, now we can try many different layouts in each division.”

Mr. O

“I Machine. It leads the way for us.”

It is one of my recent preoccupations, and I was glad to know he think it’s important, too.

These are my best of the year. What about my worst?

Their answer was “nothing”.

I wanted to know my worst, so it made me disappointed.

Mr. Okamura from Scholar said instantly,

“It’s a problem that you cannot remember the boss’s worst.”

I feel the same. I hope they let me know by the end of the year.

Mr. S who wrote my worst.

“He won’t show us his weakness at all.”

That was unexpected.

I thought I did and had many weaknesses.

But it is a good thing that I knew that some people were feeling like that about me.

I’m not going to tell you here what I wrote.

If you want to know, please ask someone who was there.

At the after-party, Mr. O from company K confessed,

“Although my boss asks for my opinion, I can’t tell him, because I think it’s a matter for himself.”

Mr. O from ISOWA answered,

“You should feel lucky about that. There are so many people who can’t say anything even though he wants to.”

As he said so, I will ask for his opinion more often.

But, actually, I don’t want to do that. Because asking for someone’s opinion means urging him or her to do it.

Especially when people who are in the position of president like me do it, they will be too afraid to say something from the heart.

It’s the best that you give me your honest opinions voluntarily.

Looking back on my decisions, I felt I haven’t been able to do anything special this year.

Mr. Okamura said,

“There are two types of management style. Some company let the president make many decisions, others not on purpose.”

Someday I hope to say with confidence, “I don’t make decisions myself because that’s my management style”.