In order to build this relationship of mutual trust, it is necessary to tell the employees about the company's situation without hiding. With this in mind, Kazuo Inamori instituted "glassy management" at Kyocera, in which all employees were informed of Kyocera's business situation.
The ability of a company to operate transparently depends on the management philosophy held by the company's top leaders. How did Kazuo Inamori promote "transparent management" at Kyocera?
First of all, management must be "transparent" from the company's officers to its employees. Not only should the operator know the company's situation well, but the employees can also know the company's situation, and can see what the operator is doing, which is called "glass-like transparency".
The company is never a tool for the operators to pursue their own personal interests. The mission of the company is to create material and spiritual happiness for all employees and to contribute to the development of human society.
The operator must take the lead and do his best to realize the company's business purpose. By practicing transparent management, employees will be able to see that they are taking the lead in realizing the mission of the company.
On the other hand, if the operator spends even a small amount of the company's public funds for private purposes, or spends too much on golf and catering in the name of entertaining guests, the employees will know about it. Then the operator will not only lose the trust of the employees, but may even invite them to defect.
Therefore, in order to implement transparent management, the operator must be strictly self-disciplined, and no matter who looks at it from what angle, the operator's behavior must be fair and unbiased.
What leaders are thinking and what they are aiming for must be correctly communicated to employees. Kyocera spends a great deal of effort in communicating its annual management policy to each and every one of its employees.
At the beginning of the year, the president delivers the management policy, which is directly addressed to the middle-level and higher-level executives in the head office area, and at the same time, it is transmitted to the factories in each area. After hearing the president's management policy, the executives are required to communicate its contents to their employees at the workplace. After that, all employees at the workplace take turns watching and listening to the president's speech on video.
In this way, all employees understand the management policy of the company and the group companies as a whole as explained by the president, and also understand the specific management goals and the concrete measures to achieve them.
The President's thoughts are communicated to each employee without discrimination, and are then implemented as goals for each department.
In addition, Kyocera holds an international management meeting twice a year, which brings together Kyocera Group executives from all over the world.
At these meetings, executives from each region of the world present a comparison of their plans and achievements, and discuss their future directions. By gathering together and listening to reports from each division and group company, all executives are able to understand the state of the KYOCERA Group as a whole, and to understand how their work fits into the group's overall activities.
The detailed reports on the Group as a whole were not only distributed to the top management of the Group, but were also made available to all of the more than 200 participants.
Within Kyocera, at the beginning of each month, at the morning meeting, detailed reports are made on each department's performance for the previous month. Members of each amoeba already know the plans and performance of their own departments, and at the morning meeting at the beginning of the month, they can clearly understand the details of their factories, divisions, and departments in numbers.
KYOCERA is always striving to make more business information available to as many employees as possible. Employees are made aware of the company's overall situation, direction, and goals, as well as the difficulties they will encounter and the issues they will face in managing their business.
This approach is essential for improving the ethical standards of the company, for creating a synergy in the company, and for keeping employees moving in the right direction. Therefore, it is important to be as open and transparent as possible, not only to the top management, but also to the general staff.