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FeedThe Okage Sama De Way
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If net income slackened, I and my managers would have to decide whether to increase room rates or lower them in the hope of increasing occupancy. As a marketing challenge, we would grapple with the priority we placed on corporate travelers versus group travelers versus wholesale and independent travelers.
As in government, I found that many questions are too complicated for a highly centralized or autocratic style of management to succeed. Having picked the best team of people I could find, what I most needed was for my managers to step up and manage.
After hiring the right people, it was my job to get the best thinking into the open. Toward this end, I was wary of the small minority, who exhibit the most aggressive style or speak in the loudest voice. Rather than letting such people dominate, I encouraged them to become team players. For the same reasons, I did not let quiet people hide. When individuals participate, they more naturally understand what is expected of them and more naturally take real responsibility for their actions.
It was not my job — it is not the job of the contemporary executive — to control everything. Micromanagement is self-defeating. On any given day, the chief executive is doing well to create an environment in which innovation and creativity emerge. If you send out a signal that says, “When in doubt, play it safe,” you will tend to do the same old things over and over. Yesterday’s solutions will stick firmly to today’s problems. If, on the other hand, you say, “Do not be afraid to experiment,” you will come much closer to meeting the demands of a changing world.
The test of what you really communicate to your team is when one of them makes a mistake. To meet the demand for constant innovation, you cannot turn away from innovators when things go wrong. If the person’s intentions were right and his or her thinking had merit, you must support that person. Innovation means we are venturing down uncharted paths. We encounter blocks. Sometimes we must back up to get around them, but we must ultimately go forward to meet new challenges.
My father summed up his philosophy in Japanese by saying, “Okage sama de,” which translates, “I am what I am because of you.” Inspiration for managing can flow from this deep sense of interconnection.
A period of exploration and discussion requires a delicately balanced follow-through. After discussions we must make decisions. Nothing is worse than a dialogue followed by drift or indecision. However, having encouraged widespread participation, we cannot at this point suddenly become autocrats. We cannot encourage people to participate and then make unilateral decisions. Believing that as I did, I allowed and even encouraged managers of different properties on different islands of different ages to come up with their own combination of solutions. I did not try to force a single corporate solution. The most key thing is for managers, being empowered, to energetically take responsibility for making policies work. George R. Ariyoshi, chairman and cofounder of Convergence CT and Cellular Bioengineering, is the former president of Prince Resorts Hawaii Inc. He is active in international business circles, particularly in Asia. An attorney by profession, Ariyoshi served in elective office in Hawaii from 1954 to 1986. He served as governor of Hawaii from 1973 to 1986 and was the first Japanese American to be elected governor in the United States. Do you like what you read? Subscribe to Hawaii Business Magazine »
• If an effort works out well, don’t try to take all the credit. Share the credit.
• If something goes wrong, pick yourself up and go on. You will do better tomorrow.
• By the same token, don’t indulge in blaming others; they will likely do better if given another chance.
