Kazuo Inamori, these 12 words have brought me good luck and wealth all my life.

Everyone says that innovation, everyone wants to have innovative thinking, innovative thinking is exactly how mysterious the most straightforward thing, with it, your life's good luck and talent, absolutely not bad.

Known as the "saint of management" in Japan, Kazuo Inamori, who has created two of the top 500 enterprises in the world, puts forward three key points on the cultivation of innovative thinking in his new book the way of thinking. I hope it will inspire everyone who wants to have innovative thinking.

01

Perfectionism

If you neglect the last 1% of your efforts, your previous efforts may be wasted. In order to make your efforts bear fruit, you must always pursue perfection.

Since I was young, I have made "implementing perfectionism" as my motto.

The principle of "carrying out perfectionism" is not only the result of my own character, but also my experience in the creative work of research and development.

When challenging research and development projects that no one has ever been involved in, since there is no experimental data and other materials for reference, we must start from scratch, we must touch them with our own hands and step on them with our own feet, and all things must be demonstrated by ourselves and confirmed by ourselves. That is to say, you must use yourself as a compass to determine the way forward.

The most important thing at this time is confidence in yourself. You must be sure of your character, your technology, and yourself, and you must be sure of it. If you lack self-confidence, think that you can't be perfect, and work in a half-fooled state of mind, then you won't be confident about the results. In this way, it is absolutely impossible to engage in creative work.

Take ceramics as an example, for example, sometimes you have to mix several kinds of raw materials, as long as you put the wrong raw material, or the wrong quantity, or the wrong mixing method, you will not be able to make your ideal ceramic products.

In fact, when I was doing my own experiments, I used to use agate mortar and rods when mixing raw powder in the laboratory. "to synthesize such a ceramic material," so put the calculated weight of the raw material into the mortar to mix. The longer it takes to mix, the more evenly the raw materials will be mixed. But how long does it take to mix? that's a question.

To make ceramic materials, it is necessary to mix magnesia, calcium oxide and other raw materials powder. For ease of understanding, you can think of them as wheat flour. For example, different colors of wheat flour should be mixed. At first it looks like a piece of uneven color, but after desperately mixing, the color becomes the same.

If it is a liquid, it can be said to be mixed evenly. But because it is solid, we don't know what kind of state it can be said to be uniform.

Even if the particles are ground to the size of 1/1000 mm in diameter, from a microscopic point of view, they cannot be said to be completely mixed. So, if you want to mix fully, there will be a question of how far you should mix to make a good mix.

Whether it is mixing with a mortar or using a "pot ball mill", a machine that turns and crushes the mixture at the same time, it is difficult to tell when it will be fully mixed. The step of mixing is already very difficult. However, if all the processes are not implemented perfectly, the ideal product cannot be made. What should be done to make a perfect product? "

Therefore, when I mix powder with a mortar, I often think: "if only one step fails due to a slight carelessness, then all the materials, processing fees, electricity and all other inputs used so far will be wasted." This will not only bring losses to the company, but also lead to delivery delays and bring trouble to customers.

So Kyocera has so far carried out the policy of perfectionism.

02

Unremitting challenge

If you want to achieve a new career, you must have a fighting spirit, no matter what, you have to do it to the end! Only those who can work tenaciously no matter what difficulties they encounter, and those who resolutely overcome them can engage in challenging careers.

The word "challenge" sounds exciting and spirited. However, in order to achieve a new cause, we must have the struggle spirit of "working to the end no matter what." If this is not the case, just saying the word "challenge", just thunder without rain, it is just empty talk.

In my opinion, only those who can work tenaciously and resolutely overcome difficulties no matter what difficulties they encounter can engage in challenging careers.

When various forms of difficulties and pressures hit us, we tend to flinch, or change our beliefs and compromise. The energy to overcome such difficulties and pressure comes from the indomitable struggle held by the parties. "you must not lose, you must succeed." This fierce fighting spirit must be ignited.

Inside Kyocera, I often say, "when I don't think so, the work begins." This sentence comes from my experience when I was young. The important thing is to believe in your own possibilities and constantly explore solutions.

So far, no matter what difficulties I have encountered, I will think: "the previous method may not work, but there must be other ways to find a way out." And then desperately think about the way to open the dilemma. No matter how severe and difficult the situation is, we should rack our brains, think about all the conditions and explore concrete ways to overcome the difficulties.

03

Go all out

Every day of research and innovation, even if only a small step forward, but over time will be able to take a big step forward to achieve major innovation.

Since the enterprise has less than a hundred people, I have been saying: "Kyocera should look at the world and move forward to Kyocera in the world." Although the enterprise is small, it looks at the whole world, which is to set a lofty goal. Because you have set a great goal, you will be able to concentrate on it and achieve a great cause that you can't even imagine.

But in fact, I don't just aim at this high goal, but go all out and try my best to live every day.

If you go all out to live today, you will naturally be able to see tomorrow.

If you go all out and have a good tomorrow, you will be able to see clearly for a week.

If you go all out for a good week, you can see clearly for a month.

If you go all out for a good month, you can see clearly for a year.

If you go all out to live a good year, you will be able to see next year.

Concentrate on every moment in front of you and live the present moment. That's the point.

That's what I think. The first is to work hard to achieve the goal of each day.

Set lofty goals, but if your pace is too slow to make progress, most people will give up their original goals. However, I only care about every day in front of me. Work hard and the day will soon be over. However, by making continuous efforts step by step every day, the once unreachable goal of being number one in the world can also be achieved.

The word "delve into innovation" sounds difficult, but in fact, tomorrow is better than today, the day after tomorrow is better than tomorrow, to improve the work. Even if it's the same research, the same job, try this method today, and think about other ways that are more efficient tomorrow.

That's what I do. I study hard all the time. It is this kind of research and innovation that will bring about amazing progress that you have never expected.