Secrets of the personnel management from Konosuke Matsushita

People often admired as a legendary leader Konosuke Matsushita dealt with questions of personnel management. They often asked him: “what’s Your secret?”. To which he invariably replied: “I Have no special secrets. All I can do is explain the basics of my relationship to the people that work for me.” I bring to your attention a fragment of the book “Mission of a Business”, where Matsushita explains his “phenomenon” of managing people.

There are several ways to manage employees. The first, most obvious, is to use wisdom and charismatic leadership to encourage employees to do the job as well as they can. I never treated my work that way. Since I do not have these qualities in sufficient measure, I do not belong to this group of managers. I’m the kind of Manager who consults with staff and asked them to share their wisdom. I have found that people are more likely to cooperate when you ask for their advice than when you try to tell them what they should do in each case. If I have any “secret”, so it’s a natural inclination to trust people and seek to cooperate with them.

I don’t want to say that my approach always works or is suitable for all occasions. An extremely competent Manager, able to come to the right decision without consultation with his subordinates, will be able to achieve efficient performance of the tasks by giving instructions. Direct management often gives of the company and other interested parties certain advantages.

However, if the Manager does not have this ability, then it is more desirable can be exactly my style of personnel management. I often think that each of my employees has a greater competence and knowledge than I do. Perhaps due to the fact that my formal education was pretty minor, I appreciate the skills and accomplishments of others. I trust the staff because they know a lot and know how. So when I want something done, I say one of them: “I can’t do it, but you know what you can do”. If a person knows that he is trusted, he will try to do everything better and sooner or later will succeed.

Of course, do not think that I would never give orders or criticize people. As President or Chairman of the company, I’ve often used strong language when I had to reprimand employees for failures or blunders. But I never put myself above their level of knowledge, experience or intelligence.

Many years of observations allowed me to conclude that the companies, where management trusts the employees and praises them much more likely to succeed. Conversely, when the President of the company often complains about the incompetence of the staff, the company often faces challenges. I don’t have sufficient statistics to prove it, but I believe that here lies a grain of truth. The attitude in the style of “I’m better than you” from the top of the head could cost him his entire business. Conversely, a sense of sincere humility will bring him significant dividends – both tangible and intangible.