The Story of the ThinkPad: Building a Global Success

by Text 100

  Chapter 2 Manufacturing Craftsmanship that Seeks to Advance Products

  It’s a mistake to set numerical targets before defining the customer value to be achieved

  　

  I always tell the engineers in charge of development that I want them to create things that they can explain to customers. I don’t want the ThinkPad to be a faceless product with unknown creators, and I always seek to explain to customers and reporters that ThinkPads are created by Yamato lab engineers. I want our products to be products with a human face.

  When engineers explain things to customers, they should not use words that customers can’t understand. I used to ask engineers, “If journalists were to come over, how would you explain this product to them? Explain the product to me as if this were a press conference.”

  In the beginning, I would usually stop them one or two minutes into their presentations. Not that I had decided to do so beforehand, but I just had to stop them when I heard them—for a very straightforward reason.

  I would ask them, “Are you explaining it to me like that because you think that I’m an engineer?” And when I would urge them to, “please explain the value of this product one more time without using such technical terms, as if I were a customer,” almost all would freeze up and ask for some more time before starting all over again. Over and over. This would get them thinking about the value of what they were doing.

  When I say “value,” I do not mean value for the company, for the engineers, or for professionals. The only value I mean is value for all users - customer value.

  These mock press conferences were not intended to teach engineers how to explain things. Sure, it is important to acquire the skill to explain difficult technology with the right words. However, that is not the main point. What really matters is whether that technology, and product meet the customer’s values, whether the specifications have meaning for the customer, and whether they make a difference that the customer can understand. Developing something without knowing this, without determining this, is risky, as this may result in a product or feature that means nothing to customers.

  It is easier for an engineer to understand this if you ask him to explain a product instead of asking what its customer value. I would say, “We want to have the customer understand what we are doing. We want the customer to understand the product’s value.” When an engineer seeks to, or starts to, explain a product in this manner, but the direction of that technology or development is incorrect (in other words it does not lead to customer value), the engineer will be unable to explain it in terms that can be easily understood by the average customer. Using or thinking with technical terms prevents engineers from realizing this.

  I don’t know exactly how I came to think this way, and I can’t offer any interesting or memorable episodes. But I have had many opportunities to explain the ThinkPad to reporters. At places such as press conferences, they will ask you things like, “What kind of features does this latest product have?” In this case, I would always begin by explaining some part of the technology. I would explain the technology, bit by bit. But increasingly, I began to feel that my explanations did not get across to customers, even if techies and reporters understood them.

  An engineer who knows what he wants to offer to the user, in other words one who has internalized the development intent, will tell me something like “Naitoh-san, this is what I wanted to achieve with this product. That’s it!” I wanted my engineers to engage in manufacturing craftsmanship based on this way of thinking, so they would be able to explain products in a more natural manner.

  Looking back, at the bottom of all this was my strong desire to tell customers more about the ThinkPad. Press conferences are one place where we can speak to potential customers, through the journalists, about the purpose and merits of the product and what can be achieved by using it. Also, while developers have few opportunities to directly explain their products to customers, they do have opportunities to speak about their approach to manufacturing craftsmanship as they travel abroad to meet marketers and sales executives in various countries. What to say and how to say it so that I would be understood was for me, the issue.

  It is not easy to work out how to best explain a concept or development intent to people, particularly customers.

  For example, people have a certain image they expect from developers, as opposed to salespeople. A smooth-talking development manager whose statements sound like an advertising pitch will not be trusted and will fail to please, because he comes across as glib or even untrustworthy. What customers want to know is what developers are thinking. It will not do to disappoint their expectations. At the same time, one’s talk should not sound like a technical paper either, because this would fail to get the meaning across. The question might be considered to be how to effectively translate such technical content, but as I said earlier, that concept is erroneous. I realized that developers must have conviction about what they want to do too, before any technical documentation comes up.

  Take wireless, for example. In the early days, notebook PCs did not have a wireless function. It was common sense back then that a network connection required a cable. The wireless idea came up later. At the time, placing the antenna around the LCD was another challenge and this launched a technological drive for smaller antennas. Through trial and error, engineers sought to make antennas measuring as small in millimeters as possible. They also competed to raise the decibel sensitivity in that band as much as possible. Such target indices are definitely important, as starting development work without any target leaves you without a yardstick for determining success or completion. Using such a target lets you obtain real data and make meaningful products.

  Upon completion, engineers will come to me and start explaining that they’ve improved the antenna’s performance by three decibels. “Ordinary customers will not be able to understand the meaning of this if you put it this way,” I tell the engineers. “You’ve got to tell them the advantage of this in terms that are real to them, such as “until now, an office of this size required four access points, but we can now achieve the same with just two access points.“ or ”until now, communication was possible only at this speed from a given corner, but now this new speed is achievable.”

  After I began making them explain things in this way, the developers took to keeping a ThinkPad in something that looked like a baby stroller and wheeling it around the office.

  Word had gotten around that “if you’re going to Naitoh-san, you can’t just explain things in terms of decibels.” Showing them the picture of an office, I would ask them to explain how the number of access points could be reduced, or what kind of connection was used until now and how this could be improved on. And I would add that simply getting a connection, or getting a given speed was not enough. It is not easy to achieve smooth switching from one access point to another as the antenna is moved around. Unless smooth switching is achieved, that nearby access point one has gone to the trouble of installing will go unused, as the previous point is not removed and the strength of the electric field used for reception remains poor as a result. To make me understand this and pursue customer value, the developers had begun to try out various things using that “baby stroller.” They had gone back to basics.

  Starting out from basics led them to consider whether those three decibels were truly meaningful in the first place. If one competes in terms of specifications, even a single decibel has meaning. However, such pursuit may by itself be meaningless if one assumes a basic viewpoint. This is the kind of understanding one can gain from going back to basics.

  Those values we call specifications must be explained by translating them into the customer value that can be achieved as a result. However, if you think about it, things should be the other way around: Customer value comes first, and the specifications and numerical targets needed to achieve them come next. I do not think that competition in specifications is a bad thing per se. In the end everything boils
down to specifications, so naturally one cannot reject numerical values out of hand. But not knowing what these numerical values mean in terms of customer value creates problems.

  Know-how beyond the scope of words (or video)

  　

  In the early stages, the engineers devised and implemented various methods to test durability and other product attributes. Seeing this, I suggested that we shoot videos to let customers know what we do and why, and thus we started filming. This got the engineers thinking again.

  “Will customers get what it is that we are simulating?”

  “I wonder if that will do.”

  If these videos are actually shown to customers, some of them will have doubt about the suitability of what’s being done. Such doubt must be answered too. Gradually, the gap between the needs of customers and what we are doing became clear, and can then be filled in.

  If I have achieved anything in this organization, I would say it is to have created a loop in connecting the thinking of our customers and engineers, getting feedback, and running tests.

  Engineers are often said to be engaged in wars over specs, in which customers are forgotten. Customers often complain that they don’t get the respective merits of various technologies, or that too many functions that they don’t actually use or cannot take advantage of are being added.

  What are the attributes of a good engineer? It all comes down to being able to think from the standpoint of the customer, and then to develop or create technologies, functions, and products that solve the perceived needs. The best way to know whether you have achieved this is to see if you can explain your product to reporters or customers with the same confidence that inspired you to make it, and whether your audience shows interest and approval. Engineers often explain things with technical equations, out of fear that they will be criticized if they fail, or they make things ambiguous so as not to be understood, because they think that spouting stuff their audience cannot understand will shield them from disapproval. Such escapism should be avoided, along with pursuing only one’s own interests at the expense of customer value.

 

  Lately, I find myself rarely giving out such advice. Quite the opposite, seeing our engineers explain things with such fervor, I sometimes worry whether it’s really all right to go to such extremes. This is the exact opposite situation to that in the beginning.

  I have often been told such things as “Naitoh-san, please let’s not release the videos for these tests.” It’s not just about the videos. For example, we have already revealed quite a few tricks about how we tune keyboard keys. In the beginning, everybody was concerned but recently they’ve gained confidence in this approach. By telling customers, we get them to understand and generate interest, and yet what we reveal does not get copied.

  In fact, why are the keyboards of other companies on the market not being improved more? We are not getting copied nearly as often as we thought we would. I’m convinced that this is because what we put in goes far beyond what is revealed. No matter how much we talk, our competitors are ultimately unable to master the keyboard tuning technology. This doesn’t mean that we’re intentionally leaving out parts that we consider particularly important. One can explain all one wants about the main focuses, the important points, but there’s a limit to what can be explained with words.

  Our keyboards have a 2.5-millimeter key stroke. The keys are designed so as to provide force feedback when pressed. The feeling of the keys pushing back is the result of a force that increases along a curve. Too steep a curve will result in a heavy feeling keyboard. A gentle curve will result in a keyboard with a light touch. The next important element is the point at which the key suddenly gives way and drops. The greater the height of this point is, the stronger the click sensation. One might think that this point should therefore be made as high as possible, but making the click occur just as one begins to press the key results in a heavy key touch, so designers will delay the click. However, if the click is delayed too much, the entire 2.5-millimeter travel distance will get used first, so the key will strike bottom immediately after it gives and drops, causing an unpleasant sensation. The free drop of the key serves as a signal to the finger not to apply any more force. It is important to design some distance so that the finger does not immediately hit bottom if it travels too far down beyond the click, so as to protect the customer’s finger joints from excessive impact.

  The above is an example of how we can explain our accumulated know-how in an easy-to-understand manner as needed. It illustrates our capacity for explanation as engineers. To have our products understood and accepted, we need to explain clearly what it is we are doing, what we are offering the customer in terms of convenience, and what we are trying to accomplish.

  But if you think that you can reproduce the tactile feel of the ThinkPad’s keyboard just by listening to our explanations, you will find that this is impossible.

  Tools for professionals that change work styles

  　

  What should the ThinkPad be? The answer is “a tool for professionals.” I talked earlier about commodities, and what we are aiming for is a tool to accomplish work that does not become commoditized, in other words, professional work. What’s important is to produce an item that increases the productivity of businesspeople and makes them more competitive.

  We are careful to avoid mere spec wars, and superficial numbers are not so important to us. Of course, we insist on those functions that are required of portable PCs, such as a light weight, a thin profile, and a long battery life, but we think that we should not focus on those numbers alone. A fixation on numbers will always cause one to fall into a spec war, which entails two major risks. The first is the high risk of, at some point, getting caught in competition that ignores the customer. The other is the strong possibility of falling into obsessiveness, resulting in biases and an unbalanced product.

  For example, even if you succeed in reducing noise by 10 percent compared with the baseline, this won’t get across to customers, because they can’t actually hear the difference. The value to the customer will be close to zero unless the noise value is at the very least halved, or even brought near zero. If you compete in terms of achieving a difference of 10 percent here and 12 percent there, such competition will be meaningless. Because the real value to the customer lies beyond these levels.

  The pursuit of true value rather than mere numbers in a tool for professionals leads to the transformation of work styles.

  Traditionally, hardworking people have been admired as a work ethic for the Japanese. Doing overtime was a virtue and workers going home past midnight were symbols of this system. How did this come about?

  Let’s take for example Mr. A, who while doing the same job as Mr. B, finishes work at 4:30 p.m. and then catches a movie on his way home. Mr. B on the other hand works on until 1 a.m. and gets home in the wee hours. In such a case, the worker most cherished by the company and his superiors is, without question, the latter.

  In Japanese society, the harvest produced by the group gets distributed to the members of the group, based mainly on the number of hours worked by each member. If Mr. B worked longer, he gets a larger share.

  This approach is wrong, in my opinion, because the productivity of Mr. B, who did the same amount of work, is unmistakably lower. When working longer hours is valued, people stop caring about productivity and lose international competitiveness. People who value productivity want to go home early and thus demand speed from their computer. As I said earlier, it is annoying when a machine makes you wait 10 or 15 seconds for web pages to load.

  Productivity creates breathing room. The extra time can then be used for leisure or to get other work done. If Japanese society does not start treating this as a virtue, Japan’s competitiveness is bound to decline further.

  Taking a long time to do things is not a virtue in my book. The thinking that, “If I work many hours, I will contribute much to the company” won’t do
. Accomplishments should be measured not in terms of time spent, but in terms of quality. We always think in terms of what PCs can do to this end.

  I believe that the essence of the ThinkPad is productivity. In other words, we always aspire to make the ThinkPad more productive.

  PCs and ThinkPads in particular, are tools for raising the work competitiveness of customers (users). What we value over all else is offering hard-to-break machines that can be used comfortably and without stress, even for many hours, anytime and anywhere, and are equipped with security and wireless. The ThinkPad, being a notebook PC and thus portable, must be usable regardless of the location. In other words, users must be able to use their time effectively. And since they can work while on the move, they are able to increase their free time too. That is the productivity that is demanded of the ThinkPad.

  When I say “a tool for professionals”, people sometimes misunderstand this to mean a machine that is hard to use except for select businesspersons who are highly IT literate. Far from it, when I use the word “professional”, I always mean those who are professional about their work. I believe that the ThinkPad must be the most easy-to-use, and the most user-friendly PC for all users.

  Insisting on notebook PC security to change the Japanese work style

  　

  The Japanese are said to be among the world’s most industrious people and workaholics, but is that really so? Compared with the past, the Japanese have changed a lot in some ways, but more than that, European/American and Japanese businesspeople have different work styles to begin with and this difference, in my opinion, accounts for why Japanese appear so industrious.

  The Japanese certainly work hard at the company. As I said before, people who work long hours are highly praised and thus overtime is readily accepted. However, most people’s work style does not include doing work away from the company. People rarely take work home, and doing work while on the move is definitely uncommon. On the other hand, it is not unusual for European and American businesspeople, even if they go to work early and return home in the evening, to resume their work in their study after dinner with their family.

  Japanese productivity was said to be among the highest in the world. However, this was at a time when information technology was not yet widespread. Work could only be done at the company, so spending long hours at the company appeared to raise productivity. But today, with advances in information technology, individual businesspeople are sure to increase their productivity by adopting a work style that does not bind them to the physical location of the company. This is exactly the work style we propose with the ThinkPad. We are convinced that the work style of the Japanese will gradually change too.

  The transformation of work style requires, more than anything, a solid wireless communication environment and strong security. Since the age of IBM, we have been committed to these two aspects for the ThinkPad, and we have been working on providing a high level of security that does not require one to be aware of encryption keys and so on.

  However, most Japanese companies currently restrict taking PCs out of the office, out of concern for data leaks or the machine getting lost. People fail to consider how to strengthen security so that workers can take out their PCs and work anytime and anywhere they want. The Japanese solution is not to take out PCs so no liabilities arise and everybody feels better. As a result, putting in long hours at the company continues to be perceived a virtue, and employees are unable to get any work done once they set foot outside the company. I believe that this is one of the reasons why people continue to operate as company drones. And so, I have even come to regard so-called “security issues” as no more than an excuse.

  Let’s consider security some more. Passwords are most important when it comes to protecting important data on a PC.

  However, many passwords can be hacked with a little guesswork if you know the user’s name, birthdate, and (in Japan, at least) blood type. This is because many people still set their password as a combination of these items. Automatic generation is a great idea, but even if a sixty-four digit password is automatically generated, the user himself could not possibly memorize it. Alternatively, three-stage authentication that uses a startup password, a hard disk drive password, and a Windows login password could be effective, but this too would be extremely troublesome for users.

  Finger sensors and fingerprint authentication systems work well in this regard. Even multiple difficult-to-remember passwords can easily be authenticated and managed with just one fingertip. There is no need to memorize complicated passwords; just registering one’s fingerprint once is all that’s required. However, finger sensors have failed to spread in use.

  As a result, all too often we see cartoonish situations of a security manager’s office with Post-its with employee passwords written on them sticking everywhere. Or we hear a not so funny story of someone who forgets his own too-robust password and can’t ever use his PC again.

  To address this problem, we researched for many years a system to centrally and securely manage hardware passwords. For example, in the case of a small business with 10 employees, one manager can set and assign a user password and a supervisor password to every employee. However, this is not so easy in the case of machines numbering thousands upon thousands. Therefore, for large companies, we started offering a system for managing passwords centrally, featuring a hardware-based encryption engine implemented on the hard disk drive, which performs the encryption and decryption. Even so, few customers adopted this system, suggesting that the attitude that not taking PCs outside the company is the best approach remains widespread.

  I decided that I wanted to change this state of affairs because otherwise the characteristics of mobile PCs, which are specifically designed to be usable anywhere, could not be put to their best use.

  I’ve always held the view that the current state of affairs, in which the value of labor is measured in hours and businesspeople become part of the company, need to be changed by transforming the way people think about personnel administration and management. When people they work long hours and leave the company at a late hour, they feel that they’ve worked hard the whole day and put in a lot of effort. But there’s more. Even if an employee completes all his work for that day earlier than the rest, he will find it difficult to be the only one to go home when the others around him can’t. And while young people today appear not to feel bound by such corporate “common sense,” I feel that this is an issue slightly different from that of productivity and so forth.

  Japan has come to a juncture where it needs once more to confidently pull itself up by its own bootstraps. There are things we Japanese need to change. And we want to support such efforts with our mobile PCs.

  Marketing myopia gets in the way of explaining the potential of PCs

  　

  Are you familiar with Theodore Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia”? In that paper published in 1960, Levitt explained that the occupation one finds himself in is a limited construct, specific to that day and age. He argued that the railroad industry declined because the railroad companies forgot the needs of customers (passenger and freight transportation) and clung to the means of transport that is railroads, which did not amount to more than one among many possible solutions. Levitt teaches that all companies need to review their own existential value (which is the value for customers) and redefine their business during periods of transition.

  The mission of a manager is not to produce goods, but to offer value that creates customers, Levitt tells us. This is a call to break away from the so-called “what we do,” although this is certainly not easy. “Creative destruction” is needed.

  Our own view of things is undeniably PC-centric. However, PCs are recognized as tools for raising the productivity of customers (users). The value of a PC depends greatly on how it’s used. For instance, even if one is fixated on PCs as products, I think it’s possible to avoid falling prey to marketing myopia by being aware of what people us
e PCs to achieve. For this very reason, when adding a function such as stylus input, seeking to generate interest by saying “Isn’t this great?” or “Isn’t this neat?” is ineffective. What’s needed is a thorough explanation of what can be achieved by using this function and seeking to establish with users the value of the new function. If this can be achieved, even a PC of similar appearance to all others can be transformed into a machine with a different value altogether.

  Why the Yamato lab has been able to pass along its culture

  　

  Organizations are said to find it increasingly difficult to maintain their original enthusiasm and sense of purpose as they grow bigger. As time passes, new people join and old-timers leave. The organization changes and somewhere along the line this process accelerates. Taking the case of a single company, as business expands, hiring increases at some stage from just a few employees to many employees. And the generally accepted view is that transmission of the organization’s culture, its DNA, will then be endangered unless this is handled exceptionally well.

  Considering this, I believe that the Yamato lab has done exceedingly well in transmitting its DNA. What I have sought to transmit has sunk in deep, and we have yet to experience a crisis. Amid major changes, including a new owner and even a new nationality, the Yamato lab has become even more cohesive and have come all this way without losing its focus.

  Of course, the Yamato lab is just one division, one organization within the company, but I believe that in a way, it is somewhat like a small/medium-sized company that thrives and has boosted its presence under the umbrella of a major corporation. Even people outside the company can recognize this.

  We just rushed ahead like mad. Why did things turn out as well as they did? I believe that one factor was that the size of the organization was just right. I don’t think that we would have had the same outcome had we been an organization that takes in 300 new employees each year. Although we have been on a growth trend since transferring over to Lenovo, Yamato lab’s size, including permanent and contract employees, has remained that of a small/medium-sized company.

  Another factor is that the Yamato lab has been pursuing a single product, a single brand, all this time, which may be something of an oddity among companies. The fact that our brand power has not declined has contributed more than anything else to our success. This is evident by the fact that out of 10 people we hire, eight will profess absolute love for the ThinkPad. In this respect, it’s the same as it ever was. Naturally, if 100 percent of our new hires were ThinkPad fans, we’d see our growth slow, so we also hire total neophytes to bring in new ideas. But the fact that a surprising number of our applicants are ThinkPad fans is, I believe, the key to maintaining our unifying force and sense of direction.

  Under IBM, hiring would be done at once for the entire company, so each year we’d get about 300 new employees. Employee allocations, including who would join the ThinkPad team, were not decided beforehand. After we transferred over to Lenovo, things were clearly different in this regard.

  At Lenovo, I myself participated in the final interviews and I would directly ask candidates “What do you want to do?” and “What is it that you can do?” So they knew that, if they got hired, they would get to work on the ThinkPad. Actually, it may be more like the applicants wished to apply because they knew that they’d get to make ThinkPads if they were hired. We have an advantage, in a sense, in that we are in control of hiring, and virtually all of our job candidates know about the ThinkPad. As I mentioned before, it’s a fact that hardcore ThinkPad fans make up the majority of our candidates.

  Looking back, I focused on interviews as part of an all-out quest to select developers in 2005, when we transferred over to Lenovo. This is not to say that we slacked off in this regard at IBM, but because several interviewers took turns interviewing a total of about 300 people, we took care to conduct interviews from a general standpoint.

  From 2005, things changed. I would face candidates asking, “If this person joins us, what will he/she do for us?” That may be exactly the way the manager of a small/medium-sized company feels (although I haven’t had that experience). At any rate, I was able to face candidates in quite an in-depth manner. Nowadays, my position has changed and I no longer conduct job interviews. I’ve passed that baton to the next generation.

  There is something I’ve strongly felt while conducting interviews from 2005 to 2010.

  Until then, I think that I myself held the view, almost a cliché actually, that starts with “young people nowadays…” and is completed by “are passive and lack ambition” or some such. However, when I faced them in earnest in interviews, I often felt that young people were more serious than in my own student days. The intensity they displayed in their job search made me realize how nonchalantly I had been living, somehow getting admitted to a university and getting hired by the company.

  Not only that, they also know exactly what they want to do and have already honed the skills and learned the technology for this purpose. As a group, they may not have worked their way through college to the same extent as we did in the past, but several among them have done their best to make a living, so as not to be a burden to their parents. And thus I have come to feel a lot of admiration for today’s young people, so much so that I am even a little ashamed myself.

  I was in charge of the final interviews, and the more I realized how they’d risen to that level by jostling past hundreds of rivals, the more I felt the drive of today’s youth. Naturally, there hasn’t been a single year in which I thought, “I have no choice but to make do with this crop of recruits.” And it’s not like only the hired ones seem great; all the candidates strike me as having come up the ranks of excellence.

  There is no more virtuous cycle than the one we enjoy now, with talent that, though small in number, is of superb quality. They are dedicated and attached to the ThinkPad, and enter our organization bringing in new ideas. Our DNA stands protected and our organizational culture is perpetuated as a result.

  I feel also that what I have been teaching over the years has become deeply rooted in the organization and is being passed along. I can’t remember asking junior staff, “How would you explain this to customers?” for several years now. It just isn’t necessary. In repeating this, I may come across as over the top, but it’s true.

  Though this may sound a bit strong, this too is culture transmission. In the early stages, I avail myself of various opportunities to directly teach our new recruits. Before long, before I can communicate something, somebody will take action ahead of me. Like, “If you say this, Naitoh-san will tell you so-and-so.” Gradually, that talk and “Naitoh” disappears from the equation. Eventually this becomes a piece of tacit knowledge. And thus, the organization’s culture gets transmitted. Lenovo’s culture and traditions will get passed along forever. Who said this or that first is irrelevant. In fact, somewhere along the line, the knowledge becomes part of the accepted lore. And that is fine. Seeing people (mentors and seniors) and emulating them is the best approach.

  Caring that protects engineers from nervous breakdowns—the importance of management that seeks to understand people

  　

  Engineers are often said to lack cooperation and social skills, but I beg to differ.

  When I was a student, and also around the time I entered the company, I was able to spend my days without having to deal with people I didn’t like. Students can take what they like and leave what they dislike in their environment. This allows them to build walls around them. They don’t depend on others, besides their parents, for money. Actually, it is because they pay money to go to school that they can enjoy this freedom.

  However, once they become working people, they have to belong to an environment that contains a number of things that they cannot choose, in exchange for a salary. Such people may wind up in an unpleasant environment not to their liking. Anyone in such a situation would understandably feel mental pressure, but it is my fe
eling that engineers in general may be more susceptible. Leaders should provide care to their underlings in this regard.

  When giving advice to new employees, there is always something, almost an instruction, that I tell them at the end.

  I say to them, “If you experience any hardship, please be sure to come to me. Do not worry about it on your own. Before doing anything regrettable or rash, do come see me. I promise it will get resolved.” I would tell them this every time. “Do not refrain from telling me and break down on your own.”

  Of course, I’m not a specialist in this field. But not a stranger to such feelings myself, I understand how people under mental pressure feel. Having found ways to get over such feelings, I probably can help anyone who comes to me with a problem, because I understand what is bothering that person. I myself didn’t have an easy time overcoming such challenges. And those situations that I was able to sort out easily would not be of reference for them. I’ve had my own struggles, I’ve gone through my own rough patches, and honestly, I also experienced pretty difficult situations, so I am confident that I can hear them out, get a solid grasp of their situation, and give them advice.

  I can’t give them pointed advice like, “This method will work in your case.” However, one thing I understand is that a human being weakened under mental pressure and beginning to break down thinks “I’m the only one to feel so wretched.” But this is a mistake—whether happy or not, everybody has such weaknesses.

  For example, a new employee looking at me might feel that “this person’s been around; he’s been chattering away like that for a long time, he’s scared of nothing.” However, that too is a mistake. I for one used to be not able to speak in front of people. However, as I rose in position, I was expected to speak in various situations. On occasion, I had to give speeches to audiences of dozens or even hundreds of people. At such times, I couldn’t help but feel despondent from the night before. There were other stressful things on top of that, to the point that I’d go to the doctor and ask for something to calm me down. Back then, if you consulted a doctor about such problems, he would tell you to first get an appointment with a counselor. When I actually went to see a counselor, I was asked in detail about all kinds of things. After enduring this about three separate times, I was able to get some medication, but I didn’t take it in the end. However, I kept it in my pocket as it made me feel safe.

  When I tell people true stories like that, almost all of them leave feeling somewhat better.

  I guess realizing they’re not the only one gives them some relief. Everybody is convinced that they’re the only one to be weak, that they’re the only one who can’t cope, and this gets them down even more. I’ve been there myself. But when you realize that almost all people are the same, you start believing that you too will be able to get over it.

  One more thing: among the many desires of humans is a hunger for recognition. This is the wish to be recognized, to be understood, by others. It may be an exaggeration, but I hear that in many cases, people lose the will to go on when this hunger for recognition dries up due to lack of acknowledgment. Letting such people speak their hearts and giving them interviews are effective ways to address this hunger for recognition. This is because, when heard, a person feels understood. In any case, I believe that one should not turn people away, and that being attentive, showing concern and giving recognition are the best medicine.

  ThinkPad fans come together and stamp their passion into Yamato lab’s DNA

  　

  At the risk of being misunderstood, I feel that what I worked so hard for until now has been for the sake of my own team.

  Management courses often feature a test that shows one’s leadership type using a radar chart. Some types of leadership are, for example, “authoritatively giving orders,” “democratically listening to other people’s opinions,” “coaching one’s subordinates,” and “skillfully giving instructions.” None of these items is, per se, correct. They are to be used according to the persons to be led. Therefore, if one were to define the correct answer, it would be that answer which gives high scores for all items. We can’t use characteristics we lack, but we can use those we have. The rest consists in developing an eye for assessing people and situations.

  Among such items, there is one item (type) that I consciously try not to use. That is “treat people in a familiar manner.”

  For example, remembering the birthday of a junior’s child and saying “It’s so-and-so’s birthday today, isn’t it, congratulations!” or “How old is he now?” or remembering his wife’s name and saying “Your wife, so-and-so’s her name, right? How is she?” I can’t help but feel that it’s sneaky to meddle like this. Therefore, when I deal with people at work and try to understand them, I am careful to avoid mentioning their family whenever this is possible.

  That being said, I myself may be quite the family man. I consciously try not to know about the families of my coworkers, but to me, all the developers at the Yamato lab are family. I don’t know whether this is a good or a bad thing, but looking at them all, I cannot help but feel that they are like my family.

  Businesspeople work hard. When asked what sustains them, people may answer “It’s my child’s smile,” but all the workers at the Yamato lab are so busy with work they hardly get to spend time at home. As the result of everybody’s hard work, the products we have all created together are highly recognized, and we and the company are praised. I think that having our existence acknowledged in such manner has been and will continue to be our greatest payback. Everybody at the Yamato lab is family. Whether they like it or not, they become family.

  As I mentioned, even after our transfer over to Lenovo, most people wishing to enter the company have been ThinkPad fans. This has stayed the same since the IBM days. While we hire for the entire company, those who come work at the Yamato lab have all been ThinkPad devotees. We’ve thus gathered together people very eager to develop ThinkPads. No one got here by chance.

  The Yamato lab holds an event that awards a title to people who have demonstrated technological prowess. The people who are selected for that honor get to make a short speech in front of everybody. A person who was selected recently told us the following:

  “I’d wanted to work on the ThinkPad for a long time and put in a request with a manager a good number of years ago, but he would not assign me no matter what.” And so I said to him “If I kneel to you, will you accept?” and I actually knelt down on the ground. Three months later, I got assigned and so was able to come here. That is why I’m working hard.”

  This may sound strange, but this episode speaks to a lot of our members, because we all hold that “ThinkPad = Myself.” That’s the extent to which we are committed to this product, to this brand. And therefore, they themselves, and me looking at them, feel that we are a team, a family.

  This unifying force is something special, and I believe it is the source of the Yamato lab’s strength. It is the DNA of the Yamato lab, not that of IBM and not that of Lenovo, which is getting passed along. Explaining that DNA in a word or two might be difficult.

  One manager might for example put emphasis on the fact that, “We give engineers the chance to enjoy their own sense of accomplishment.” The reason being that when one goes on overseas business trips, one gets to see that ThinkPads are being used all over the world. This makes one feel extremely happy.

  For example, we may learn while watching TV that our products are being used in a high-profile leading-edge enterprise. If this is the sort of enterprise that is a driving force in today’s world, we may really feel that the products we are making are helping speed up the pace of change in the world. Along with making engineers feel truly blessed they’re in this profession, this reinforces in them the conviction that compromises are not acceptable. Such happiness contributes to embedding our DNA even more deeply.

  I feel that we have fostered the confidence that, “If you ask Yamato, they will not fail to deliver.
” Our long string of accomplishments bears testimony to this. We’ve always walked the talk and our history shows that we make good on our promises. And there too lives Yamato’s DNA.

  When I asked Yamato’s engineers to define Yamato’s DNA, I received the following responses.

  “If one were to give reasons why things can’t be done, the list could go on and on. One can find ways to justify just about anything. But the Yamato lab will never do this. I don’t know why, but we just don’t run away from things. This is why I think it’s imprinted in our DNA.”

  “This organization does not make excuses. We seek solutions or alternatives. And by tradition we all get working on this together. What’s more, we don’t just find one solution, we also plan for contingencies.”

  “Inexperienced people can’t even guess what might occur. Knowing what might occur and making preparations for contingencies is where experience comes in. The kind of experience acquired not by individuals, but by the organization over the course of its long history.”

  The lessons learned by the organization are embedded in its DNA. And it all becomes part of our store of unattributed knowledge.