Akio Morita Quotes

105 Akio Morita Quotes

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I believe one of the reasons we went through such a remarkable growth period was that we had this atmosphere of free discussion.
Akio Morita

You can be totally rational with a machine. But if you work with people, sometimes logic often has to take a backseat to understanding.
Akio Morita

In Japan, a company doesn’t start out with an entrepreneur who wants his workers to play the role of tools. He creates his company and hires personnel to help him carry out his ideas. Once hired, the personnel are considered collaborators and not machines to make money.
Akio Morita

The rise and reknown of the Japanese in today’s business world, the life blood of our industrial machines, is just good old competition. It is very severe competition, so severe that I’m afraid it might spread to other countries.
Akio Morita

Physical activity is part of my lifestyle. All managers should know to what extent physical exercise, practiced hard, is good not only for the heart, but also for the mind; it gives you a calm sense of confidence in yourself. And having self-confidence is very important.
Akio Morita

I believed we had created a marvellous appliance, and I was full of hope. But our marketing team was not enthusiastic. I heard that the device was unsellable, and I felt a little embarrassed at having been so passionate about something that others considered a dud. But I had so much confidence in the success of this device, that I claimed personal responsibility for the project. And I never had reason to regret my decision. The idea was approved, and right from the start the Walkman was a smashing success.
Akio Morita

I was of the conviction that a company’s logo was its vital breath, and that it should be defended tenaciously. The logo and name of a company are not just a simple play on words; they evoke the quality of its products and are their guarantee.
Akio Morita

We have always encouraged our employees to have original thoughts, and they have always come through for us. From the entrepreneur’s point of view, it’s important to know how to liberate the creativity innate in everyone. My opinion is that we all possess creativity, but very few know how to use it. For me there’s a solution: always set yourself a goal.
Akio Morita

When I say to my assistants, ‘Never trust anyone’, I want them to understand that they shouldn’t expect someone else to do a job exactly like they wanted it done, so you shouldn’t get someone else to realize your own wishes.
Akio Morita

Sir, if you and I had the same opinions about the same subjects, it would be useless for both of us to remain with the same company and both receive a salary. If that were the case, one of us should resign. It is precisely because our opinions differ that the company runs less risk of making mistakes.
Akio Morita



Our working relations unfold in an atmosphere of equality which exists nowhere else in the world. At Sony, there is no marked difference between white collar and blue collar workers. Managing is not reigning. Executives of the company must have the necessary qualities to direct the personnel by showing them the way to do things. We are constantly looking for individuals who possess these qualities. Putting people down, because they lack diplomas or because they’re having trouble with a certain job, is a sign of incompetence. There is very little rivalry in our company. Succeeding by creating conflict is impossible.
Akio Morita

Move forward and do what you think is best. If you make a mistake, you’ll learn something. But don’t make the same mistake twice.
Akio Morita

Everybody makes mistakes. Ibuka and I made quite a few. We lost money on the Chromaton process, and we failed with the L-cassette (a large format audio cassette which would have created better sound than the quarter inch cassettes currently on the market). We also had to unite a number of companies to keep the Beta-max format alive. But the important thing is that these errors are human and natural; in the long run, they did not compromise the future of the company.
Akio Morita

I belong to the group of people who like their work, but who also like to play. I started tennis at 55, ski-ing at 60, and I started water ski-ing again at 64, but it hurts too much in the legs. I’ve been playing golf for 40 years, and I still love the game with my 16 handicap. Every Tuesday morning we have a director’s meeting in Tokyo, and when I’m in Japan I always try to attend. But I always go to the indoor tennis court first, next door to the office, and at 7 and 9 o’clock I play a few sets.
Akio Morita

Upgrading office furniture is not very important to Japanese management. Striving to obtain an office with a couch, a water foundation and an original work of art on the wall does not interest our executives.
Akio Morita

When an engineer or researcher has a well-defined goal, he or she works to achieve it. But if the goal is uncertain, and if the company or organization places a large sum of money at his or her disposal and says, ‘Go on! Invent something!’ then there is no guarantee of success.
Akio Morita

I have often compared American companies to constructions of brick, and Japanese ones to constructions of stone. The organization and running of American companies is based on pre-established planning where all tasks are clearly defined. To verify this, just look at the want-ads in any newspaper: the employers establish, for each job offer, a profile of the ideal candidate, and anyone who doesn’t fit, either because they aren’t good enough or because they’re too good, will be systematically eliminated. That’s why American companies are made of bricks: each element is made to measure, and must fit perfectly to the whole.
Akio Morita

The importance of accorded employees must be sincere, sometimes courageous, even reckless, with no hesitation to take risks. But in time – and time is very important – whatever your capacities are, whatever your successes, your shrewdness, your dexterity, the future of your business is in the hands of the people you have hired.
Akio Morita

People who find themselves heading a company not only have to know their business, but also their environment; they have to be able to take calculated risks based on their knowledge, and also based on what is called the ‘sixth sense’. I hope the readers will not find me too vain when I remind them that it was my intuition that convinced me the Walkman would be a great success, and in a published article I expressed my conviction despite the scepticism my idea was met with. In it I said… ‘If we haven’t sold 100,000 Walkmans from now to the end of the year, I will resign from my position as President of the company.’ I had no intention of resigning, obviously; but I just knew that this device would be a success.
Akio Morita

The first task of a company director is to make decisions. This requires the right professional qualifications, solid technical knowledge and a feel for where technology is going. A company director, in my opinion, should have wide general knowledge in addition to his professional background. This is indispensable for sharpening that particular gift, the fruit of knowledge and experience – a business sense which goes beyond numbers alone – I’m talking about intuition, the privilege of human beings alone.
Akio Morita



What you should show your employees is not the great artist you are, balancing on a tightrope, but the part of you that is capable of attracting the greatest number of people, and instilling in them the desire to follow you with enthusiasm and contribute to the success of the enterprise. When you get results like these, the last in line follow the lead of those in front.
Akio Morita

I don’t like managing personnel to think they belong to some kind of special species favoured by the gods, in charge of guiding stupid people towards a kind of miraculous revelation which will confirm certain peculiarities in the business world.
Akio Morita

American management is not interested enough in its workers.
Akio Morita

The qualities of a good manager consist of being able to organize the activities of a large number of individuals, and meld them together so that their efforts are well co-ordinated.
Akio Morita

What industry has taught us in terms of relations with people is that they don’t work just to make money; if you want to motivate them, money is not the best means. To motivate people, you have to make them feel part of a family and treat them with the respect due to members of a family.
Akio Morita

I discovered very quickly that in Western countries, employers would get rid of some personnel when a recession seemed imminent. It was a shock to me, because in Japan we never do this, unless we are completely desperate. If the administration takes the risk and responsibility of hiring personnel, then it also assumes responsibility for giving them work. It’s not the employee who is responsible for this agreement. Also, when there is a recession, why should the personnel suffer because of a decision made by the administration who gave them a job? That’s my point of view. That’s why, in periods of prosperity, we increase the number of our employees with great prudence. Once hired, we try to make them understand our idea of ‘shared destiny’ and our intention, if the business has to deal with a recession, to give up certain benefits so that they stay with us.
Akio Morita

I must state that high-level executives are not subject to forced retirement; a number of them continue to fulfil their functions right up to the age of 70 or 75.
Akio Morita

At school, if you pass the exam and get twenty out of twenty, that’s perfect. But if you forget one word on you paper, you get zero. In the business world, you have exams every day. You don’t get a twenty, but millions of points, or sometimes only ten. But if you make a mistake, it’s not a zero you get. A mistake always means a minus something.
Akio Morita

There is no secret ingredient, no cabalistic formula that can explain the success of the most prosperous Japanese companies. No theory, no plan, no system of government can assure the success of an enterprise. Only people can do that. The most important task of a Japanese company leader – any company – is to establish sane relations with the personnel, to give them the feeling of belonging to a family in which each member, worker and executive, has a common interest in the future.
Akio Morita

Don’t forget that the people you’re selling to are as egotistical as you are. They don’t care a hoot about you or your interests or what would benefit you. What they’re looking for is service.
Akio Morita



If a Japanese client is called to the office of a new company and finds luxurious surroundings, spacious private offices etc. he asks himself if this company is serious, since it spent so much money on its own appearance and not enough on the products it manufactures.
Akio Morita

Comparatively speaking, Japanese business leaders seem to possess a kind of Oriental sixth sense. Instead of juxtaposing facts, they look at an idea from a holistic point of view, and relay this information to their sixth sense in order to decide on a course of action. So they have a better grasp of the situation than someone who sees it only in parts.
Akio Morita

At home, I have five telephone lines, two of which are for my personal use. I also have special lines in our Hawaii apartment, in the Museum Tower I New York, and in our country house at Lake Ashi, near Fuji Yama.
Akio Morita

I stopped counting my voyages across the Pacific long ago, but not because it’s as tiring as you may think. You see, in a plane I sleep marvellously well. I just have to wrap myself in a blanket, and I rest better than in any hotel room. People ask for my secret. Well, I carry a box of sushi with me – and I drink a small bottle of saki. Then I pull the blanket around me, after asking the stewardess not to wake me up for the meals or drinks, and especially not for the films. Then I fall into a deep sleep…
Akio Morita

When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for the job, I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.
Akio Morita

We in the free world can do great things. We proved it in Japan by changing the image of ‘made in Japan’ from something shoddy to something fine.
Akio Morita

Management of an industrial company must be giving targets to the engineers constantly… that may be the most important job management has in dealing with its engineers.
Akio Morita

Machines and computers cannot be creative in themselves, because creativity requires something more than the processing of existing information. It requires human thought, spontaneous intuition and a lot of courage.
Akio Morita

I’ve always dreamed of owning a Hollywood film studio.
Akio Morita

If you don’t want Japan to buy it, don’t sell it.
Akio Morita



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