The Honda Myth: The Genius And His Wake

Many would have mistaken the Japanese car maker, Honda as founded by one person. Perhaps, it was even succeeded by Honda’s pure blood lineage. 476 pages later, not only I discovered that was untrue, in fact, it was a total opposite. I also felt as though I’ve just finished one of the world’s most interesting automotive sagas. If anything, I think this book – The Honda Myth: The Genius and His Wake, shed immense light unto the true DNA that runs in the blood of this young Japanese maverick. Be warned. This book is no bedtime story (certainly took awhile to digest) but it certainly is one of the better translated books around. I’ve personally found Japanese translated English books a little woozy at times because sometimes the words may be clearly deciphered but the nuance is simply lost, leaving a lot of fluff in between two covers. Well, in this case, I must say Masaaki Sato who is a renowned automotive and business journalist, himself, did a great job in maintaining the momentum which leads to a perfect climax in narrating the golden history of not just Honda but also the circumference of the entire automotive industry up to recent times.

First of all, Honda does not condone hiring family members simply because it isn’t a family business to begin with. If at all, its family consists of all employees and shareholders. Secondly, contrary to popular myth, Honda was founded by two legends with poles-apart-personalities. Soichiro Honda was a highly meticulous engineer who could build anything if only he could see it once while Takeo Fujisawa was the shrewd businessman whose management skills and strategies reverberated through the decades, both making Honda a grand exemplar of a Japanese automotive empire. Because of them, the early Honda was a company which strived on differences and thus was born the practice of waigaya, a closed informal discussion of anything and everything amongst executive directors with concern to Honda’s every step whether it was an internal or external issue, in engineering technology or business strategy. In this way, I could see why Honda was deemed as a unique automaker right from the beginning. It wasn’t just about cars. It was a cult – the Hondaism, the corporate belief that they are not here to sell cars but dreams. The notion of ‘We are not drivers but believers’ really stemmed from the fact that Honda started out as a dream to conquer racetracks because it was racing that inspired continuous product and corporate advancement which automatically generated publicity. Such was Honda and Fujisawa’s unique management style which was dubbed the way of Honda. Although each had their own area of expertise which boundaries were clearly respected respectively, they also had the courage to admit each other’s shortcomings and lean on the other for advice and know-how. In today’s world where autocratic capitalism and dictatorship rule, I’m not so sure if such management style still prevails.
What I found highly captivating about this book is the highlights of both Honda and Fujisawa’s management ideals which can be priceless lessons to any business managers. The list is endless but the few which really stood out (and which I think Sparks can learn from) are:

1) When you achieve a great milestone, it should help you to churn higher quality products and not the excuse to command a higher price tag – although I’ve only spent a measly 6 years in business and communications, this line appears to be a real myth to me. The trap of successful businesses has always been (and will always be) greed. That is when executives decide to compromise quality in an attempt to decrease production cost to subsequently improve margins or simply to jack up the price with a famous brand name but with no real substance. However, in the case of Honda, following the above direction set by Takeo Fujisawa, Soichiro Honda with his team of engineers subsequently invented the CVCC technology which encompassed a great 230 patents in Japan and abroad, with design specifications and engineering know-how that has even the most powerful makers (GM, Ford, even Toyota) to come begging for knowledge impartment. This to me is a clear sign that when you concentrate on your passion and what you do best, the mechanism of the universe will somehow miraculously click in your favour.

2) Honda believes in sangen-shugi which translates to The Three Actualities, which is the principle of going to the actual site for firsthand knowledge, focusing on the actual situation with firsthand understanding and making decisions based on actual facts which are prevalent at that moment. A lot of big corporations I know tend to skip any one of these three steps citing lack of time or manpower as a reason. This really reminds me to keep focus on the essence of Sparks and its ethnography work because understanding comes from finding out what’s really happening out there in people’s life instead of relying too much on impersonal data.

3) When you’re in the slumps, sometimes you’ll be forced to make important and strategic decisions all at once such as to increase cash flow, upgrade production and pump up the company morale – All. At. Once. Honda’s advice would be, “When things are at its worse, you need to project the highest and by hook or by crook achieve it” which to me is quite true. When things are at an all time low, the only way is up. The question becomes how high do we aim for?

4) Honda is committed to producing the finest people and needless to say only the finest people will get poached, which is how Hondaism, like a virus will infect the world. Talk about guerilla tactics.

Honda has a tradition to choose those who do not seek to lead, to lead. After the reign of Honda and Fujisawa, there were a string of successors who sought their advice from time to time on many corporate related issues. Both ‘masters’ took the time to plan and groom their successors; two to take after engineering genius Honda and business guru Fujisawa. The heritage of dual management continued until the reign of President Nobuhiko Kawamoto, who was also nicknamed ‘Hitler’ for obvious reasons. I can’t help but wonder where Honda would be today if the dual management style still exists. The one person whom I felt was highly overshadowed, a true gem within the rubble was Shoichiro Irimajiri. He was the person who oversaw the building and first production line of American Honda, which is also the first Japanese automotive production on American soil. Dubbed as the ‘Prince of Honda’ by many, I can’t help but muster great respect for Irimajiri because of his undying passion to be part of the automotive industry even after being forced to leave the company. As a boy, he was first inspired to build planes but due to unfavorable circumstances of post World War 2, he decided to channel all of him into auto-racing instead. And because of this enduring flame in him, he’s still committed to lighting dreams by giving lectures to science and technology students whom he hopes one day will continue the legacy of what Honda is all about, which is to show the world that it can be the world’s greatest car maker not just on civilian’s road but on every racetrack as well. Such is the power of dreams.