音元出版会長 和田光征の「巻頭言」2019年8月：松下幸之助、中村天風らの名著は、今なお輝きをはなち私自身の魂となっている

私を導いた名著

私が小社に就職したのは、1968年4月だった。編集の仕事をしたくて職安に日参したが、九州の山深い山村から11人家族の3男である私は、経済的事情で高校にも行けない状況だったが、東京の千代田区に就職したいと小学校5年生の頃から夢見ていた。当時のラジオからは「東京の人よさようなら（島倉千代子）」、「夕焼けとんび（三橋美智也）」、「東京の人（三浦洸一）」などが流れていた。

中学卒業が近づいた頃、父が「高校くらいは行け」などと言う。「お父さん、遅すぎる」と私は言った。父は「どっかあるだろう」と言って、農業高校の分校に入れてくれた。要は行きたければ誰でも行けた高校であった。優等生はほとんどが別の進学校に行っていたので、幸いに成績は1年生で1番。そして2年生から奨学資金が私1人に出て月謝なしで卒業し、今度は東京に行って働きながら夜間大学に通うこととなった。

しかし、親からの仕送りはゼロ。寮のある工場で働きはじめ、千代田区の専修大学に受験料1回の条件で受け、運良く入ることができた。

経営学の授業の時に教授が「松下幸之助は何も分かっていない。学校にも行っていない」と言った。面白いことに私は「商売心得帳」を神田の本屋街で入手し、じっくり読んで感激していた。そんな時の教授の話は何故か憤りとなっていて、大学を辞めてしまった。経済事情で生活できないのが本音ではあったが。

そこで好きな編集職を職安で探したが全く駄目で、相手にもされない。その時壁にあるB5サイズの求人広告を見つけ、千代田区湯島の会社へ連絡をした。夕方電報が来て「アスカラデヨ」と書かれていた。まずは行ってみようと赴くと、古い建物で2階は電子学園でトイレが1階。いつも臭う感じだったが、田舎者には何も感じないから幸いである。

面接官は岩間正次社長。「キミは高卒だね」が第一声であり、やっぱり駄目かと思っていたら「明日から9時始業だからな」。ドア越しに部屋を覗いたら、美人でおとなしい女性がいた。その後何かとお世話になる、やさしい素敵な奥様である。

この会社に来て即役立ったのは、松下幸之助の書物であった。私は「商売心得帳」がお気に入りで座右の銘にしていたし、私自身の人間形成にも仕事にも役立ち心から感謝したものである。お客様第一主義、そして深い愛情とお客様に対するたゆまぬ努力であり、その教えはいつしか私の血肉に変わっていった。

この本のおかげで仕事はベテランもどきと言えたし、また日頃、少年の頃から学んだ「人間学」がミックスされ、人間形成が面白いようにできた。感謝の心、人を大切にする心づくりがいつしか自分のものになっていき、楽しい東京生活となっていったわけである。

随分と後になるが、1990年私は病気になって入院療養をしていた。スカウトのような話を蹴り、行動することから、本当に多くの方々からお見舞いに来ていただいた。ヤマハの地引孝之部長から一冊の本をいただき、感謝をこめ心から御礼をしながら定価を見て驚いた。12,500円であった。

その本は中村天風著「成功の実現」、私はさっそく読み始めた。強烈な印象と思いがかけ回り、以後私は中村天風師の大ファンになる。その教えはまさに運命の出会いのようであり、私の生き様を完全に変えた。後日私は地引さんに電話で感謝を述べ「これで元気になります、間違いなく。またゴルフをやりましょう」と言った。

いつしか天風師のとりこになってしまったが、自分が大変にスケールアップできたと思っている。同時に片時も離せない黄金の一冊となった。「積極的しか勝てない」が素晴らしい。30年前のこの本を宝に、今も楽しんでいる。

そして、「ランチェスター法則入門」田岡信夫著。ランチェスター法則とは、戦いの勝ち方に関した基本的な法則である。当時NEBAはもとより各企業間でシェア競争が盛んで、その内容は私にとって興味が尽きないし、記事を書くためにも命となった。「強者と弱者の戦略の違い」「局地戦」「確立戦」「攻撃とは一騎打ちで最も効果を発揮するということ」「敵とどのように差別するか」「勝ち負けとは力関係によって決まるルール」があって、しっかり読んで地方出張に行ったものである。

カール・マルクスとフリードリッヒ・エンゲルス著の「共産党宣言」。この本は様々な批判もあるが、私が読んだのは革命を考え、そして革命が成功するまでを研究したものと勝手に解釈した。近代で語られ普及していったマーケティングの本を読むに際して、そのプロセスはかなりこの本の中にあるな、と私は思っていた。マーケティングブームの走りはこの本かもしれないと、私は今でも思っている。

「団塊の世代」堺屋太一著。この本ほど、日本において絶大な風を起こしたものはないであろう。小学校時代、私たちは1列だったが、昭和22~24年に生まれた世代は3列だった。この巨大な集団を織り込んでのマーケティングはすべての業界で確立され、その中から新しいライフスタイル、商品群が花開き、文化を築き上げていく。いわゆるわがオーディオ業界への貢献は測り知れないものがあり、豊かな時代を楽しめた。

そして今、こうしたブームが去った後のマーケティング考察は様々にできるが、花が先端のある部分に開いているのが今の時代である。しかし、お客様を縦社会的に結ぶ手もあるが、だんだん今までのような物質文明はセグメントされ、全体で捕まえにくい。

以上、特に私を導いてくれ、私自身の魂となっている本をあげたが、いかがだったであろうか。

（以下は、文中に登場し筆者が今も所有する書物）


ENGLISH
My Guiding Lights

It was in April 1968 that I entered this company. I had been going to the public employment security office daily in my search for a job in editing, but to no avail. After all, I was the third boy in a family of 11 that lived in a village deep in the mountains in Kyushu, and for economic reasons I had not gone to a normal senior high school. But ever since about the fifth grade in elementary school, it had been my dream to work in Tokyo’s Chiyoda-ku. At that time, I remember hearing songs like “Tokyo no hito yo sayonara” (“Farewell, the people of Tokyo”) by Chiyoko Shimakura, “Yuyake tonbi” (“Evening hawk”) by Michiya Mihashi, and “Tokyo no hito” (“The people of Tokyo”) by Koichi Miura.

When my graduation from junior high school was approaching, my father told me that I should at least go to senior high school, but I replied “Dad, it’s too late now.” “There must be somewhere,” he replied, and I ended up entering a branch of an agricultural high school. In other words, I went to a senior high school that any Tom, Dick, or Harry could go to. All the bright kids had gone to other senior high schools where the curriculum was oriented toward university entrance, so, luckily, I came top in the first year and from the second year was the only student to receive a scholarship. So I was able to graduate without having to pay tuition fees. After graduation, I moved to Tokyo, where I worked in the daytime and attended evening classes at university.

I didn’t receive any financial assistance from my parents, so I began working in a factory that had a dormitory, and fortunately I managed to enter Senshu University in Chiyoda-ku at the first attempt. I had taken the entrance exam on condition that I would only have one try, because we couldn’t afford the entrance exam fees.

During a business management class at the university, the professor said, “Konosuke Matsushita doesn’t understand anything. He didn’t go to school.” By coincidence, I had bought Matsushita’s Shobai kokoroecho (later translated as Not for Bread Alone) at a bookshop in Kanda and, after carefully reading it, had been most impressed, so I was very annoyed by the professor’s remark. I ended up quitting university—though the real reason, of course, was not so much that professor as the dire straits I was in financially.

I searched for editorial work at the public employment office, but, as I said, to no avail. I wasn’t even given a chance. But then I noticed a B5-sized ad for a job vacancy pinned on the wall, and I contacted the company, which was located in Yushima in Chiyoda-ku. In the evening a telegram came with the message, “Come tomorrow.” When I went along, I found the office on the second floor of an old building with a toilet on the first floor. It was smelly, but fortunately, being from the countryside, I didn’t mind.

My interviewer was Masatsugu Iwama, the president of the company. He greeted me by saying, “You’re a senior high school graduate, then?” Here we go again, I thought. But just when I was expecting a rejection, he said, “You begin at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning.” When I glanced through the door into the office, I noticed a very attractive, mild-looking woman. It was the president’s pretty and gentle wife, to whom I was to be most beholden in the future.

After entering the company, I found Matsushita’s book to be immediately useful. I liked Shobai kokoroecho very much and considered it to be my bible. It played a role in both my own character formation and my work, so I was sincerely grateful. In no time, his ideas about the customer-first principle and tireless efforts to serve the customer with deep affection became part of my own fabric.

Thanks to that book, I was able to work like a veteran. And mixed with what I had learned about humankind from my childhood days, it helped build my own character well. I myself came to have a spirit of gratitude and to place importance on people, which in turn enabled me to enjoy my life in Tokyo.

Fast forward to 1990, when I fell sick and had to go into hospital. Since I had rejected offers to move and stayed at the same company, lots of people came to visit me. One of them was Mr. Noriyuki Jibiki, a department head at Yamaha, who gave me a book. I expressed my gratitude, thanked him, and then was amazed when I saw the price—12,500 yen!

The book was Seiko no jitsugen (The Realization of Success) by Tempu Nakamura. I began reading it immediately and was so strongly impressed that I became a big fan of the author. His teachings really were like an encounter with destiny and changed my life completely. A few days later I called Mr. Jibiki on the phone to thank him again and added, “Without a doubt I’m feeling better already. Let’s play golf together again!”

Before I knew it, I had become a disciple of Nakamura, but I think personally I was able to scale up the ladder a lot as a result. At the same time, the book became a treasure for me, and I couldn’t put it down even for a moment. The advice that you cannot win without a positive attitude was wonderful. I still enjoy reading that book, my treasure of 30 years ago.
Another book that was a guiding light for me was Nobuo Taoka’s Ranchesuta hosoku nyumon (Lanchester Strategy: An Introduction). The Lanchester Strategy is the basic laws related to winning battles. At that time competition for market share among the members of the Nippon Electric Big-Stores Association (NEBA) and other companies was heated, so I found the content of the book exceptionally interesting and a lifeline for writing articles. There were sections on the differences in strategy of the strong and the weak, local strategy, probability strategy, how single attacks were a most effective means of offensive, how to distinguish yourself from the enemy, and rules for deciding winners and losers through power relations. I read that book thoroughly before going on business trips to the regions.

And then there was The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. That book has been criticized a lot, but when I read it, I thought about revolutions and interpreted it in my own way as a study of how to succeed in revolutions. When you look at books on marketing that have been popular in modern times, I think you will find that the process is covered to a considerable extent in that book. I still believe that the origins of marketing may perhaps lie in The Communist Manifesto.

And finally, Dankai no sedai (The Baby-Boom Generation) by Taichi Sakaiya. There is probably no other book that has created such an enormous stir in Japan. In my elementary school days, the members of my class formed just a single row. When they entered elementary school, a class of children born in 1947–49 formed three rows. Marketing that targeted this huge generation became established in all industries, and new lifestyles, new products, and new cultures took shape. Their contribution to the audio industry was immeasurable, and we enjoyed a period of affluence.

Today, with the passing of this boom, there are various ways of thinking about marketing, but I think we are in an age in which the flowers are blossoming in the vanguard parts. There is also an approach that sees customers as members of the vertical society, but material civilization is gradually becoming segmented, and it is increasingly difficult to see the whole.

Anyway, those are the books that have especially guided me through my life and become my heart and soul. I hope you enjoyed reading about them.
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I still have these treasured books on my shelves: Konosuke Matsushita’s Shobai kokoroecho (later translated as Not for Bread Alone) and Tempu Nakamura’s Seiko no jitsugen (The Realization of Success).