As the president leading the MACK Group, what are your expectations for your employees? 

Our group started as a tax accounting firm, and we have been involved with many companies. I felt that all of the managers were “struggling with management problems” rather than tax matters. 

　　Through reading books and talking with consultants, I came to the conclusion that management problems are people problems. 

　There are two types of companies: those that can be called “organizations” and those that are nothing more than “crowds. The difference between the two is whether all employees have a clear understanding of the landing point set by the leader, that is, the goal of management, and whether each of them thinks about “what they should do” toward that goal and acts accordingly, or not. 

So each employee needs to think for himself/herself. How should we coach employees to think for themselves? 

The major management responsibility of the president is to train subordinates. For this purpose, the president must learn four to five times more than the general managers. A yokozuna trains twice as much as an ozeki, and an ozeki trains twice as much as a hiramaku. The president is like the yokozuna of the company. Since he is in a position to provide guidance, he must be better than anyone else, no matter what he is asked to do. 

　When you train many employees, you realize that each person has a different level of thinking and understanding. This is not a problem with the person receiving the instruction, but with the instructor. If you don’t speak to each person according to his or her ability to understand, what you really want to teach will be “lost” in the process. You have to think about each person and how they can understand what you are trying to teach. Teaching is learning. I have been a manager for 40 years, and I have learned a lot from my employees. 

Will the business grow if the president continues to learn and lead his employees? 

Why does the president grow the business in the first place? It is because you only live once. It is not about how much money you make. It is about how to develop yourself. A business president who thinks that way can run a good business. You should not live a life that is a waste of time. You need to think about how to develop yourself and live valuably with the time you have. 

　Issai Sato wrote the following words in his book. 

If you learn in your youth, you will do in your prime. If you learn in your prime, you will not decline in old age.

If you learn in your old age, you will not decay in death. 

　If you learn when you are young, you will have something when you reach middle age. If you continue to learn in middle age, you will not decay; if you continue to learn in old age, your ideas will not die when you die. 

　There is so much in books that you do not know. You do not have to memorize everything you read. I want you to memorize just one line. 

By the way, I hear that MACK Group’s salary is 1.5 times higher than other companies in the same industry. What made you think so? 

Mr. Iizuka of TKC, whom I respect, said, “We should pay 1.2 times more than other companies in the same industry. Dr. Iizuka was also a person who valued “people. 

　People have their own lives. Therefore, salary must be paid in an amount that is sufficient to make a living. But we don’t know exactly how much that is. It varies from person to person. 

　What I have learned from my study is that 20% more than the average annual salary given by the IRS is not enough to be considered a high salary. If that is the case, then you should give 50% or 60% more. 

From my own experience, a salary structure that makes workers unhappy is not good. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and think about things. When I thought about what kind of salary is appropriate for me, I came up with the idea of productivity. The best way to do this is to pay salaries that are commensurate with productivity. 

　Therefore, we calculate the productivity of each and every employee and pay them accordingly. 

You calculate salary based on productivity, not simply years of service. Don’t some employees say, “I’m working harder, so I should be paid more”? 

Of course, there are. For example, in the past, one employee once asked me to raise his salary. In such cases, I always ask the employee, “What is your reason for that?” The employee would reply, “I have trained Ms. XX and Ms. XX, and they have performed so much better than last year. They have improved their performance compared to last year.”  So I raised their salaries accordingly. 

　I know how productive each employee is, so I always tell them, “If you have any complaints about your salary, please come to me. 

　Then they will think about how they can increase their productivity and how they can convince me, because they want me to raise their salaries. 

So, you are giving your employees something to think about in terms of salary. 

Smart managers know what needs to be done, so they tell their employees what to do. But that is the same as being a puppet. It does not help the employees grow. Pascal said, “Man is a reed that thinks. 

　Thanks to each employee thinking and acting on his or her own, the company is able to run without me being in the workplace. A group where each individual can think and act individually, rather than waiting for the president’s instructions, will grow. 

When do you feel that your employees are growing? 

　When I can go home after working for a few hours.