Mini-Company
Contents
Overview..................................................................................................................... 1
What is a mini-company?........................................................................................... 1
What is the aim of the mini-company?...................................................................... 1
How does mini-company work?................................................................................. 2
What is a bankers’ meeting?..................................................................................... 2
How do we implement mini-company?....................................................................... 2
What are the main hurdles for the
successful implementation?.............................. 2
What other hurdles are there?................................................................................... 2
How important is it to write the
mini-company annual report?................................ 2
What is glass wall management?............................................................................... 3
How does mini-company help with executing policy
management?......................... 3
What is organizational enlightenment?..................................................................... 3
How does mini-company management relate
to managing my life?........................ 3
Why discuss the subject of heart in business?.......................................................... 3
* Note: To get a clearer picture, please read the book,
"Results from the Heart - How Mini-Company Management Captures Everyone’s
Talents and Helps Them Find Meaning and Purpose at Work" published by The
Free Press. Good luck on your journey! -- Kio
Suzaki (
Many people think of work as a way to make a living rather
than as a way to express themselves.
Addressing this is a new paradigm called the "mini-company."
In this concept, a company is divided into small parts where employees become
presidents of their
own areas of responsibility. Although finding
the meaning in our endeavors should be considered as desirable and right, commitment
coming from the heart is most essential to discover this as reality.
Mini-company is a name given to any unit of an organization
where each person there is viewed as the president of his or her own unit. Therefore, each mini-company has its
customers, suppliers, bankers (bosses), and employees. These may include people within the company or
those outside. This structure is
referred to as
The aim is for each of us to demonstrate initiative and utilize our talent fully in conducting our work. We come to work to use our talents and unleash our creativity rather than just following instructions and making a living. Also, since everybody is a customer and at the same time a supplier to others, practicing this idea brings the benefit for all.
If you are a manager or a supervisor, for example, you are considered the president of your mini-company. You define the mission and clarify who functions as your bankers, customers, suppliers, and employees. To accomplish the mission, you set objectives and develop business plans to accomplish them. Then, you communicate these with key stakeholders so that your approach is in harmony with others around you. Of course, the progress should be shared with them regularly.
A bankers’ meeting is the forum where the mini-company
president shares the progress of its operation with the bosses (bankers). The mini-company president may respond to
such questions as: What is going on in the business? What is good, bad and why? What needs to be done to improve the
situation? By exchanging information in
an organized manner, bankers will gain the first-hand knowledge of the
business. On the other hand, bankers
should provide guidance and necessary resources for the success of the mini-company.
Mini-company works from a needs driven approach. Whoever has the pain should take the initiative to address the problem. Problems are seen as opportunities for betterment. If you ask someone else to implement mini-company idea for you, it will not work. It is tied to self-management. It is ultimately a question of self-mastery. Whatever situation we may find ourselves in, we are to express who we are, and what we can do.
We need to develop various skills as uncertainties are everywhere. Yet, the ultimate hurdle is mastering one's self and refusing to give up what our heart tells us. To do this, we need to know ourselves. If our mind is distracted or confused, we cannot make good decisions, and be creative and compassionate. In other words, to develop a successful mini-company, we need to have a calm, balanced state of mind. If we are greedy, biased, and our mind behaving negatively, we will fail at the start line.
I discussed the comprehensive framework of running a mini-company in detail in the book, Results from the Heart. By asking, "So what?" "Why?" "What is the main point?" etc., we can clarify issues to be addressed. This is to using our brain. Of course, we need to listen to the heart, and to live with the mission to become the master of our own destiny.
To use an analogy, the annual report of mini-company is like developing a base camp in the process of climbing up the mountain. It provides clarity to reflect on what happened, the lessons learned, and what we need to work on. I think any organization needs to have a rhythm - like a heart beat - to keep it moving. Writing an annual report is like looking at ourselves in the mirror.
The idea of glass wall management is to make our workplace comprehensive - even to strangers. Whatever is important, we make it clearly visible as in displaying charts. If we share the progress across the company without barriers, then the people with initiative can provide a better check and balance. This often helps to develop the self-organizing process among mini-companies, thus creating the momentum for growth.
Policy management aims to utilize company resources in coming up with strategy and executing it effectively. Since needs are often felt at the front line of the company and that proper execution depends on people’s capability, it is recommended to implement mini-company throughout the company to execute policy management. If mini-company is functioning harmoniously, the practice of policy management should be realized by itself.
When every individual in the company is interested in the job to express what they can, and there is a comprehensive mechanism to share the essential information across the organization, self-organizing process can take place to unleash the human potential. In such a situation, everybody is helping others while being helped by others at the same time. As in the play of well-trained soccer team, such organization can produce a magic that can be only called organizational enlightenment.
The essence of mini-company is to use the brain, listen to the heart, and live with the mission. Whether managing a mini-company or managing our life's activity, the idea is essentially the same. We are to use the brain without becoming the slave of negative thought or unproductive mind habit. We are to develop a quiet, unbiased mind to see things as they are without greed or fear. Patiently, we then listen to the heart. By practicing this repeatedly, we find the passage to move on and to live with the mission.
If we work simply to make a living, we are missing out a lot. Rather, we can utilize our talents if we put our mind to it. If we are controlled by money, fame, or pride to boost our ego, the time and energy we put into work is too precious. There is something much more essential. Each of us needs to discover just what that is because it is inextricably linked to how we conduct our life. It is beyond the conventional reasoning or our confined mind habit.
* FYI:
My home page is: http://www.oocities.org/suzakico/