“Otherness” is both an adversity and an opportunity

In keeping with the lessons to be drawn from the fable ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ administrators of an organization need to lend their ears to those who disagree with them. This is vital for the flow of new ideas and innovation, and for weeding out serious indiscretions. In this VUCA age, leaders must accept ideas, including criticism, when deciding on a clear course of action and vision for their organization.

Hirai mentions in his book, Sony Saisei (Revitalizing Sony: Achieving change through a typical leadership, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 2021), that he welcomed ideas for management that contradicted his own, describing these as iken (異見), a concept formed by combining characters that stand for different (i), and view (ken). His experience with otherness can be traced back to his childhood.

“I followed my father to different posts overseas in the U.S. and Canada. Always the odd one out, I was the Japanese boy struggling with his English wherever I went. Back in Japan, I felt misunderstood all over again, when my teacher scolded me for handing in a week’s worth of homework all at once. This was what we did at my previous school in the U.S., but the reaction was, “You are not in America!” I was an outcast in my own country.

The ICU community values diversity
A campus designed to facilitate encounters with “otherness”

At ICU, each student has a kind of homebase. It could be the spacious lawn in front of the University Hall or the library for some, from which they would go off to class or to extracurricular activities. For Hirai, it was the Diffendorfer Memorial Hall, or D-Kan, in ICU parlance.

Completed in 1958, the D-Kan (presently Diffendorfer Memorial Hall East Wing) was designed by architect William Merrell Vories. As the first student hall built in Japan, it houses the auditorium and student club rooms to this day, serving as a hub for recreational activities. Takeuchi graduated in 1969 and Hirai in 1984, so their college experiences did not overlap, but they share fond memories of the building.

Hirai reminisced, “I had fun talking with people I wouldn’t have met had I not taken a break in the D-kan between classes. It would be small talk about nothing in particular or something serious. I was commuting from home, so meeting students who lived in the dorms and those involved in theatrical or musical activities meant a lot to me.” It was as though I was involved in an endless succession of new encounters with “otherness.”

You need your own opinion to survive the 70-minute classes: Psychological security assures student independence

ICU offers plenty of space where “otherness” can take place. The classrooms are a good example. Small classes have been a tradition at ICU since the founding days, with a full-time faculty to student ratio of 1 to 18 as of October 1, 2022. Most courses offer fully interactive sessions, with discussion between faculty and classmates a norm in class, rather than the professor lecturing to a large number of students. This exchange helps sort out your own thinking and cultivates the ability to communicate your ideas.

Hirai does not recall courses with just the professor lecturing. The emphasis on dialogue meant that students were required to think on their own and express their ideas throughout the 70-minute sessions.

Takeuchi pointed out, “This is similar to the way children are brought up in American homes. When the family sits around the table to dine, the events of the day will be discussed after grace is offered. The parents will ask the children what their thoughts are on a certain topic. This ‘What do you think?’ culture is also grounded at ICU, enticing students to think and express their own opinions all the time.”

Students also learn ways how to handle others’ opinions. The premise is to listen intently to what your counterpart is saying, even if you disagree. The mindset required here is not rejecting something because you differ, but understanding it.

Shin-zen-bi (Truth - Goodness – Beauty) and liberal arts
Universal human competencies that shed light on the VUCA world

So far, this dialogue has delved into the importance of an exceptional community and psychological security in realizing dialogue for proactive learning. In this part of the discussion, they talked about how this type of learning helps us navigate life.

Hirai said, “One of the things I learned during the four years at ICU is that a leader must be a person of integrity. There are diverse leadership theories founded on different cultures around the world, but integrity is a universally indispensable factor.”

He then said, “What I repeatedly convey to others is that leaders must first be worthy of respect, before they engage with managerial strategies. Regardless of size, all organizations have individuals at their root. To be held in high esteem by most in the organization is a prerequisite for a leader.”
The values expected in a respected individual can be encapsulated in the characters shin (truth), zen (goodness), and bi (beauty). They epitomize the qualities universally valued in a fully cultivated person, and also relate to the learning in liberal arts at ICU.

Hirai’s potential from the perspective of shin-zen-bi in taking the helm at Sony was developed to the fullest when he adopted KANDO (emotional experience) as the direction for his company, and this was conveyed to employees around the world. Use of the Japanese word, not its English translation, was intentional, the roman characters giving everyone room to think. He flew around the world visiting hubs for town hall meetings to convey his message. KANDO is a fruit of Hirai’s experiences and management philosophy in shin-zen-bi.

We live in a VUCA age, with the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is apparent that we need dialogue and proactive innovation to live out these times, bracing ourselves in shin-zen-bi resourcefulness to discern a direction for the common good.

The international character of ICU plays an important role in developing the personality of its students.

Hirai said, “At ICU we developed a keen interest for geopolitics and the UN, which were topics we discussed often. As an international law major, I was naturally interested in how countries maintained mutual peace. Many students shared the hope of making the world a better place through peaceful interaction on a global scale.”