Breaking with “the main business” and with dependence on the chairman (1991)

What it means for a charismatic founder to let go of the centre

The striking thing about this reform is that it was carried out not because results had deteriorated but at the summit of twenty-eight consecutive years of rising sales and profit. The pillar of earnings, and the founder who had driven that business almost single-handed — while the company could still lean on both, it deliberately rebuilt itself so that it could not. As chairman Iida put it, he meant “to make my own management progressively thinner”: this was a decision pointed not toward concentrating authority but toward deliberately diluting it. It can be read as a strong founder’s attempt to lower his own influence by institutional means.

That said, in a company whose core business is overwhelmingly strong, treating new ventures as equals is a constant fight against gravity. So long as security remains the magic mallet, resources and talent are pulled back toward it. The large-company disease Iida feared — an atmosphere that avoids risk and settles into the core business — does not vanish merely because a decentralised structure has been prepared. How far the order to break with dependence on the chairman actually changed the character of the organisation is an open question; for any company with a thriving core business facing the problem of diversification, this reform stands as one experiment.