As I mentioned in today’s lecture “Discovering the Mind,” insects and animals alike have emotions that parallel the human mind. As their I.Q. increase and they become “higher-class animals,” these creatures become one step closer to humans. With that said, any living body including insects, animals and humans have a fundamental tendency to protect their own lives.

While it’s not easy to classify good and evil, an “ethical answer” is easy. The good option is to protect yourself from danger; the bad option is one that destroys your body and gets you eaten or killed. It’s almost primal wisdom—wisdom required to live individually goes as such.

Let’s consider a living primitive man. It’s not a problem to kill its prey for food, but it’s not a surprise if the prey turned out to be stronger and killed the man.

Even someone like Yamato Takeru no Mikoto (Japanese prince of the Yamato dynasty) became burnt out during his final days in Mie and was killed by the god of mountains who transformed into a boar. You might think, ‘How can that happen?’ The truth is that depending on the opponent, a lack of defense can threaten your life.

Learning self-protection is the beginning of acquiring wisdom and differentiating between good and evil; however, there exists a clear difference between individual and societal ethics and wisdom.

Learning how to protect yourself doesn’t always work when applying it to a group setting. For example, an individual can wish to become a CEO, but a company with 10,000 employees obviously can’t produce 10,000 CEOs. The remaining work would be up for grabs.

There’s a process to be taken and in the end, a chosen, insightful one must declare the final judgment. Those that are “not there yet,” must remain satisfied with work they can actually handle.

 

“To Mete Out Just Punishment to Your Loved One”

As individuals, there are obviously times when you can’t completely protect yourself. As work increases in scale and thus difficulty, failures will arise. Escaping only to simple tasks might not lead to failures, but neither will they lead to success.

In this way, on a basic level, protecting yourself is good and losing without a fight is evil. However, on a large-scale level such as organizations, society, and nation, a more macro decision is necessary and one may need to act against one’s personal interests.

For instance, in the words of military advisor of Sichuan, Zhuge Liang, there are times when people have “to mete out just punishment to your loved ones.” To Liang, Ma-Su was fluent in military tactics, similar in passion, and he thought of him as an heir with a brother or fatherly appearance.

When Ma-Su invaded Southeast Asia, he accomplished many feats. However, Wei, on its north, was a strong opponent with his many powerful generals and strategists in addition to a territory five times the size of Sichuan. The young reckless Ma-Su closed off Liang’s advice and lost against Wei in the Battle of Jieting. The war definitively marked the overpowering of Wei and a huge loss has been accounted for Sichuan.

Wei had a hill known as Jieting and there is a thin road to the mountains in between, so Liang repeatedly advised to line up the soldiers along the road and afterwards sent a diagram to Ma-Su. When Deputy Want Pin sent a servant to show Liang the plan, Liang saw how the soldiers were lined up and immediately realized Ma-Su’s loss. Ma-Su’s strategy was too theoretical and idealistic.

Ma-Su believed that he could observe the enemies from atop the hill and crush the enemies by running down at once when they came. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu has stated that higher ground has advantage and to await enemies from a high position.

Liang believed that Ma-Su’s strategy had a major weakness because it allowed the enemies to block their water source.

Cutting off resources such as water can be fatal to a military. While Ma-Su believed that he could obtain water easily by going back down the hill, he was immediately surrounded by the military during the night on top of the hill.

There, Ma-Su fought desperately to obtain water during the night repeatedly but ended up losing. Liang regretted this battle as he was able to predict the results. Sichuann’s southern enemies were abnormal and did not use wisdom in their fights, making it easy for Ma-Su to win, but Wei was much different. This battle served as the turning point of the war between Wei and Sichuan.

When comparing it to the more recent World War II, the situation is similar to the time when Japan lost 4 aircraft carriers in an instant in the Midway War. Japan couldn’t win as a result of this. As the saying “to mete out just punishment to your loved one” goes, Liang afterwards executes his apprentice, Ma-Wei, and Liang himself was demoted from prime minister to general. This kind of action was necessary to maintain order.

 

To Depend or Not Depend…

Ignorance fails to inspire development. It’s certainly difficult to do, but I consider my capacity and depend on others when I’m past my limits.

“Should I depend on someone even though I can do it myself? Or should I proceed before I hand it over to another co-worker?” This line of judgment is blurred out. If you do the work yourself all the time, others will never improve and continue depending on you. On the other hand, if you completely give up, things may not go the way you wanted to. I believe it depends on your “business enlightenment” level.

If your opponent is a well-experienced commander, you may be crushed if you send a young ace. Someone who has experienced many battles understand that their crew will not last if their water supply route is cut. It’s second nature for them. An inexperience being may be quick to jump to the conclusion and stay at a higher elevation to grasp the upper hand (or so they think). It’s all experience.

Business enlightenment must have both strict and thoughtful sides. Even if your desire is to nurture people, you may fail by handing over all rights.

 

Judgment Standards Change

In bigger military and organizations, a proper methodology of rewards and punishments need to be established so that personal feelings don’t mix in, which would lead to its people steering away from the organization.

Even people like Konosuke Matsushita have stated in his book that it was more pleasant with less employees; I have had a similar experience. In my earlier times in Nishiogi right after starting Happy Science, there was delight in the midst of chaos because we did everything ourselves from scratch.

However, as Happy Science grew to the thousands and we moved to Kioi, we had to think about operating as an organization because we were responsible for the lives of the thousand employees. We became stricter, and increasingly had to make decisions based on right or wrong instead of looking at personal relations.

Judgment standards need to change based on the size. As individuals, one can have an optimistic mind and believe that everything will be okay; however, if a military were to be involved, for example, it can’t be assumed that victory is guaranteed. A hundred perfect victories would be impossible unless decisions are completely frictionless: dictating when to fight, retreat, divert, and move.

The laws of self-actualization and preservation are valid on a basic, individual level, but when many lives are put in your hands, one needs to overcome the natural personal interests and act to protect their organization, bureaucracy, or nation. Effort to balance these two needs to be developed as much as possible. When the organization becomes massive, freedom as an individual will be lost. Many people don’t understand this. They won’t until they are put in this position.

 

The Final Step Feels Like Praying

Konosuke stated that there are managers and businessman who can lead around a thousand people. However, when this number reaches tens of thousands, it would be beyond their expertise.

Even Konosuke couldn’t use tens of thousands of people so he prays that his people work hard so that the company doesn’t go bankrupt––humorously, he had this prayer-like feeling towards his employees.

In small businesses and medium-sized enterprises, the CEO can speak up relatively easily to the company’s actions. However, as the number of employees rise to the tens of thousands, Konosuke had admitted that employees don’t move, even with praying feelings or orders.

I, as well, had received this feeling earlier on when I had two- to three-hundred staff members. They’d listen to my words, but each person has their own thoughts. They’d stick to their old habits and move on their own accord, so it was often difficult to fix this later on.

Even when pointing out their mistakes and leading them to self-reflection, people who have succeeded in this world or have self-confidence in the field have much pride. When this pride is broken, their motivation would be lost. This motivation needs to exist but when there is necessity for correcting errors, it is extremely difficult to try to persuade them to change their ideas. This too is difficult to understand without experience.

At the beginning things might go as you wish but as you move on it ceases to be this way until it reaches points of prayers. The organization is considerably big at this point. Like the military, there are points in the end when one has to pray for that kamikaze to blow.

Even when Heihachiro Togo fought with the Baltic fleet, he had no idea of knowing whether fighting sideways with the numerous cannons or advancing bow-forward was stronger unless it is actually implemented.

The sideways allows cannons on both sides to be used, and thus increases damaging capabilities, but it is easier for the enemy to hit them as well. Meanwhile, it is difficult to hit a vertical ship advancing forward, and to survive while the enemy can aim at the sides of the ship. It is an all-or-nothing tactic.

The result was a perfect game. The one who wished to annihilate every single ship won. In the true sense, there was a God-praying attitude in the end. Different factors such as teamwork, training, and daily progress had resulted in the victory.

 

Combination of Strengths and Weaknesses

People with a plethora of knowledge and experience often insist on sticking to their ways and don’t lend an ear to others. They believe that they are superior in their specialized field and ignore other’s opinions that they are too narrow-minded.

In business, it is common for people with contrasting strengths and weaknesses to pair up. In order to ensure the best decision, leaders often have advisors that can accommodate their flaws; however, because these people originally may have different beliefs and characteristics, they often confront each other and organizations end up with ineffective with incoherent leadership.

Elites think about this in their minds, but they don’t understand until they make a mistake themselves. The organization won’t grow when people with unusual strengths work together or when the two try to undermine each other’s weaknesses.

As a whole, utilizing strengths and correcting laws will grow the organization. In order to do this, people need to balance their self-preserving instincts vs. their desire to benefit the organization. In the end, this is the key.

When HR changes the leader of an organization, they tend to praise people with similar strengths as they may posess, and are unable to give proper judgment to those who excel in the field that the personnel struggle with. This always ends up happening.

For instance, the Japanese ministry consists of around 20 people, and there are leaders from different parties. They typically try to slow each other down and get rid of each other, even in the same party, by releasing scandals to the press. However, considering that they are in the same ministry, they are in some ways on the same boat. They often would act immorally outside, so it’s part politics to put them all together so that they would fight together against an enemy.

 

The Decision of Whether to Rely on Other People

These facts need to be understood for progress. As for myself, I try to think about what I can and can’t do and rely on others for the latter. This level of reliance is difficult to control.

It is often uncertain whether to let others take on responsibility or wait a little more until they grow. If one person does everything by themselves, the people around them will never grow and continuously rely upon them; meanwhile, things don’t go desirably if the person completely lets loose of the reign. Ultimately, being able to make this decision is similar to attaining enlightenment in the business field.

In addition, young talent sometimes can’t make up for experience, and going through numerous situations is necessary to get a broader perspective on events.

With these things in play, enlightenment as a businessman requires both strictness and tolerance. A delicate balance is necessary to effectively nurture the next leaders.

 

Abandon Greed, Ignite the Whole

Self-preservation is one type of wisdom, but it may interfere with a growing organization. Self-sacrifice is necessary—you need to acquire the mind of abandoning greed and igniting the majority. Give in on what must be given in because pointing out their Achilles’ heel does nothing. Please be careful.