Happy Science has, in a mere 20 odd years, become a religious organization that has members in over 100 nations worldwide. Furthermore, it has expanded its reach into politics, education, as well as the media. The head of this enterprise, Master Ryuho Okawa, is not only a religious leader, but also a first class business manager. Master Okawa advocates the “Study of Successful Business Management”, which consists of the essence of “Drucker’s Business Management”, which Master Okawa himself used to expand his enterprise.

Peter Drucker was amongst the greatest scholars of business administration in the 20th century, and people called him the “Father of Modern Management”. Master Okawa explained the core of his theories using specific examples.

“Hitler’s Failures” Provided a Hint to Drucker’s Management Theories

Master Okawa first explained the historical background, which gave birth to Drucker’s business management.

Before Drucker began researching business management, he was studying totalitarianism and fascism. He saw the dangers of Nazism before the party came to power, and he waved the red flag in his book “The End of the Economic Man”. After moving to America, to escape the Nazis, he constructed his theories on business with the intent of “creating prosperous corporations as a bulwark against fascism”. Drucker explained this point himself.

In his speech, Master Okawa offered a new interpretation on the relationship between Drucker’s management and Hitler’s rise:

“Drucker understood that ‘a studied individual can be found, but a genius is hard to come by. If a genius is available, that’s great, but if that genius reaches the limits of his ability, then the organization will fail'”

As a military genius, Hitler expanded his territory. But as he stretched his lines, there inevitably appeared locations where his attention could not reach. When that time came, the organization that relied on his genius failed, and hence Germany lost the war.

It is highly likely that at the core of Drucker’s ideas laid keen insights into many aspects of Nazi Germany’s management failures.

Master Okawa also explained the limits of organizations that relied on geniuses with illustrations from the lives of Napoleon and Oda Nobunaga.

Win through “Strategy”, not through “Genius”

With that as a background, the characteristic of Drucker’s business management was “to create an organization through education and training”. In order to avoid the pitfalls of relying on a brilliant leader’s instincts and talents to determine victory or defeat in business, it was essential to define the parameters of work, to allow others to learn that work, and to cultivate managers. In that sense, Drucker’s management was an “Art of War” regarding how ordinary men could, through education, learn the virtues of good management without relying on geniuses.

Master Okawa described this method of fighting through organization and education without relying on geniuses “in one phrase ‘win because you’re meant to win'”. As an example, he explained how he created the organizational structure and the secretarial department for Happy Science. In addition, he explained how to create a “team dedicated to management” when building up an organization, as well as what to be mindful of when delegating managerial duties to others.

Furthermore, Master Okawa explained in detail the ideas behind “innovation” and “marketing”, which were two functions of Drucker’s business administration.

In terms of innovation, Master Okawa discussed the well-known idea on how “we tend to think of it in terms of ‘creating something new’, but that’s not the case. It is about eliminating the old”. In times when change comes quickly, a business leader must always think of new ways to do things. But the more people age, the more they become beholden to past successes, and are unable to change their ways of thinking. Subordinates imitate their leaders, so organizational structures reinforce their propensities to remain unchanged. It is, therefore, necessary to “eliminate” the old ways and means in order to move forward.

Master Okawa also brought up the idea of “combining the incoherent and different” as a means of innovating, and pointed out what managers should study and conduct research to make this possible. He provided several examples of how Happy Science has “eliminated the old” and has “combined the incoherent and different” in the past.

In describing marketing, he offered the often neglected point that the “objective of business is to create new customers”. Results always exist outside of the organization, and a business that focuses on internal management is meaningless.

There are critics within academia that do not give high regard to Drucker. Their criticism is that his ideas weren’t scientific or academic on grounds that he didn’t construct his theories on top of past research into the subject. However, he based his theories on research into many businesses that operated during his time, as well as his deep insights into the essence of why they succeeded or failed.

Also worthy of note is that many entrepreneurs have created large corporations and businesses based on Drucker’s business management theories.

Master Okawa formulated the essence of the “Study of Successful Business Management” after practicing Drucker’s theory on how to “win because you’re meant to win” for himself. There is no such thing as an “Art of War” that doesn’t aim for success. This “Study of Successful Business Management” is sure to become the “Modern Art of War”, which will provide direction to business managers and students who aim to become entrepreneurs one day.

 
In his lecture, Master Okawa also touched upon the following topics:

• Difference with Sadamu Ichikura’s Business Management
• The commonalities between the German High Command and Drucker’s theories
• The importance of “Knowing your Strengths”
• How to instill innovation in organizations
• Competition and selection that new religions foster
• The points not to forget when expanding a business
• How to make use of knowledge as a form of “capital”
• How to improve the quality of one’s time
• What Drucker meant when he described himself as a “Social Ecologist”
• What needs to be done to foresee the future?
• What are the metrics that separate high value information?