Kunio Hara is the creator of the renowned HO-ME-I-KU Method, an effective employee and executive education program for achieving success.
Conflict drastically changes the flow of people, products and money. But what can we do to help end this era of an economy dependent on conflict?
When your business is constantly in conflict, it can exhaust your mind without you even knowing it. It can lead to a negative view of things with hostile words engraved in your brain, resulting in an inability to live with a full smile on your face.
Therefore, as an extension of my push to praise people around you, I suggest this form of positivity as a solution to help us move away from our reliance on conflict within businesses.
Keeping Perspective
You meet only a small handful of people in your lifetime. It is a miracle you have met the people in front of you—not only your family but also your friends and colleagues. And yet, you may reject them when you find minor differences with them, like their religion or personality type.
If you keep accumulating negative actions like those, it can be difficult to set good examples for the next generation of leaders. It can cause people who are supposed to help each other to instead hate each other.
I encourage you to find ways to praise differences instead of rejection. In some cases, praise people all the more for being different and learn to recognize the potential strengths in these differences. Let’s enrich the economy by praising each other in this way. Once praise starts to enrich our hearts and minds, we can begin to take extra actions for the benefit of each other.
I believe an emphasis on praise has the potential to lead to more customer satisfaction and excitement, which in turn can improve your company’s performance and enrich the economy. I want to prove that productivity increases when we praise each other rather than rely on conflict. I want to ask the executives and everyone influential in markets to spread the culture of praise with me.
Praising People To Push Against Conflict
Toward resolving conflict, I have created a form of praise education I call “HO-ME-I-KU.” It is an educational method of raising people through praise. The Japanese word for praise comes from the root word “homu.” Homu means to pray for people’s happiness and prosperity. I believe you truly praise people when you find and recognize their exemplary aspects, sincerely wishing them a happy future rather than only going through the potions of praise.
Taishi Shōtoku’s Example
There was once a great man in Japan named Taishi Shōtoku. He established the first constitution in Japan, the Seventeen-Article Constitution, in 604 A.D. He taught a phrase in Article 1 of the constitution, which many of us Japanese cherish. The phrase is “harmony is to be valued.” It expresses how important it is to respect and recognize each other and cooperate with each other.
At that time in Japan, conflicts between clans were intensifying. The arrival of Buddhist and Confucian cultures from abroad also brought conflicts with existing Shinto thoughts, and Japan was falling apart. In such situations, Prince Shotoku preached that it is important to stop unnecessary conflicts and to respect harmony by trying to understand each other. He, however, did not force people to be patient or even always agree with others. He told them to recognize and harmonize rather than merely compromise or agree.
I believe this is the idea that the modern business world needs. It may be difficult to totally understand people who were born and raised in different countries or have different religions and experiences. Nevertheless, I still think it is important to strive for harmony by cooperating without anger or conflict. Praise, I believe, is the key to achieving this harmony.
Rich Sensitivity
Conflicts occur, and the world tends to be a brutal place. By all means, I would like you to praise people using what I describe as a rich sensitivity. Without sensitivity, a business tends to become just a “money game” that ignores the human heart.
Rich sensitivity does not mean you should only ostensibly praise—merely demonstrate the appearance of praise. I would like you to praise the way people’s hearts move, that is, the way you understand the feelings of others or the way you read the entire situation. I believe when people work with the mindset that “the joy of others is my joy,” the productivity of the team will inevitably increase. Therefore, I encourage you to create a stronger team by being more sensitive and compassionate and incorporating genuine praise.
To move business culture away from conflict, I believe those in top management can have a huge impact by actively searching for employees and actions to praise. Although we all know in our heads that praise is important, I find that very few managers are able to truly practice it as a part of their daily culture.
We are born to be praised, and we exist to praise each other. Who will be the first to seriously start managing a company to achieve record performance through praising? I hope it will be you.
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