(F) The Lecture from Mr. Kitashiro

A: 明るく = Cheerfully
T: 楽しく = Enjoyably
M: 前向きに = Positively

Last Monday, we had a great lecture from Mr. Kitashiro, who is now the executive advisor of IBM Japan.

During the lecture, I strongly felt the importance of trying difficult tasks (rather than easy ones) and being always positive (even if the situation was really hard).

in his word, "Difficult jobs develop people." = 修羅場が人を育てる

This means, when you deal with a difficult task, you learn a lot, so your skills will be improved. At the same time, however, a person needs to have positive thinking and positive attitude toward the task, in order to achieve it.

I was deeply impressed by the following words which he said as an answer to someone's question.

"Be positive, and talk to yourself. [...] If you tell yourself that you're fine, you'll be fine. So, just smile. Then, you'll be successful."

This is a screen shot of the search result I got when I put Mr.Kitashiro's name on the Google search engine. Please look at the photos on the right hand, (if it's too small, click the picture, then it'll be enlarged.) in almost every photo appeared here, he looks smiling!!:)

Moreover, it was also interesting for me that he said the following kind of thing when someone asked him a question about leadership models.

"We can learn a lot from other person, but don't just imitate them. Try to develop your own management style."

I think this is one of the most important thing when we learn something about leadership. Although we are now reading the Leading at the Edge for example, obviously we cannot be Shackleton. What we can do is to learn what&how he act, and we need to think how we can apply them into our real-life situation, and then practice them in our own way.