What I learned and Re-realized from Mr. Kitashiro's Lecture

The guest lecture we had on last Monday was from Mr. Kitashiro, the Executive Advisor of IBM Japan, Ltd.
The lecture was mainly about what he learned from his experience that he thinks is important for the next generation leaders.














First of all, I have to say that his lecture was really great and very attractive.
Unexpected from his old small body(at least compared to us), He was full of energy, happiness, and dignity.
I could feel them right through his words, and that he had experienced thousands of things through his entire life.
His lecture was one of the best speeches I have ever seen right in front of my eyes.
I feel very honored to be given the opportunity to hear his experiences directly, and that I could set a new goal which is to be a man like him in the future.

There are many things I want to write here about his lecture, but I will simplify them since it may be too long in full length.

There are mainly 3 things I learned or re-realized from Mr. Kitashiro's lecture.

1. Try to do more difficult jobs. Only difficult jobs help people grow. 

These words got me really awake during his lecture.
I mean, this may sound very simple and something that everybody knows.
When most people hear these words, they'd go "sure, I know that."
But I'm sure those people actually are not doing the difficult jobs.
These words mean that I have to keep trying on more difficult tasks, trying to do the impossible, trying to do what others can't do, otherwise I would not grow.
During his lecture, I asked myself "are you really trying on more difficult things?"
My answer was not a clear yes.
This, I think is a really huge problem because at this rate I would not be able to grow.
Thanks to Mr. Kitashiro, I was able to face myself and realize the state I am currently in.

2. Develop your own leadership style

These words were stuck in my mind during his lecture too.
Since I am in a position that has to lead some others, I have been reading several books about
how some great leaders were acting and leading their groups.
I have been reading them because I thought that there are many lessons I could learn from their actions, but now I am more convinced that I have to develop my own leadership style which would not be any similar to those of the great leaders.
From now on, I will try not to accept every single lesson from the books, but instead, think of what I can do to establish my own leadership style.

3. Always be positive. Then you will do fine.

"Be positive. Be positive. Be positive."
These words are probably No. 1 on the list of most said words in Mr. Kitashiro's lecture.
He was really insisting on how important it is to be always positive.
There are probably more failures than successes in one's life.
If we are discouraged every time we fail, our lives would obviously be very blue.
So we have to keep thinking positively.
We got to take things positively, smile as much as possible to persevere the failures and achieve successes.
A few days ago, I spilled my Monster energy drink all over my Mac Boook Pro, and it turns out that I have to pay 80,000 yen to fix it.
But I am not discouraged.
I decided to take this failure positively and think that God is telling me to get used to Windows for the future.

These 3 things I have mentioned are the main things I have learned from Mr. Kitashiro's lecture.
His words were very convincing because He has already achieved great numbers of things.
Now, I am more determined to take more difficult jobs, develop my own leadership style, and become more positive to be a man like Mr. Kitashiro in the near future.

New smartphone applications!

As I have mentioned on earlier blog posts, I like to look for and use new useful smartphone applications.

I found some new ones, so I would like to share them with you guys.
I'd be glad if you start using them!

1. Trello：task management

Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into categorized boards.
It really works like magic!
With Trello, you can see what's being worked on, what is still not done, and where something is in a process, in just one glance.
It also allows you to share those tasks and work on a same project with others.

2. Gunosy：information gathering

This Japanese smartphone application called Gunosy is already very popular.This application analyzes your social networking services' accounts and find out what you are really interested in.Then, Gunosy will look for articles and information all over the internet based on you interests, and deliver them like newspapers.
The internet is a very convenient tool for us, but the information on it is overflowing.If you are struggling with finding information that you really want, you may want to start using Gunosy.

Chapter 7 "Conflict"

I read chapter 7 which is about "conflict," and I thought that

Conflicts, I think are everywhere and everything.

Fighting with siblings over food, arguing with team members about team policy, and even a war could be a type of conflict.

Therefore, it is very hard to define the word "conflict."

However, I find some conflicts meaningful in a way and I have experienced it over the last 3 years at my high school.

I was the captain of my soccer club at my high school.
The captain's job was to think of effective training menus, to set training matches with other schools, to come up with the best formation to win tournaments, and finally, to believe in all team members and manage them to create a coherent team.

So I tried my best to believe in them and manage the whole team to win upcoming matches. However, there were of course, "conflicts" on the way.

Some members of the team were not satisfied with my training menus and could not find significance in them.
Then we had a "conflict" over team's training methods.

"I think that our team is lacking this skill, so we should practice mainly on this!"

"No, we have more things to do than that. We should work more on fundamental skills."

We were young, so we heated up more than necessary and the "conflict" lasted more than a week.
While we had that conflict, all team members could not concentrate on practice. This one week was really painful.

Nevertheless, what happened next was that some other members came in between two opposing sides, and said

"We see that you guys are the ones who care about the team the most. This conflict(argument) is due to to your serious commitment to the team."

Then we had a team meeting with all members, and talked, talked, and talked about what we really need/practice on as a whole team.
This meeting enabled me to understand more about the team and compromise my thoughts about training menus.
Accordingly, after this full team meeting, we were able to set up training menus that everyone was comfortable and assent with.

If I, and the other members have never had the "conflict," the team would also have never had the chance to realize each member's real feelings.

The "conflict," was actually a perfect to way for the team to really open up, and also to commit more enthusiastically to the club. 

To sum up, what I want to say is that many conflicts lead to positive outcome.
So if there is a conflict in front of you, you may run away from it, but sometimes it may be better to think that there is a great outcome when that conflict is over.

Apple Inc. had a huge conflict within the company at one time, then the founder, Steve Jobs was forced out of the company.
However, later on, he made a comeback and made Apple Inc. the most valuable brand in the world.

Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg had a huge conflict with the Winklevoses , who insist that they had the original idea of Facebook.
This conflict was also solved somehow, and now Facebook is the greatest social networking company in the world.

It seems like great success could only achieved after a meaningful conflict...