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Jul.12.2014 KIP Forum "Leadership on March 11"
Forum in July: Mr. Niinami, Chairman of Lawson, Japan, gave us a lecture about the Leadership on March 11.
I was impressed that Lawson, Inc., Japanese convenience store service company restarted to run its business in disaster area in Tohoku immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 even though they had lack of stock all around Japan. The reason why they did it so early even they sacrificed their profit in other areas was because Mr. Niinami, former CEO of Lawson, Inc. believed that Lawson is the corporation which has strong relationship with the local community and its social responsibility is to make the community happier. Therefore, he decided to support the disaster area in order to help the people who lived in and revive the local community. Actually, all convenience stores in the area were closed because there was nothing to sell and store staffs were also victims from the earthquake. In spite of the difficulties, he negotiated with storeowners in other areas and drivers to provide foods for disaster area.
Recently, CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility has been highlighted. However, CSR is used just as advertisement for most companies. I don't think a lot of them really consider CSR to be necessary. Most of them just pursue their own profit rather than contribute to social benefit. It means that they can only see their business in the short run. If they want to think of their business in the long run, they should consider CSR more since corporations are also a part of our society.
In Lawson's case, they could help the local community because other employees and local staffs also made actions voluntarily. For example, when Lawson provided their lunch box to local community, local staffs put custard pudding without any order from Mr. Niinami and head quarter. To prevail leader's will to all staff members, Mr. Niinami mentioned, leaders need to take the initiative to follow corporate philosophy. He went to disaster area to handle the situation by himself. His behavior moved the local staffs to contribute to the community. Generally, the more companies become bigger, the less the employees can know the belief of the leader. He expressed his will with his behavior. This lecture made me think that I want to work with leader who has strong belief, in addition, I want to be a leader with strong belief. (Ryosuke Suzuki)