Translator: Mai Iida Reviewer: Reiko Bovee
Hello.
I'm Shinichi Chiba.
I run a Japanese cake shop at Matsushima.
At first, I felt too embarrassed to give a talk at a TEDx event.
Having been born into a merchant family that has lasted for five generations,
and having experienced the economic crisis and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami,
I began to see a new approach to business
which I'd like to share with you today.
It's about business, but it's also about happiness,
so I hope you'll find it interesting even if you aren't a business manager.
I was born in 1975,
the post-baby-boomer generation.
When I was a teenager, instead of enjoying the bubble economy,
I listened to punk and read Salinger.
I played the cool, slightly aloof guy.
Then, the bubble burst. My family business was at risk.
I suddenly started reading Carnegie.
So my current business theory is a mix of Salinger and Carnegie.
A business theory with a touch of punk and pop.
This is the image of our flyer just when it was founded.
The 44th year of the Meiji period.
The year 1911.
But we didn't sell cakes for a century.
We somehow continued the business,
chasing and being chased by the years.
Let me reflect upon the past century.
This is a photo from the foundation year.
The red arrow points to our shop.
In the early Showa era, the sign says,
"Cafe Matsushima western food."
In 1975, when I was born,
we were surrounded by concrete buildings.
It was the period of economic growth.
My parents were busy, and they couldn't play with me much.
I still had fun fishing at the ocean
and venturing the mountains nearby.
In the Heisei era, the 1990s, we enter the bubble economy.
At this point, every store and hotel was growing in size
and the town was changing.
This was when we were rich with abundant resources.
At the same time,
I think we were addicted to money.
Then the bubble burst.
Our business was about to collapse.
I had graduated from university then,
so instead of finding a job, I helped out my family business.
The days were rough, and I argued with my family a lot,
but we gradually recovered, and became safe from bankruptcy.
I wanted to learn more about society,
so I then went to Tokyo for work.
This experience left a big impact on me.
By going out of my hometown,
I realized how amazing Tohoku and Matsushima was.
In the Northern Miyagi earthquake of 2003,
I again returned to my hometown to help out my family business.
After that period, in August 2010,
when I became the business manager,
I also founded the Shokado confectionary store.
This is where it is now.
When you hear the word "business manager," what do you imagine?
To be honest, I didn't have a good image.
I didn't want to drive a fancy car, nor did I want to become famous.
Instead of what I wanted to have or whom I wanted to be,
I thought of what life I wanted to live.
But I was also the fifth generation,
as well as the father of a family.
Just when I was starting to think too hard of various things,
I came across this quote.
"Less is more."
Quoted by my favorite architect, Mies van der Rohe.
Life is limited. Time and energy are limited.
In such a limited life, what is it that I truly want to do?
What is true value? What is a company that is truly valuable?
I wondered about these points.
I kept on narrowing down my thoughts.
I didn't need to be rich.
I wanted to use my strengths
to create the value I believed in.
I just needed enough money to live by.
This is how I came to make the Shokado confectionary shop.
This Shokado sponge cake is a very simple treat.
We use the locally produced eggs and make the traditional mix by hand,
to cook in our modern oven.
This creates the moist, soft texture of our cake.
It's simple, but we keep both the good parts from the old and new.
We only sell two types of sweets, this cake and soy flour biscuits.
With less products, we can focus on the quality of each.
The expiration date is much sooner than that of other big-brand snacks,
but we don't use any preservatives.
We decided to prioritize flavor over convenience.
Gradually, we began to receive support from the local people.
Despite having no commercials and rejecting all TV interviews,
people spread the word online,
which led to us selling at train stations and famous department stores in Tokyo.
"Less is more."
Sacrificing many possibilities helped us discover true value.
Such value isn't a one-time trend.
It is something that lasts.
I think this perspective is important when we think of post-disaster recovery.
After the disaster, people talk of the region's revitalization and future
and we see disaster reconstruction events happening everywhere.
But we mustn't forget what we are doing these for.
What is it that we're trying to achieve?
Narcotic painkillers help us in pain,
but if we become dependent on them, we end up destroying our own body.
Disaster reconstruction, in a sense,
is about recovering our "daily life."
So instead of bringing out flashy topics,
we thought of how to develop our community
and to plant new seeds for the future.
My friends and I decided to host the Matsushima Umi no Bon event.
Just when the annual fireworks festival
seemed hard to host after the disaster,
we held this event, a small, humble festival.
Instead of flashy fireworks, we recovered the traditional Bon dance
which had been lost for three decades.
We also drew attention back to the 700 year old prayer service
at Zuiganji temple of Matsushima
and the lantern floating event to console the souls of our ancestors.
When I wondered what was truly important,
my answer was the beautiful scenery, unique to Matsushima,
and the smiles of the Matsushima people.
At first, even the locals here dismissed the event as being small and unimpressive,
but now, many residents participate.
They not only come to watch the fireworks, but to actually engage in the event.
After participating, they recognize their love for their hometown
and the beauty of Matsushima.
Everyone conveys such thoughts each in their own way.
I believe that this will eventually lead to the branding of the community.
This event isn't made just for that day,
but it's the seed that is planted for decades and centuries to come.
It was acknowledged as a festival that establishes the region's identity,
without competition or comparison with other regions,
and it even received the Good Design Award.
We had lost many things in the disaster.
At the same time, it was an opportunity
to rethink what is most important to us.
Those are the values we mustn't forget even as reconstruction moves on.
I have one favorite quote.
"Not bigger, but happier!"
It's not a quote by anyone famous.
It's a quote I found in one magazine,
in an article that featured children discussing the future.
When I use this quote,
other senior businessmen tell me,
"You're narrowing yourself."
"You're so passive!"
But what I want everyone to know
is that I'm not agonizing over the fact that I can't grow bigger.
Scale is not what I want.
In the past, we had the extinction of the large, strong dinosaurs.
Smaller creatures that learned to adapt
were the ones that survived and continued to evolve.
Our values have also greatly changed along
as we lived through the economic bubble burst
and the earthquake and tsunami.
This change in our values
is the change from quantitative to qualitative value.
Our desires also change.
When it was the age of expansion, we wanted to be admired by others.
That desire formed the base of our work and business.
But I believe this is also changing
to the desire of utilizing our strengths
to live in our own way.
When we think of developed countries,
it is said that after an economic boom, we experience a slump,
but maybe this isn't true.
I think we are simply moving away from money
and towards maturation.
Then, shouldn't business techniques also go along with that?
When the population was growing and we were all facing the same direction,
it may have been fine to do business competing for power and speed.
but now we have a declining population and the desires of people are diverse.
I think we need a kind of business that can adapt to that change in trend,
and could plant new seeds to nurture new values.
There are three points to such business.
It's fine for one person to grow and become dependent on something big,
but I think there should be more people who freely do what they want to do.
It should be done in the appropriate place and in the appropriate scale.
These points may sound obvious, but they're actually very hard to achieve.
Especially the third point, the appropriate scale.
If you're a business manager, you probably understand.
But I think the people of Tohoku are good at this way of thinking.
For example, while the fast food chains are struggling at every door,
there are many privately owned cafes emerging in the local regions.
Thanks to the internet, even if the cafe is small,
if the cafe is unique and liked, then its business will succeed.
How can we become unique?
I think that is up to the local culture
and the business owner's characteristics.
To bring those traits out, we shouldn't compare with others.
We must think and decide in our own standards.
I think this is the challenge for the people of Tohoku.
But if this can be achieved,
then despite the struggles, that will lead to an exciting life.
By not comparing with others, we won't worry about being inferior.
We could start listening to others, and accept various values.
I think that way of thinking will gradually begin to spread.
Even if they're small changes, if those small changes start to spread,
then, in the future, we can truly achieve
an exciting, sustainable, and peaceful society.
Even if each change is small,
they can create a diverse sense of values
in a mature society.
I will say again.
I am a business manager.
The goal of a business manager
does not always have to be the unlimited expansion of wealth.
It's about doing what you're good at, what you like to do to make others happy.
"Not bigger, but happier!"
If this is your core value,
then you may not become rich, but you can be happy.
If you combine all the small happinesses,
We can move on from a "win x win" to a "happy x happy" relationship.
It might sound too optimistic,
but I think this way of thinking
is what makes a business manager mature and evolve.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)