The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country, takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages. There is not an acre of ground on the global that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed.
Man is the only slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man’s slave for wages and does that man’s work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His record is the fantastic record of a maniac. In truth, man in incurably foolish. Simply things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning.
And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor-some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance—insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch less innocence, till we have reached the bottom stages of development—namable as the Human Being, Below us—nothing.
6. Decision by Consensus
Perhaps the most fundamental difference in management style between the Japanese and most other countries lies in the area of decision-making. Westerners often find the Japanese method of making decisions to be aggravatingly slow. Few realize the very different thought processes and procedures that are going on.
Westerners tend to make major decisions at the top, in board meetings, among department heads, and the like. They then pass the word down the line to managers and others, to implement and carry out the decision. The Japanese do the opposite. Their system, commonly known as ringi, is the corporate version of “government by consensus.”
Decisions are not made “on high” and handed down to be implemented. Rather, they are proposed from below and move upward, receiving additional input and approvals after deliberation through all levels of the company.
“One should think of the system as a filter through which ideas pass,” says Robert T. Moran. “The whole process, as it winds its way through various levels of the company, can last from two to three weeks to a matter of months. Each level takes its own time to go over the details. If the matter under consideration is complex or sensitive, it can take even longer.”
For decisions that are not of really major importance, approvals can be given by various individuals (or by groups of them). But when any decision is a matter of great importance, the Japanese look for broad consensus. Ringi should be seen as a “process” rather than a system. It gives management the choice of a broad selection of pragmatic options. Often the initiator is a section chief. He proposes an idea (which may well have been suggested to him by one of his workers). He gets his section members to research it; they all discuss it. When satisfied, he passed it up the line.
Even junior members take part in all this deliberation. It is considered part of their training and as a means of developing their company motivation. The idea is considered all the way up until it reaches the president. If he approves it, it will have been seen, considered, and passed on by virtually everyone who could be in any way involved in the final implementation. One can imagine the bargaining, persuasion, trading of favors, seeking of support, and general “lobbying” that goes on throughout the process! All of this is known as nemawashi, which means ‘binding up the roots.’ (The image is that of a tree that will survive only if everything is properly prepared in advance.) 感谢您阅读《Ideas 》一文，出国留学网(liuxue86.com)编辑部希望本文能帮助到您。
