What sets top performers apart?
The 'work formula' of those who achieve success in any position.

Who are the people commonly considered "good at work," and what specific abilities does "good at work" entail? Shu Yamaguchi, author of the bestseller "How Philosophy Becomes a Weapon for Life," and Gen Kusunoki, Japan's leading competitive strategy expert, have compiled the unique work secrets shared by these universally recognized "good workers."
This book specifically explains how they view work and how they think, and what they need to do to learn and master the unique formula for working that will ensure outstanding results.

The authors compare the characteristics of high-performing individuals with the work styles of average individuals, providing an intuitive understanding of the approaches we need to take to the next level of our work performance.
What's particularly interesting is that many of the things that many people consider the most efficient way to work are far removed from the ways that people who are good at their jobs do so.
Additionally, interesting and little-known cases of various global companies such as Netflix, Adobe, Lego, IBM, McDonald's, Suntory, and Honda are revealed from beginning to end of the book through the two authors' witty remarks, and you can get a glimpse of the 'process of people who really do their work producing results' hidden behind the success stories of famous companies.
If you think your current work ability is average, this is a book you absolutely cannot miss.

The difference between the two concepts becomes clear when we look at why senses are not treated as importantly as skills in the first place.
For example, abilities divided into Korean, mathematics, English, science, and liberal arts all correspond to skills.
You can categorize it as ‘good/bad’.
Skills like English proficiency, presentation skills, negotiation skills, financial skills, or legal knowledge are easily demonstrated to others.
You can speak English fluently in front of foreigners, and you can prove it with something tangible, like a lawyer's or accountant's license.
But the feeling is not like that.
(…) Let me give you another example. There are people who are clearly excellent at presenting, but are incredibly boring when they present.
Conversely, there are people who are very good at leading a story, even though their presentation structure or method is sloppy.
This is precisely what we mean by sensual or artistic.
--- Pages 28-30, [Chapter 01.
[Parallel Universes of Technology and Senses]

Most companies have created value through highly useful products and services.
In particular, most companies that quickly entered the global market in the 20th century achieved success by providing the convenience of 'utility'.
On the other hand, there are not many companies that have succeeded in entering the global market by providing the convenience of 'meaning'.
When human civilization reaches a certain level, it inevitably shifts to creating value in the cultural aspect.
However, if we fail to quickly keep up with this trend, we will still be unable to move beyond the level of creating value in terms of utility.
If we only pursue use value, we will soon paradoxically end up creating products and services that have 'no' use value.
Let's take home appliance remote controls as an example. The TV remote I use at home has 65 buttons.
Since we only use 4 buttons on a regular basis, the remaining 61 are essentially useless.
Because we are unable to move beyond the axis of utility, useless things are created.
--- Page 36, [Chapter 02.
What does the new normal want?

I often thought about why Joe Yabuki, a genius boxer in the boxing manga "Ashita no Joe," which is considered a masterpiece representing Japanese manga from the 1960s and 1970s, kept losing.
Joe's efforts are by no means lacking compared to his rivals.
In the end, he exerts himself so thoroughly that he loses his life.
But still, I lost.
It's not written in the comic book, but in the end, you lose because you have no sense.
As anyone who has read the manga will know, Joe's defeat is truly tragic.
Why did such a tragedy become so popular? Perhaps it's because most people identify with Joe.
We've all had the experience of not being able to beat those who just use their wit and ingenuity to get ahead of us no matter how hard we try.
--- Page 49, [Chapter 03.
The Age of Senses is Coming]

The U.S. State Department is said to be very concerned about the "selection criteria" when selecting diplomats.
At first, we selected truly outstanding talents with excellent work skills, such as graduates from prestigious universities, proficiency in at least two foreign languages, sufficient knowledge of administration and culture, and high-level negotiation skills.
When the United States selects diplomats, it usually sends them to developing countries first.
So, while some people manage to improve their relationship with the United States for the first two or three years and enjoy themselves, then return, others fail in extreme ways, almost to the point of being forced to leave the country.
What troubled the State Department was the fact that there was absolutely no statistical correlation between college grades, language proficiency, training, and other factors and realistic performance as a diplomat.
(…) Professor McClelland was asked to devise a new talent selection system and researched various materials.
The statistics revealed that performance as a diplomat had absolutely no correlation with skills or knowledge.
The study found that successful diplomats generally share three common behaviors and ways of thinking about things.
--- Pages 64-66, [Chapter 04.
Winners of a Peaceful Strategy Game]

Let's think about what kind of person is not good at his job.
First, there are those who 'want to analyze immediately'.
Those people, as soon as the idea of ​​thinking about a business strategy is mentioned, immediately start researching and diving into analysis.
They try to fit it into the framework of a SWOT analysis, which only considers four things: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
The 'task' of analytical research, with its set template, has tremendous appeal.
Even if you are not good at your job, you can still do the work and produce results that can be used as material to show people.
(…) If I were to express this process in one word, the word ‘proxy’, which means a substitute intermediary, comes to mind.
The work that should lead to the final result ends up becoming a proxy.
Technology is prone to proxies.
Being good at English or programming is valuable.
Furthermore, it is important for what purpose the technology is needed and what outcomes and results it leads to.
However, we often forget our purpose and focus only on developing our skills.
As your skills improve, you feel a sense of accomplishment, which relieves your anxiety for the day.
--- Pages 94-95, [Chapter 06.
Experts and Managers Swap Weapons]

In the military, it is said that a leader with excellent combat sense but little motivation is suitable.
Because I try to win as easily as possible.
However, they say that a person who has both a keen sense and a drive is suited to the role of a staff member assisting the captain.
The most difficult person is the one who has no sense but is full of desire.
If such a person manipulates the organization as he pleases or orders an attack based on poor judgment, he can annihilate the unit.
Finally, those who lack sense and motivation will try to work only within the framework of KPIs.
(…) If there is a person who has no sense but is full of motivation, it would not be easy to follow a leader who has only sense but no motivation.
So isn't building skills and getting a kind of revenge the way a lot of people work these days?
--- Pages 110-111, [Chapter 07.
[When a sense meets a situation, it becomes an opportunity]

It was Louis Gerstner, who took office as the new chairman in 1993, who revived IBM from its crisis.
Gerstner announced plans at a press conference to "close factories, cut jobs, and raise product prices."
Then a reporter asked if IBM had a new vision.
Gerstner, who had a rather stern personality, said, “IBM is a critically ill patient in the intensive care unit right now and needs everything.
“If I had to pick one thing that is not necessary, it would be ‘vision,’” he replied.
What made Gerstner's innovation so remarkable, despite being a orthodox restructuring, lies in its order.
The first thing he did when he came to IBM was to use Excel to check debt amounts and read cash flows.
He rushed into the field and gave orders like, 'Close the factory,' 'Cut 15,000 jobs,' 'Sell off all of this product line,' and 'This product line has less price resistance, so raise the price by 1.5 times.'
And when all this was over, he went around to customers and asked them directly, “What do you dislike about IBM?”
And finally, after proposing a new business called 'e-business,' I delegated full authority to the staff so that they could actively and efficiently carry out the work.
This new venture ultimately transformed IBM into an integrated solutions company focused on consulting, software, and services.
--- Pages 113-115, [Chapter 08.
The sequence of work becomes my own strategy]

Adobe has boldly shifted away from its strategy of selling its software in bundles and towards subscriptions.
It's true that Adobe has made a bold shift to subscriptions and achieved increased revenue.
But we need to think a little more about whether this is truly a success due to 'subscription'.
Adobe's strength lies not just in the number of users of its products.
Because we have products of an irreplaceable level that cannot be compared to other software.
Adobe has been making great products and selling them for 10 or 20 years, and as a result, countless designers and creators around the world have become completely dependent on Adobe products.
In other words, the reason Adobe was able to succeed with subscriptions was not because of the new business model called 'subscription', but because it already had high-quality products and a large and loyal customer base.
If we look closely at the causal relationship, Adobe was able to boldly shift to subscription because these conditions were already in place.
Anyone who doesn't understand the strategic story of Adobe's achievements and simply says that everything is a result of subscriptions will really fail to achieve much in their work.
Because he is a person who only sees the phenomenon without understanding the context.
--- Pages 158-159, [Chapter 11.
[Piercing the hidden core]

Japan's first search engine service was 'NTT Directory', launched by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Co., Ltd. (NTT) in 1995.
Yahoo Japan launched its service in April 1996, so Yahoo was a latecomer.
Also, in the field of e-commerce, IBM launched an online shopping mall called 'World Avenue' at the very same time that Amazon launched its service.
(…) Compared to NTT and IBM, which had everything from talent to capital, technology, networks, and even brands, Yahoo Japan and Amazon had nothing at the time.
It was like a fight between David and the giant Goliath.
But in the end, the David-like Yahoo Japan and Amazon won, while the giants NTT and IBM suffered a miserable collapse.
The same goes for the relationship between Blockbuster and Netflix.
What did the companies that lost this time lack? It was simply one thing: motivation.
--- Pages 172-173, [Chapter 12.
Everything begins with inner motivation]

The used car sales business is a business model that purchases used cars from individuals, refurbishes them, sets a new price, and sells them to individuals again.
The principle for making money is to 'buy low and sell high'.
How cheap you buy and how expensive you sell determines the outcome.
President Hattori also continued to do this work until he was over 50 years old.
Every morning, he drove around the dealerships in his own car, encouraging sales.
But one day, he saw a sign in his store that said, "Buy at a high price."
At the same time, there is a sign that says 'low price sale'.
Every morning, I would see the sign that said "Buy high, sell low" and I would feel, "Something is fundamentally wrong. This is a business that doesn't make any money."
But then, a minute later, a normal day begins, so I think that's what the used car sales business is like and move on with my routine.
Today too, I said, 'Let's work hard by buying high and selling low!'
After so much time, I finally came to a conclusion.
'I guess we just have to not sell it to individuals!'
Every company has its own preconceptions.
In reality, it is contradictory, but they pretend not to know by saying, "That's just how our industry is."
New strategies often come from facing that fact.
If you look at the details of what's happening, everything makes sense, so you need to look at the big picture to understand the problem.

--- Pages 215-216, [Chapter 15.
The Power of Abstract Thinking]