Managing Visions

Never Give Up

I like to watch rugby games on TV from young age. A commentator introduced a phrase of “Second Effort”: last efforts of a player to go even a little farther when he is actually being fallen down by a tackle, which are praised greatly.
There are lots of challenges in the way of improving the environment of people living in developing countries.
But we should never stop but proceed steadily in spite of all the hurdles waiting in front of us.
Japan held the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games from July to August in 2021. We were most impressed by the mixed doubles table tennis quarter final match between German and Japanese pairs. The Japanese pair, Mizutani and Itoh were well behind the German pair in the final set with a score of 2 to 9. If they had lost only two points, they would have lost the match. In such a situation most players could not have maintained fighting spirits. However, Mizutani encouraged Itoh, and won the match after seven match points. They finally won the Gold Medals in the mixed doubles. The pair recalled in the interview that they finally won because they never gave up even in a hopeless situation.
When the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) started preventing automobile air pollution, they had no authority to control automobile exhaust gas emission nor support from mass media or public opinions. After repeating hard discussion with other departments in TMG, ministries, car makers, transportation industries, NPOs, etc., they finally established diesel emission control policies and pave the way to the diesel vehicle control ordinance. We will never give up even in such a difficult situation in business.