Not being content with the status quo is not the only attitudinal trait required of each employee.Our ability to operate as an organization and a business will be lost if we discard the mindset of breaking up the status quo.Risk should not be feared, no matter how tough the environment.Doing the same thing forever results in stagnation.And for a company, stagnation is synonymous with decline.

People get acclimated to continuously performing the same work over a long period of time.And acclimation as a function of time becomes a vicious evil.Acclimation leads to senility, unconcern, and a lack of awareness of the issues.Such evil should be absolutely eliminated.When the work is difficult, remember the phrase "Something New, Something Different."When it is complicated, “Simple is Best”.

A mentality for challenge and breaking up the status quo provides development in indispensable sectors.In recent years, product life cycles have shortened and diversified according to consumer tastes.Tastes that used to change over a period of several years now change in a year’s time or, in some extreme cases, every few months.While this is regrettable, it is also meaningless. In short, we must react to such sharp changes.

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is strong in the field of home medicine.This field has hundreds of years of history and, compared to other fields, is quite stable.What would happen, however, if we depended on this field?The answer is clear – stagnation, that is, ruin.

A company’s ability to grow is directly tied to its ability to develop.Work cannot begin if products are not made, and yet they must in fact be delivered to the customers.Market trends in Japan became more severe in the 1980s, however, and items stopped selling.Medical supplies notwithstanding, sales of products in all fields came to a halt.But did the demand itself disappear?Not at all.

A customer will buy a product if he thinks it is good, even if the price is somewhat high.The motivation to buy varies with each individual, who will begin to select a product based on its appearance and the individual’s own standards.No interest is shown, however, in unattractive products no matter how well they are advertised or how highly noted they might be.Just as we develop new products seriously, our customers also select the products they buy seriously.

In the tradition of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, trust is prized and sales are strived for.Prizing trust means being "honest to a fault" to the very last with the consumers and customers.We do not engage in deceptive, cunning business practices.Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's consumers are healthy, and the company has manufactured products for leading a sanitary lifestyle.That will not change.

Although emphasized repeatedly, competition will continue to intensify in all sectors.In a highly competitive society, it is absolutely necessary for each individual to first put forth the utmost effort.Strangely enough, there are some employees who, upon seeing the cutthroat competition placed before them, give up on themselves before they even see the results of their work.Is there so extreme a difference in the capabilities of those born into the world?The answer is “No”.Those who lose from the start are only lacking in one important thing.They have no sense of purpose.They have no energy to break up the status quo.

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is not necessarily asking for geniuses.We provide a suggestion program that solicits ideas from employees, but one gifted flash is not what I want.Rather, what I am looking for are a few mere improvements, slight changes, and small ideas.Such genuine effort will snowball and make Kobayashi Pharmaceutical’s future abundant.

(From an interview with Kazumasa Kobayashi)