Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Kōnosuke Matsushita, was in his nineties when he died. He had built the Matsushita Company into a huge, sprawling industrial enterprise all over the world. When he got very, very old, he, of course, was, you know, more frail. But he said to his assistants that he wanted to go around the world one more time to be able to visit the factory sites.

They said “Matsushita san, such travel, it will be hard on you. You should stay home and relax. Just stay here. Let us take care of you.”He said, “No, no, no. I want to go. I want to go.” They said, “Matsushita, san, you’ve seen the factories before. You don’t need to go see it again. You know, we can send you pictures.” He said, “No, no, no, I want to go not to see the factories and not to see the people. I want to let the people see me one more time.” He knew that he was in the company, a leader who was an icon.

He knew that it would be inspirational for them if they could see him, and he wanted to give that to them one more time.“Okay. Matsushita san.” So they arranged the whole trip. Now, Matsushita san was quite a fanatical man. About several things, and one of those things was housekeeping. 

The Japanese have a method called “Five S”that has to do with everything being clean and everything being refreshed and everything being repaired. Everything being stored in the right place and… so if Matsushita san was coming to visit your factory, you cleaned up, maybe. I mean, you got that place looking as sparkling as you could.

Even though you’re actually manufacturing heavy industrial equipment in a factory, you clean up. One of the factories was in Malaysia, which is near Singapore. Matsushita san was coming to visit. The people who worked in the factory cleaned it up and cleaned it up. He came and he had the visit. Something happened during the visit which was told to me by a man who was there and saw it happen. They rolled out a red carpet for Matsushita san. So, now you imagine a factory floor with a red carpet. Big machinery. Standing between the machines on both sides of the red carpet, all wearing clean uniforms, all with their hair combed and cut, with their shoes shined, all with their fingernails clean and clipped. Because Matsushita san is coming.

On that day, the old man came and he was walking down the red carpet, nodding to the left, nodding to the right, to the people, eye contact. Behind him were two of his assistants.You know, the people who would travel with them because he’s an old, frail man. Walking along, walking along, and all of a sudden he stopped. Of course, now everybody looked at him more closely and he turned and he started to walk off the red carpet towards one of the machines, and he got closer and closer. You could hear the assistants going, “Matsushita san, Matsushita san”, trying to get him back on the carpet. 

He went right to the edge of the machine. Now 700 people are staring at the guy like, what’s he going to do? Turn the machine on? He got there and he paused. Then he bent down his little old body. He reached underneath the edge of the machine, and he pulled out a paper clip that he had seen on the floor out of the corner of his eye that had not been cleaned up off the floor. He didn’t say a word, but he went like this. Then he went back to the red carpet and took the paper clip and put it in his pocket and kept walking. 700 people were going [gasps] 

Now, the man who told me the story saw it. He was there. As he was telling me the story, he started to get emotional. He started to get choked up. It’s like you could tell. I mean, he’s going, “And then he… and we all felt so…” I said, “Hey, come on, man. That was ten years ago.”Like, you know, cool it, right? He goes, “You don’t understand.” I said, okay.Whoa, whoa, whoa. He said from that day on, our factory in Malaysia has been one of the cleanest factories in the entire country and one of the best in the entire Matsushita system in the world. 

So really, what did you guys do? Did you change your standards? Did you buy new equipment? Did you increase the housekeeping staff? He said “No, from that day until today if any of us see anything that’s not clean the way it is supposed to be, we say to each other just one word.” I said, “What? “He said, “Matsushita san.” And that one word has become an iconic expression in their culture for not just “clean it up”, but the standard, world class, impeccable “It matters.”, “You care.” “You have an eye on detail.” “You absolutely take that kind of responsibility.” “Matsushita san.”.