There is a well-known American saying: "A captain bites his lip so hard that blood is drawn." When a green crew is wrestling earnestly to navigate a ship in rough waters, the veteran captain who has experienced all marine conditions instinctively wants to shout, "Watch out! The winds have changed!" However, he instead holds himself back and tries to trust the crew to the extent that he bites down on his lip so hard that blood is drawn. It is this scene that runs through my mind when I recollect the education of successors; for example, like my training, which was conducted by my father, Kiyoshi, the founder of the company.
  In fact, my father, during an interview while he was chairman, said, "There is a mountain of things I would like to say." However, he never ordered me to do this or that. This approach never changed, even before 1972 when I decided on my own to work at Kato Spring following graduation.

  Kato Spring is listed on the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Although it maintains the image of a family business, it doesn't mean that, as his son, I was destined to become president. There is a responsibility to stockholders, company members, customers, suppliers, local communities and, in a broader sense, to society. Furthermore, my father didn't tell me to takeover management of the company, rather he raised me with a sense of telling me to choose my own way.
  So why did I join Kato Spring? I made my decision when I heard that Kato Spring USA, our local corporation in Los Angeles, was to be formed in 1971. In a way, I was probably influenced by my father who annually traveled abroad when Japanese airlines still had no international routes, and who often welcomed people traveling from overseas into our home. I had a strong desire to challenge myself in an international environment from the time I was little, so I made a direct request to my father, "Please send me to America."
As I had requested, I was sent to America immediately following the company entrance ceremony. The only condition placed on me by my father was, "Don't live in an apartment where there are other Japanese."
  I didn't know anything about business and social practices in America. My learning in the area of sales started from the initial ABCs of the trade, and the Japanese side kept making impossible requests. My time here, at the bottom of the pecking order, was my business school where I often got burned but also received help from others. Reflecting upon those times, the distance, gap and difference in willingness between the head and local offices all served as my case study.
  In 1978, when I was 27, I invested some of my own money to form a subsidiary. This was just after our first overseas production base had failed in a joint venture. Since the funds were tight, I looked for used machinery, and repeatedly underwent a series of trial-and-error situations at which time everything was left up to me. It was during that time that I came across the employment issue that became the spark for the concept of option management. This one experience also served as the first step for "becoming president" professionally.
  I do not remember my father ever expressing anger concerning the administration of the overseas subsidiary, including its performance. However, in cases when a memo was passed through the Japanese organization to receive approval for a decision, I often received "No" as a response. For example, when I submitted an in-house memo (ringisho) for approval concerning investment in computers, my idea was refused twice. Since I had not been provided details as to why my suggestions were refused, I was required to reconsider the idea again from scratch. The third time, I explained that the computers were absolutely necessary in order for Kato Spring to be able to handle several types of products and speed up manufacturing and sales activities. My eagerness for success was probably felt throughout the presentation, and as a result, even though the contents of the proposal were almost identical to that of the first and second time, the idea was approved.
  In this manner, my father started my business education in a different culture and at the grass roots level. He then introduced steps for me to follow in preparation for the future, including trading work and eventually time in the planning division related to the systems of the entire company. This may be standard and nothing unique in terms of educating a second-generation president, however during that time, I was able to closely experience the spirit of the company founder, who confronted economic trends and common practices in the society in a most direct manner. It was indeed a good opportunity to learn deeply about his approach.

  In 1976, Kato Spring built a factory exclusively for precision springs in Kashiwazaki, Niigata, on 18,000 square meters of land. The factory had a floor space of 8,000 square meters. Both the size and the cutting-edge facilities installed were unprecedented, not only in Japan but throughout the world. With the worsening global recession, which began with the first oil shock at the end of 1973, sales at Kato Spring dropped by 30% from 2.5 billion yen in fiscal 1974 to 1.8 billion yen in 1976. Why then did Kato Spring make this daring investment at that time? Why did we invest in Kashiwazaki, a location far from our base of Tokyo? The objective of this major investment (700 million yen) was mass production and labor conservation.
  Some of the directors issued a letter of protest indicating that the investment was reckless. There were even Katoites hired in Tokyo who quit the company because they didn't want to be transferred to Niigata. There were clearly audible whispers in the industry that said, "Kato Spring will go under this time." But my father stubbornly followed his conviction. The result, as he predicted, would be "having profitable operations within the first year."
  My father's unique "Kanputer" (a Japanese play on the word "computer" that indicates decision-making based on instinct) was accurate in its interpretation of the Japanese economy's ability to recover and the shift in the industrial world "from smokestack industries to electronic industries." Consequently, there are many now that say, "Today's Kato Spring only exists because it built a factory in the countryside at that time." However, if the president at that moment had not been Kiyoshi Kato, the new Kashiwazaki Factory may have caused Kato Spring to go under.
  As I briefly touched upon earlier, what I learned watching over the shoulder of my father is that the quality of an idea or plan accounts for about 20% of its success and the rest is left up to "What kind of person is involved in the project and the attitude by which they approach it." In other words, the greatest factor for a successful project is the overall attitude and power of the individual. I learned that success isn't being successful alone but rather the power to push through until you are successful. My father must have had a very difficult time training me.