Air: Necessary, But Unseen

"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." --Anatole France, Nobel Prize-winning author

I have two ears and one mouth. I try to use them in that proportion.

But when I was in my 20s, it wasn't that way. It was with some pride that I was the first foreigner-- ever-- to work at Omron Japan, a huge company (http://omron.com/index2.html). I was surrounded by (it seemed all) 25,000 Japanese co-workers, and for a very long time I felt like the lightning rod in a fishbowl with an electric eel... with electric toasters soon to fall in with me.

As the days ticked by, I remember crescendos of panic-- perhaps the same emotions that grip all college graduates when they enter the real world: "What if I can't produce something of value right away? How can I show how I'm brilliant? Where should I look to uncover some lost revenue, or suggest a better process, or make changes to so I can show immediate worth? I gotta get going!"

At some point, my boss and the man responsible for my hire, Tsutomu Narita (later named President of Omron Electronics in 1999, photo insert), saw my struggles and took me aside with a sage smile.

"Richan, I want you to forget your western expectations of greatness. Yes, I expect great things out of you. But until two years have passed, you have only one job: 'Be like air-- necessary but unseen.'"

Like air? Unseen? Two years? Oh, the humanity.

I sputtered and protested that I wanted to do great stuff, that I was a brilliant engineer, that I was hired because he saw some existing value in me, etc.

But in the end I agreed to be malleable. Very humbled, I quietly studied Omron's product line.

And I learned I also had two eyes and one mouth.

I studied companies like Gould, Square D, and Cutler-Hammer. Then I studied switches, and then timers, then counters, then programmable logic controllers (PLCs). I studied pricing, markets, and marketing schemes. I took notes, clipped articles, made comparison charts, sales charts, and corporate charts. I studied the Wall Street Journal for competitor information and press releases. I studied London's Financial Times, and Singapore's Straits Times, etc.

In short, I kept a very low profile, proving 'oxygen' to company internal functions (like evaluating advertisements written in horrible English), but I kept quietly learning the basics of my industry before I began to reach upward. I was 'breathable' insofar as I was always available for questions from co-workers, whilst I quietly kept gathering information, per Mr. Narita's advice.

Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.

And eventually it happened. Slowly I became an expert in competitors' tactics. In due course I was included in meetings all around the company, becoming consultant for all kinds of new products. I found I was at the right hand of product division managers, and spent about 25% of my time at the R&D facility counseling engineers and project managers of every stripe.

After my tenure spent steeping in the basics, my suggestions carried weight.

I was able to eventually make those great quantum leaps into the unknown... based squarely on the good footing obtained by quietly reading a dry catalog. It was because of this "planting and growing cycle" that I became a key player in pushing sales to over US$3.6Billion by the time I left... billions still accredited to me to this very day.

But that's the story. Few care to hear the details. Fewer still can understand them.

Another place? Another time? Another galaxy far, far away? Yes. Antiquated, irrelevant ethics? I think not.

My story can be told in simplest terms, in the words of the great Marvin J. Ashton,
"Listen... or thy tongue will keep thee deaf."

Cheers!