The Honda Myth: The Genius and His Wake

by Masaaki Sato

The first Japanese automaker to open a factory in the U.S., Honda grew its North American share in the 1970's with the introduction of the first environmentally friendly car, the Civic. Just as the manufacturer's combination of engineering excellence, racing dominance, and risk-taking was driving it into the international spotlight, however its trademark free-spiritedness threatening to take a backseat to bureaucracy and complacency.

Honda was the brainchild of two very different men. One, a genius engineer who never went to college but became the face of the company-Soichiro Honda. The other, a shrewd businessman who breezed into management and directed behind the scenes-Takeo Fujisawa. Apart, they may have never met international success, but together they made their mark. Yet, after Honda and Fujisawa's retirement, and decisively after the departure of heir apparent Shoichiro Irimajiri, Honda Motor looks like what it once seemed incapable of becoming-a faceless firm.

Overshadowed by the ever-changing competition in areas like F1 racing and low-pollution engine technology that were its pride, the old hothouse of invention is less sexy these days. The Honda Myth argues that the cult worship of Soichiro Honda that Takeo Fujisawa formented, at first to the firm's great benefit, worked against it in subtle ways as well. Though the company's future looks bright, it offers no beaming face.

Genres: Business

480 pages, Hardcover

First published December 19, 2006

Reviews

[Masgalih]

Luar biasa menarik. Jika membandingkan dengan beberapa buku sejenis yang sudah kubaca, semisal The Toyota Way atau The Starbuck Way, Masaaki Sato menggunakan pendekatan yang sangat berbeda. The Toyota Way membahas mengenai manajemen Toyota dengan cara yang luar biasa rumit, The Starbuck Way menggunakan pendekatan yang menurutku terlalu "American". Pada The Honda Way (judul bahasa Inggrisnya The Honda Myth), Masaaki Sato menggunakan pendekatan yang lebih mengangkat individu-individu dibalik kesuksesan Honda, dan pendekatan pribadi yang mereka gunakan dalam mengembangkan Honda menjadi perusahaan kelas dunia.
Tentunya jika membicarakan mengenai Honda, namanya yang akan cepat muncul adalal Soichiro Honda, the genius engineer. Namun untungnya, penulis buku ini tidak tersilaukan oleh kecemerlangan Soichiro Honda semata, sang penulis juga mengangkat sosok lainnya yang mungkin jarang diangkat penulis lain, yaitu Takeo Fujisawa "pengusaha ulung yang sangat realistis terhadap keuangan".
Dibagian awalnya kita akan disajikan dengan kedua nama ini, sejarah pertemuan mereka, sifat mereka yang bisa dibilang bertolak belakang (namun memiliki temperamen yang sama. Honda biasa disebut "Geledek", Fujisawa
disebut "Godzilla"). Perbedaan ini benar-benar diangkat pada buku ini, namun juga terlihat bagaimana kedua sosok yang amat berbeda ini mampu memerankan perannya masing-masing dengan sempurna, mengembangkan sebuah perusahaan yang mengubah dunia, menumbuhkan generasi-generasi baru yang tak kalah menakjubkan.
Begitu tak terpisahkannya peranan dua nama tersebut pada perusahaan, dalam buku ini, Soichiro Honda disebutkan pernah menyatakan "Nama perusahaan ini seharusnya adalah Honda Engineering and Fujisawa Trading Company. Kalimat tersebut seolah merangkum mengenai keseluruhan buku ini: Soichiro Honda dan Takeo Fujisawa.

MUST READ approved!

[Ethan Hulbert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute waste of what could have been a great book. The author, Sato, clearly knows a ton about the history of this company and could have written an engaging corporate history book.

INSTEAD, Sato wrote creepy fanfiction. This is some of the weirdest shit I have ever read. He clearly did not know any of these people personally. But he tells you all the thoughts in their heads, their conversations to each other, their letters, their worries and hopes and dreams.

But again - this is all just stuff he is MAKING UP. He is writing historical fanfiction about real people and a real company. He's like, writing their conversations and their nicknames and what they thought of each other, these little intimate moments... and it's so fucking creepy. It's like he's fetishizing these very real and recent and sometimes still-living people.

Not only is it just weird, weird, weird as hell, but it renders the whole of the book unusable from a historical perspective too. The fact that he's obviously making up so much of it means that all the parts that are real, the actual history of the company, it's impossibly obscured. It's like having a history teacher who prefaces each class by saying "half of what I will say is true, half of what I say I'm just making up for fun." You never have any idea what's true and what's not. So why even bother reading the book???

It's like if a historian went to watch Hamilton for a literal retelling of history. "Hey, wait, I don't think they sang all these songs..."

I didn't finish this book and I hope I can save you from ever even starting it. What a waste.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a loonnnggg read. Small print and narrow margins means there are a lot of words on every page. In some ways, the book deserves a better rating than I gave it. It was a very interesting look at the history of Honda, and a look inside the auto industry in general and post war industry in Japan. (For instance, I didn't know that auto sales people in Japan generally went door-to-door to sell cars, rather than waiting for buyers to come to the dealership.) It was also interesting to see how Honda is perceived in its home country compared to how we view it in the United States.

Sato is a senior automotive writer for a business journal in Japan, probably comparable to the Wall Street Journal. This book was originally written in Japanese in the mid 1990s, and translated for an English edition about ten years later with a chapter to update happenings since 1995.

The flaws are its lack of photos (I would love to see some of the early cars, and maybe the differences in cars from nation to nation) and the fact that it appears that the author puts words in the mouths of the main players. He'll often use quotation marks and note who said what and when the interview took place. But he often gives us what was going on in the minds of the executives, and it always seems to be in the same "voice," and it feels like this is what the author thinks the person must have been thinking, but it just doesn't quite feel right. Also - Honda began with motorcycles, and still sells a lot of motorcycles, But once the company began making cars, Sato barely mentions motorcycles, and barely makes any reference to other engine-driven products like lawn mowers and generators.

The Honda story is pretty amazing, though, and this tells the story in a reasonably entertaining way.