The Cycle of Goodness An Idea by Tadao Yoshida ykknorthamerica.com The CYCLE OF GOODNESS® is the corporate philosophy established by YKK’s founder, Tadao Yoshida, who believed that “no one prospers without rendering benefit to others.” It expresses the basic belief of the YKK Group. Tadao Yoshida firmly believed that business belongs to society. As an important member of society, a company survives through coexistence. When the benefits are shared, the value of the company’s existence will be recognized by society. When pursuing his business, Mr. Yoshida was most concerned with that aspect and would find a path leading to mutual prosperity. He believed that using ingenuity and inventiveness in business activities and constantly creating new value would lead to the success of clients and business partners and make it possible to contribute to society. This type of reasoning is referred to as the CYCLE OF GOODNESS® and has always served as the foundation of our business activities. Why YKK zippers are the brown M&Ms of product design goodnesssocietybusiness
Holistic and prescriptive technologies Holistic technologies are normally associated with the notion of craft. Artisans, be they potters, weavers, metal-smiths, or cooks, control the process of their own work from beginning to finish. Using holistic technologies does not mean that people do not work together, but the way in which they work together leaves the individual worker in control of a particular process of creating or doing something. The opposite is specialization by process; this I call prescriptive technology. Here, the making or doing of something is broken down into clearly identifiable steps. Each step is carried out by a separate worker, or group or workers, who need to be familiar only with the skills of performing that one step. This is what is normally meant by "division of labor". Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology That which requires caring craftprocessmaking