LAKE MACBRIDE— It was in Oklahoma where I learned about Sumitomo Corporation. Maybe it was in Arkansas, I’m not sure ten years later. We were making a sales call on the U.S. headquarters of one of the hundreds of companies Sumitomo owns. We did not get the business. However, I learned a lot from the company about how to manage my post-transportation career. To be successful, we must live as a scaled down version of the largest of corporations.
Sumitomo Corporation began in the 17th Century with a book and medicine shop in Kyoto, Japan. The history is on the company web site and worth reading. Their corporate mission is to “achieve prosperity and realize dreams through sound business activities.” While corporations are not people, who doesn’t want to achieve prosperity and realize dreams? The notion is at the core of my quest for a sustainable life on the Iowa prairie. How to do it? Follow the chart.
The key element of Sumitomo’s management approach was to assign every business they owned into one of four quadrants on a chart, using the representation on the chart to guide management of their entire business enterprise. To read more, click on the link. However, there are four ideas worth mentioning, one per quadrant, that could be applied to any business or life: reinforce, cash cow, wait and see, and prepare for withdrawal.
We all have things we work on. Family, health, economic activities, avocations, risk management and necessities. I think of each area of work as Sumitomo thinks of each company— having risk, return on investment (tangible and intangible), resources, intellectual capital, and financial investment. The idea for my post-career life is to assemble a portfolio of activities that will facilitate prosperity and realization of dreams. When I consider each of my activities, some are doing better than others, and that is okay.
For example, my work as a proof reader for the weekly newspapers takes 4-6 hours per week, and the financial return is steady and predictable. It goes in the wait and see quadrant. Is there more work available at the paper? What is the risk of holding this job, in lieu of using the time to search for a better one? Can I find additional, similar work with other area employers that would increase my compensation and standing as a proof reader? Should I cut bait and find another, better paying position? From time to time, the newspaper work, and each endeavor in which I participate requires some reflection, analysis and attention. The Sumitomo approach provides the paradigm.
One of the precepts of sustainability is diversity of effort. With a one-paycheck career, the risks were too many. My transportation career was a cash cow, in which I prospered while advancing into middle age. I left a low risk situation, producing substantial results for the company, in order to realize the maximum value of more than 25 years of work.
What is next is uncertain, or in Sumitomo’s lingo, we’ll wait and see. I am prepared for the challenges— but more— prepared to realize my dreams.
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