Spreading the Passion by Example

Nestled against a backdrop of mountains in suburban Kanazawa, the Yokogawa Kanazawa Office, resembling a beautiful museum, contains one of the development centers for Yokogawa’s Life Business.
The Life Business was established in 2018 to contribute to individual well-being for all. It handlesthe entire value chain from R&D in the pharmaceutical, health-care, and food areas through mass production, logistics, and services.

It is here that we meet two Future Co-creation Initiative members: Hirofumi Sakashita, who oversees product development at this Kanazawa office, and Sachiko Niki, who handles global marketing at the Tokyo corporate headquarters. The pair have engaged in scenario planning since the days of Project Lotus, the Initiative’s predecessor.

*Insights shared in this dialogue are personal and not those of an official YOKOGAWA representative.
*Affiliations and positions are current as of December 2024

The two colleagues recently sat down to discuss what they have learned from the Future Co-creation Initiative, their scenario-planning experience in the Life Business Division, and their assessment of the value gained from participating in the Initiative.

 

Project Lotus: Great expectations

After joining Yokogawa in 2008, Sakashita developed software for hardware control and image processing before stepping into his current role as section chief in product development. One of Yokogawa’s first employees to explore AI technology, Sakashita is now an AI specialist who applies his skills to Yokogawa products.

In 2019, Project Lotus founder Nobuyuki Tamaki asked the head of the Life Business Division to introduce him to an “offbeat” individual who could participate in that endeavor. Sakashita was the individual recommended. “Truth be told, I felt sheer excitement,” Sakashita recalled.

New project participants were given nearly 20 books as assigned reading, leaving many with bewildered faces. Sakashita, who thrives on reading, had his own feelings about the matter. “This is perfect—an area I love and a project I can lead,” he thought. He daringly declined to receive his stack of books by mail, instead reading on the bullet train ride home from Tokyo to Kanazawa. “Tamaki’s selections went beyond tech evolution to encompass broad and fascinating areas like social change, the economy and politics, and geopolitics,” he explained.

Though Sakashita was always motivated by work, participation in the Project allowed him to showcase his “offbeat” qualities and make great strides.

 

AI expertise certifies an uncertain future

As an engineer with profound knowledge of digital technologies such as AI and deep learning, Sakashita had an active voice in future scenario planning discussions. “The AI which I incorporated into products primarily utilized machine learning and deep learning, the latter through image processing. From that viewpoint, I was sharing AI’s limitations with everyone. However, when I saw the explosive takeoff of generative AI in 2022, I was floored. I know everyone was shocked, but as one who had experienced scenario planning, I was convinced that the future was full of uncertainty.”

“I’m delighted I was involved in scenario planning,” declared Sakashita in reference to these myriad experiences. His conviction comes from grasping the importance of approaching things from a broad perspective with future uncertainty in mind.

“The key to generating innovation is to consider two opposing approaches simultaneously: proactively embracing challenges by understanding and evaluating global trends, and acting to maintain or protect existing business, even within one’s own workplace. We must never stop learning.”

“My involvement in scenario planning brought me closer to Yokogawa’s Three Goals for sustainability, helping me grow even fonder of my company. I also felt compelled to share my personal experience with others,” he explained.

 

Implementation: Making waves in the Life Business

When Project Lotus concluded, at the request of the head of the Life Business Division, Sakashita decided to act as a facilitator of scenario planning on his home turf. After persuading his own boss, Sakashita worked with 12 colleagues to draft a 2040 Future Scenario focusing on food, health care, and biotechnology.

He asserts that both he and his colleagues broadened their ties with others and achieved personal growth through the scenario drafting process. Their thoughts and expressions changed, as did their way of processing information.

“The perspectives of the participants were visibly enhanced, as was the level of language they used. It’s wonderful to have a mechanism which encourages thinking from an ultra-long-term perspective. I think the others felt so as well.”

His experiences have enabled Sakashita to spread the joy he felt during Project Lotus and the Future Co-creation Initiative even with colleagues in the Life Business. He felt that same joy mentoring others. He also made an impression on top- and mid-level corporate management, highlighting his activities in presentations within and outside the company. As Sakashita phrases it, “I put a lot of stock in passion. You’ve got to enjoy what you’re doing to spread that passion.”

 

Graphic recording captures the big picture

Life Business colleague Sachiko Niki works in marketing, advancing the vision of Life Business and handling promotional activities as a mid-level manager. Niki joined Project Lotus soon after entering Yokogawa in 2019. She was handpicked by Project Leader Nobuyuki Tamaki, who had decided to incorporate graphic recording* into scenario planning and consulted Niki’s boss about who might help fulfill that goal.

*Graphic recording: A facilitation technique that fosters creative discussions by visualizing discussion content in graphic form, such as through pictures and diagrams.

“I’m rather bad at drawing, but I love to organize and am pretty good at summarizing and abstracting text. It seems they appreciated my ability to understand and convey characteristics,” reflected Niki.

Notwithstanding that, she had no experience in graphic recording or drawing. “My boss said, ‘It sounds interesting, and I know you of all people can handle it.’ He was so persuasive that I couldn’t help but say yes when he assigned me to the job,” she admits with a smile. “I read books on the topic and sat in on several graphic recording lectures.”

Playing to strengths

That said, Tamaki and fellow scenario ambassadors were astonished by Niki’s ability to organize, synthesize, and think abstractly. “Niki is skilled at expressing herself through language and imagery but also at abductive reasoning, which works out causes from results. Her graphic recording helped us spot biases, omissions, and/or oversights in discussions. She also did graphic recording while conferring in English with overseas experts,” praised a fellow ambassador.

Niki’s junior and senior high school years were spent in the Netherlands, and she lived in India and Singapore after getting married. However, she did not always interpret those overseas experiences as a plus. “I didn’t realize what a precious opportunity it was to gain diverse perspectives,” Niki admitted. She also confessed that she initially had no clue as to what value her drawing brought to the current project.

Yet once her efforts with the Project got underway, she found elements of her overseas experience she could put to good use along with her skills in logical thinking and expression.

“I was puzzled by the process at first, but at some point, that turned to delight as I realized that my skills were helping the team,” said Niki. The Project helped her discover treasures within herself that she had acquired along the way.

Fostering people with a sense of mission

Both Sakashita and Niki agree that the allure of the Future Co-creation Initiative is the ties it enabled them to forge with fellow participants. “Drafting scenarios even allowed us to create ties with colleagues in our own Life Business. I also realized that there are lots of enthusiastic people in the company other than myself,’” reflected Sakashita.

Niki added her own insights. “The Future Co-creation Initiative has its own Code of Conduct, which creates a unique culture. For example, the environment allows you to propose a discussion topic or seek someone’s input, regardless of their position or department. Anyone could contribute by putting their skills and talents to work. It was a great environment which afforded us psychological security and freed our potential.”

Sakashita added, “Even now, Initiative participants remain linked. We gather, learn by doing, and think about the company’s future. In that sense, the Initiative is where individuals with a sense of mission can gather, speak passionately about Yokogawa’s future in their own words, and nurture each other.”

Finally, Sakashita stressed, “We have to keep that passion going.”

For Yokogawa, the Initiative is a platform where those with a shared sense of mission gather, grow together, and contribute to the company and society. The circle of passion felt by Sakashita, Niki, and their fellow participants is sure to spread increasingly within and beyond their company.

From left to right: Nobuyuki Tamaki, Hirofumi Sakashita, Sachiko Niki, Gousuke Mogi (Yokogawa)