CHAPTER 2

Losing My Father

In 1959, I applied to Harvard Business School and was accepted to begin in the fall semester of 1960. It was unusual for a Japanese businessman to attend an American university, but I was eager to gain a fresh perspective on business from an entirely different culture. Although Japan underwent some changes, the nation’s corporate culture had remained relatively unchanged since the beginning of World War II. My limited exposure to life and culture outside of Japan made me feel isolated—and I feared this isolation would stunt my growth as an entrepreneur. I wanted to see and experience more of the world.

I also hoped that going to the United States would help me to master the English language. Without a doubt, learning to speak English fluently could yield only positive results. My experience hiring Leonard Craven when I was at Keio provided an excellent opportunity for me to work on my English; however, it had been a few years since that time, and I needed more practice. Moving to the United States would also give me a more nuanced perspective of how people act and react and how other people maintain a cultural identity different from what I knew. The diversity of American demographics appeared to offer something that the racially homogeneous Japan did not. I knew that living and studying in America would change how I thought—and would help me become a full-fledged member of the international community.

These views about the importance of diversity and internationalism, however, were not common in Japan. Although steeped in my culture, I have always felt a bit different. Others have noted that I never acted or treated others as a Japanese, but as someone with a different understanding of the world. The stereotypes surrounding Japanese businesspersons hold an inkling of truth. The 500 years of near-complete isolation previous to modernization may have fostered the misinformed mores of modern Japanese society. In addition, the Japanese language lends itself to this kind of thinking, since the Japanese are the only people speaking it—and thus the only people who can communicate to one another effectively. This language, based on social and cultural cues unlike any other, can make the layers of Japanese culture and society appear unclear and ambiguous to outsiders. I recognized this early in my studies and found that in order to bridge cultures and communicate successfully, I would have to abandon those social cues and replace them with a more complex approach; only then would I find a place in the international arena.

However, as it turned out, I would not be able to attend Harvard University or travel to the United States on an extended basis. My father died just as I was notified of my acceptance to business school. Until this day, I am not sure exactly what happened. One night he returned home laughing, smiling, and singing from spending time with friends at a nearby lounge. He was joyful and at the end of the evening he said good night to everyone, then retired to bed.

At the time, my youngest brother, Shigeo, was only 10 and afraid of the dark, so he would sleep with my father frequently when he was too scared to sleep alone. In the middle of the night, my father began trembling and woke Shigeo. Shigeo asked him what he was doing, then turned on a light on the bedside table. As my brother has recounted, my father’s face was changing colors and it appeared as if he were choking. Shigeo screamed for help. My mother called a doctor, but by the time he arrived at the house, it was too late. There was nothing that could be done to rescue my father. He was only 52, and there were no warning signs of illness.

The loss of my father was devastating to me, but for some of my brothers it was much worse. Unlike my brothers, I had lived away from my father for the majority of my life. When I did live with him, my father had always been busy running the family company and school. This is not to say that we never spent time together; however, most of our adult interactions were business related. My brothers, on the other hand, spent much more quality time with my father and thus had developed much stronger personal relationships with him. Their youth magnified this tragedy as well.

In the United States, gender no longer determines who the family’s breadwinner will be, and in this respect, American culture remains fairly straightforward. In Japan, on the other hand, there are layers of unspoken tradition. A hierarchy based upon seniority often overlaps with a paternalism within the family. I therefore became responsible for my younger siblings’ and mother’s well-being. Although I was too young to handle such enormous responsibility, I had to accept it. I also wanted to prove myself not only as a capable businessman but also as a good son and brother. So, at the age of 26, I was forced to become the head of my family.

I could not anticipate my father’s death when applying to Harvard. He was young, and I had been looking forward to spending more time with him to make up for the time we had lost due to the war and other personal factors. I wanted the opportunity to learn from him, as he had learned from his father. I wanted to be closer with him and gain some of the wisdom he had garnered during all the years as Takihyo’s president and father of a family of four. I looked forward to a gradual and deliberate introduction into the family business and to life.

I deeply mourned my father’s death, but I also had to be a strong figure within the household. I had to show my strength in the face of trauma. What made matters worse was the fact that because my father had been so young, he had made no estate plan. There was no writ to consult when distributing his wealth. Therefore, I was forced to inherit his positions in the Takihyo company as well as his assets. In terms of my family, my brothers were too young to know what to do with their shares, and my mother gave me her own to oversee. I held total fiduciary responsibility for my family.

Although many may dream to inherit, it became a curse rather than a blessing for me. The lack of planning for my father’s inheritance caused us to travel the default route when paying inheritance taxes, which in Japan were, and still are, astronomical. Moreover, because most of my father’s wealth had been invested in the Takihyo company—and it had been a family company for a couple hundred years—selling the shares was not an option. Liquidating large portions of the company to pay taxes would compromise the family business. If I were to have taken that route, the Taki family would no longer own the majority of Takihyo; instead, the company would be in the hands of the buyers. I knew that we could not sell those shares for fear of losing the company that had been passed down from father to son for many generations. When my father was alive, he had opened a wide path for me to do and accomplish whatever I wanted. I appreciated his willingness to let me grow and learn about new ventures. I wanted to ensure that I would be able to give my brothers the same experience, so I had to forfeit my plans to attend Harvard and take on these new responsibilities as head of my family and of Takihyo.

A close family friend of ours who happened to run what was then Tokai Bank (but is now a part of Tokyo–Mitsubishi UFJ Bank) asked how things were going for me and for the family. I had to be honest with him. A part of me wanted to find a way to make it without help from others, but I knew that this simply wasn’t possible. I therefore asked for a loan during our conversation. At the time, I had neither the income nor the savings to pay the inheritance taxes for my family. I needed money and I needed to budget our family’s spending. I also knew that I would have been rejected if I had gone anywhere else for the loan. I was very fortunate to have this man as a friend; otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened to us or the family business. I was young and with little experience of the business world. My salary could not support a family of six. How could I have repaid such a substantial loan with so little to offer? I struck a deal with my friend to repay over the course of 10 years—even though I wasn’t quite sure at the time how I was going to do so.

For those 10 years, I began making enough money to support my family; however, I also had to pay to put my brothers through college. I was young and motivated, but the circumstances were trying. I had a demanding personal life; I had twin babies and had to take care of my younger brothers and mother along with the family business. I was forced to fill my father’s shoes at both Takihyo and Taki Gakuen, the family school, among other ventures.