Miyamoto on nurturing developers and making a big hit, Iwata on Miyamoto’s non-retirement

Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about how he balances his own work with nurturing the developers during the Q&A portion of Nintendo’s latest financial briefing. Iwata also commented on the non-retirement situation surrounding Miyamoto.

Both responses can be found after the break.

“I’m afraid that I am being chosen to answer all of the difficult questions today. As for your question regarding allocation of my energy, the ideal situation is one in which I do not need to give any direction. If we look at such a situation from one perspective, my giving directions may hold back my subordinates’ independent and voluntary growth. Accordingly, sometimes I intentionally give them freedom. Of course, I do not let everyone go totally unchecked. I supervise whenever necessary. The basic idea is, I’m reminding myself to exercise patience (so that I will not state my opinion nor get myself involved in their work.) I end up using less of my energy and, as a result, I am starting to have time that I can spend for myself. When I recently chatted about some general things, including how I am taking advantage of the extra time that I have now, some misleading reports were made. Now, I am spending more time than before on finding new ideas for new developments rather than focusing my energy on work in my (development) teams in order to solidify the contents of (existing) franchise titles. After all, developing big hit titles must be the solution. I am acting with the understanding that one big hit title can change multiple phases of a situation in the entertainment business, and I feel that finding such one big hit is my basic job. If you ask me, “So, how is it progressing?,” well, I think this is common in any organization, but when we look at the team within which we work, the organizational structure has been set up so that it works with the premise that each individual’s role is there. In other words, it is difficult to find my alternative within this existing structure. Accordingly, for that specific purpose, we are trying to create a new structure. As a result, I feel confident that we are gradually making improvements, and we have already come to the stage where quality software titles with a high completion level have been developed without my active involvement.

“On a related note, people often say that you can make excellent products when you gather excellent people. However, when they are fresh out of college, nobody really stands out. Of course, some graduates received very high scores at school, and some did not. Ten years after entering a company, however, rather than how they scored at school, what kind of work they do in which phase makes the difference in their ability, I believe. So the question is, “10 years after joining Nintendo, is the company able to take advantage of each individual’s ability?” Also, while a particular team’s overall performance may not be highly appreciated, I feel that there are a number of members within that team whose abilities are excellent. So, we are internally attempting such new things as organizing in-house seminars or gathering people who have not worked together before and letting them work on one mission. I do not know about the level of people who joined the company many years ago with me, but as far as employees who joined the company in the last 20 years or so are concerned, their basic abilities are pretty high. Today, I feel that I can trust them.”

Iwata:

“Some of you may not be able to follow one of the subjects Mr. Miyamoto just referred to, so let me supplement it. During one of the interviews he accepted abroad, Mr. Miyamoto commented that he always tells his subordinates that he’s going to retire soon, in order to nurture the young developers. Mr. Miyamoto’s intention in making these remarks is to change the developers’ mindset because they will continue to believe that “this is Mr. Miyamoto’s responsibility, not ours” unless he encourages them to envision the workplace without him. Unfortunately, the article was reported as if Mr. Miyamoto had made his retirement announcement. Follow-up articles were created one after another on the Internet. Before we knew it, articles containing completely different messages from Mr. Miyamoto’s original message were circulated, which once again reminded us how scary the Internet can be.

“Also on Mr. Miyamoto’s answer, there are two big development divisions at Nintendo, and I am supervising one, and Mr. Miyamoto is doing so in the other. We are encouraging active communication between the two. We are actively doing so and observing what happens if we assign particular work to people who have never done such work before. So far, we have observed more solid results than originally anticipated. In the future, we may be able to disclose, “as the result of this endeavor, we are now able to make this happen.” Of course, no single person can replace Mr. Miyamoto instantaneously. They are living in a different age from Mr. Miyamoto and their experiences are different from Mr. Miyamoto’s. On the other hand, there have been many people who have observed how Mr. Miyamoto works, have worked with him or have been left in situations where they have to take on more significant responsibility without being allowed to be dependent upon Mr. Miyamoto. Those who have been close to Mr. Miyamoto have been making developments with the world as their target, and they have been coming up with a number of products. Because there are a number of people who have gained a significant amount of experience, I am confident that people are growing. Even for the development fields that required Mr. Miyamoto’s involvement in the past, the situation is changing. Of course, there are the areas that we have to say, “Mr. Miyamoto’s involvement certainly makes a difference here.” However, when we look at the culture and know-how held as a group, not just one particular person at any given time, the situation has significantly changed over the past 10 years. Please take this as a remark from an individual who has been watching Mr. Miyamoto.”