Masamichi Toyama rummages through his pockets for his mask but comes up instead with an acorn that he picked up a few days earlier in Kita-Karuizawa. Pocketing the acorn underscored Mr. Toyama’s childlike curiosity about the world and his belief that progress in both art and business can derive simply from grasping that something would be nice to have.

Business Insider recently sat down with Ricoh’s Kazunori Kobayashi and Mr. Toyama to explore common thoughts about discovering the seeds of new business. Mr. Kobayashi, a corporate associate vice president and general manager of the Technology Platform Management Center in the Digital Strategy Division, believes firmly that art and creativity are engineering essentials.

From being business-focused to being lifestyle-centric

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed business and life. How do you think things will change in coming years?

Toyama: Before the pandemic, I had the impression that business determines your day. Time management would pivot around when you start work and how long you commute. Even if you professed to be a family person, in most cases you could only devote time to loved ones after work.

Living became the focus for many people after they started working from home. Corporations and business are just part of the flow of life. I think the pandemic made people realize that not everything is about work.

Kobayashi: Until the pandemic, people essentially paid lip service to work-life balance. Work was essentially the priority. But I sense that in coming years people will focus more on how they live.

Ricoh has offered such products as copiers and printers for years, and we expected sales to flatten off from around 2000. We thereafter decided to sell office solutions services. But in recent years, we have focused on workers rather than products and services. That is because we have returned to the basics of the Spirit of Three Loves, our founding principles. These are “Love your neighbor”, “Love your country”, and “Love your work”.

Toyama: Around how many people work for Ricoh? Things must be quite challenging when you have so many people.

Kobayashi: We have about 80,000 people. Their jobs and lifestyles vary. While we want to offer flexible work environments security and governance are also important. It’s hard to get the balance right.

Toyama: That’s true. An executive would inevitably view an 80,000-person business in terms of its big-picture infrastructure. Still, it is possible to narrow the focus and look at lesser things. Honda founder Soichiro Honda fitted an engine on a bicycle just it would be easier for his wife to go to the grocery store. This was essentially the first Cub. I think that resolving small problems and having a childlike curiosity offer tremendous potential as they are worlds away from the concerns of big organizations.

Art and business have much in common

Step back from a large organization and you can find inspiration in art. How do you harness art?

Toyama: I’ve spent quite a lot of time recently in Kita-Karuizawa in Gunma Prefecture. That’s because I bought Tanikawa House, which architect Kazuo Shinohara built in 1974. I never thought I’d enjoy the solitude and inconvenience there as much I have. One simple joy, for example, is when I take a bath with the lights off. The windows illuminate the water, making it the focus in otherwise dark surroundings.

Kobayashi: That sounds like something you’d see in a promotional video for a resort hotel.

Toyama: I find the place very comfortable. But I think that’s because it balances out the life I have in Tokyo.

Kobayashi: I don’t get a sense of stepping back from the organization. I tend more to combine things. Ideas for work often pop up when I’m taking it easy in the bath.

Toyama: It’s the same with art, isn’t it? I recently exhibited my work at this gallery for the first time in 25 years or so. My business began with a solo exhibition of my work in 1996. I went on from there to create Soup Stock Tokyo. It was a real thrill to conceive and create something on my own and showcase it directly to people for their feedback. I thought I could take that approach in business as well.

Eventually, I began to enjoy business expansion more than painting or drawing pictures. I set out by simply grasping that something would be nice to have. That’s what art and business have in common, isn’t it?

Kobayashi: I’d assumed that you and I had totally different upbringings and experiences but I’ve realized that we both believe that art and creativity can make business and engineering happen.

If you want to create brand new software or services, you have to begin by fantasizing that something would be nice to have or by exploring possibilities. Top management sometimes got frustrated with me for not selling anything.

Toyama: But if you can get an idea that starts with childlike curiosity off the ground it means you have 80,000 friends at Ricoh, including its engineers. I’d envy you for such a fabulous achievement.

Kobayashi: I once proposed a project idea to an overseas customer through a colleague I’d worked with while assigned abroad. The project got going within a week because the customer wanted an immediate demonstration of how it would work. You can experience roadblocks at big companies but one of pleasures at such organizations is being able to pursue projects that can be both domestic and global.

Casual environs for interesting experiments

Decision-making at Smiles explores what people want to do, the necessity or significance of things, and the value of trying something entirely new. How do you two predict value?

Toyama: I recently inaugurated an online community called New Immigrations. There is no particular mission. The idea is to expand and redistribute happiness by undertaking enjoyable and inspirational activities. It’s an experiment in running a subscription-based community that leverages input from its switched-on members in brainstorming and seeks to help create a new type of economy.

Kobayashi: Value and novelty tend to trickle in. At Ricoh, we like to engage candidly with customers, and in the process we experience moments in which we think we have a feel for what they may want.

Toyama: It’s important to try things out when you lack knowledge. You won’t learn anything by waiting for it to happen. It’s interesting to launch a community without knowing where it would go and find out that it was good to avoid imposing a mission on it.

The community’s system draws on “Likes” and the ability to amass points by writing comments and blogs. The points seem to flow like a river even if people are unaware of that.

Kobayashi: It’s important for us that it doesn’t occur to people that they are “using” our products. As engineers, we consider the vast mechanical complexity under the hood. Customers often use our products simply because they are comfortable doing so. I think that the world is becoming a place in which value circulates without customers being particularly aware of it.

Toyama: That reminds me of a Star Trek movie setting in a world free of war or poverty. That world has gone beyond basic income. There is not even money. A Replicator provides whatever people ask. I guess such an environment is conducive to free thought. Mind you, Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s only use of this device is to request a cup of hot Earl Grey tea. Maybe too much freedom is choice is hard to use.

Kobayashi: We have a similar notion that something can result from guaranteeing a satisfying environment to an extent. We use the concept of well-being from work practices. Instead of pressuring our people to do something for customers, we try to cut them some slack. Mind you, we don’t want them all to solely order Earl Grey.

So, you can find value in faraway places and in fulfilling environments. Have you any new experiments or ideas in mind for the years ahead?

Toyama: I’ll be 60 soon, and I see myself as a new type of old man. That’s because if you start working at 22 and live for a century that’s 78 years of adult life. So, if you’re 60 you haven’t yet finished half of your journey. I want to do something productive with the time I have.

Kobayashi: I think that now is the time for change. I want to build the groundwork for generating new value. Traditionally, Ricoh focused relentlessly on manufacturing. I’d like to create a less austere environment. I want to create a system in which we can come up with a range of assumptions about what is good and bring everything together in the context of a large framework that includes a safety net. I’d like to help produce three or four smash hits in a few years that help Ricoh remain essential for its customers.