Does efficiency truly make people happy?

Mr. Kuroki, renowned as a top-tier producer at Fuji TV, and Mr. Kitakaze, Chief Solution Director at Dentsu Inc. Their dialogue, spanning seemingly different yet closely related fields, highlights the sharp perspectives and struggles unique to their generation! The future of television and advertising may well rest on this "in-between generation"... This series presents their daily struggles and passionate insights across five installments.

The theme of Part 4 is: "Can people truly find happiness by pursuing efficiency?"

Satisfaction and happiness cannot be streamlined

Kitakaze: Don't you feel that with word-of-mouth making information about "people's judgments" more accessible, there's a growing atmosphere of "I'll ask someone else's opinion" rather than "I'll try it myself"? For example, even when posting movie reviews on SNS, it seems many people check others' opinions first before writing their own. It's not so much a lack of confidence, but more like, "I'll check what everyone else is saying and then say something similar myself."

Kuroki: Maybe trying things yourself seems inefficient, or perhaps people just think it's normal to base decisions on gathering as much information as possible... I think it was like this before, but that tendency has become much stronger.

Kitakaze: The thrill of venturing into the unknown, the excitement of discovering something unexpected—that's the unique charm of TV programming. If we can cultivate that sense of anticipation, that thrill of "not knowing what the other person will say," in our daily lives, it could lead to great ideas.

Right now, we're running a cafe for cancer survivors (LAVENDER CAFE) within the company. When we asked everyone for ideas, suggestions came in like wanting to go to Yoshimoto or trying a Hato Bus tour. It'd be great if people could participate with that kind of vibe: "We don't know what's waiting at the destination. It might not be fun, but it might be fun, so let's just go for it."

Even with today's TV shows, it feels like a ticketed system where soccer fans watch soccer, drama fans watch dramas, and variety fans watch variety from the start. But I think real TV holds the potential for moments like, "Even though someone totally unrelated showed up, it ended up being incredibly fun."

Kuroki: That's right. Happiness and satisfaction are personal things, so you can't really make them efficient. They're hard to measure too.

For regular variety shows to become more interesting, having good concepts and guests is important, of course. But strangely enough, episodes I thought were a bit dull sometimes get a great response. Looking back at those episodes later, you see the performers really giving it their all, or the production team's detours—choosing not to prioritize efficiency—actually paying off. You could say the "amount of sweat" came through. Lately, I've realized you can't make a show just with guests, concepts, and packaging. To truly connect with viewers, you need that sweat and heart. Ah, I'm getting all nostalgic about Showa-era variety shows again (laugh).

Kitakaze: Can the amount of sweat the production team pours out behind the scenes really be felt through the screen?

Kuroki: The amount of sweat the team puts in definitely comes through. I think viewers trust shows where that sweat shows up very naturally in the performers' expressions and demeanor. We're living beings, so I believe we want to see vibrant, captivating living beings. Of course, that includes not just physical sweat, but mental sweat and emotional sweat too.

Finding the fun in "turning negatives around" and "differences"

Kuroki: Mr. Kitakaze, when creating products for clients, how do you connect your real-life consumer experience with making the product a hit? Is there some kind of logic there?

Kitakaze: I start by thinking about "why it won't sell." Or rather, I look at the reasons it's failing, the reasons it won't work, starting from a very dark place. The work comes to us because it's not working, but before considering n=1 (a single sample), I look at it with a cold, hard eye. That's when I find mountains of reasons why it's failing. My first step is to exhaustively list all of them. I think of every possible negative scenario, to the point of excess.

In human relationships too, when things aren't working, I absolutely refuse to run away. I keep thinking, "What exactly about this person am I disliking or finding irritating?" and then I go meet them again. There's actually a huge opportunity hidden in those negative, problematic areas. Just changing that one thing can make the other person happy, or make me enjoy things more, or trigger all sorts of positive shifts, right? So, with products too, I deliberately look at the negative aspects – why it's not selling, why it's being ignored. I thoroughly think about what's wrong and then figure out how to improve it.

Kuroki: For us TV producers, it's kind of like working with performers. When something you thought was negative flips around, it's a great feeling, right? Sometimes the more flaws something has, the higher its potential. In terms of teamwork, the clumsier and more incompetent an AD is, the higher their potential to really shine. Honestly, if you only surround yourself with "sure things," it gets boring.

It's fascinating when an AD with only a middle school education and one who graduated from Tokyo University sit side-by-side in a meeting. Even on the same topic, they're thinking completely different things. That's where the chemistry happens. Some of them are even bad at Japanese to begin with (laughs). It would be lonely without those kinds of ADs. If you weed out members just because they can't do the work or seem inadequate, the whole team's performance ends up suffering.

Kitakaze: Homogeneity is dangerous, right? When I think "they're starting to look alike," I feel a real sense of crisis. I actually think teams with someone who doesn't quite fit, or someone who's angry, are healthier. There's this tendency to think "different = wrong," but "different" and "wrong" are two different things. It's okay to be different, and I want to turn those differences into something interesting. If everything went exactly as I imagined, it would feel weird, honestly. I'm fundamentally flawed myself, so I actually want someone to stop me, to say "That's wrong!" or "That's off!"

Kuroki: Working together to overcome daily crises builds a sense of camaraderie and team spirit, right? More than just getting along or having similar personalities, what matters is whether there's trust as comrades-in-arms. Even with different backgrounds, it's great if we can all share that feeling. I think that's true not just for TV, but for any good workplace.

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