This is a really sweet book with simple principles for bringing more happiness into the world.
I won’t spoil them, but the book also has a couple anecdotes about the development of Earthbound, which I found interesting and hadn't heard before. Earthbound always struck me as quite a different game from others, and part of the reason why might be explained in this book.
The Hobonichi Earthbound cover and the Ask Iwata book go together pretty well!
This book was interesting to read after the Reggie Fils-Aime book, and in reading both, it’s easy to see how the different strengths of each leader contributed to making consistently interesting products come out of Nintendo. Iwata acknowledges the power of disparate strengths in the book.
I like to make a study of Nintendo as a company because the feelings of happiness I’ve received from Nintendo games have been so consistent throughout my life. The way I see it, an organization that makes such touching games has to have some principles driving it, principles that care deeply about people having fun and being happy. It’s not simply that Nintendo creates quality devices and products, it’s that the quality products also contribute to so much joy and happiness that I find them worth studying, to the point of writing these blogs and discussing the books when I get the chance. Apple is a company that puts out quality devices, but does it always make people so happy? The same question could be asked and answered in the same way for dozens of game and technology companies.
Here is another simple statement from Iwata:
“What makes work so interesting is the chance to meet people driven by anger and people driven by happiness”
The book is full of simple statements like the above. I found this to be very refreshing. There’s something very humble and also very direct in the writing style here.
I also liked the simplicity of what Iwata had to say about drawing:
“A person who likes drawing is going to draw regardless of whether anybody asks them to, and people will praise them for that. As this cycle continues, they’ll get better and better at drawing.”
A key takeaway from this book for executives and managers is Iwata’s leadership style of interviewing each person at his company twice a year. It sounds a bit like a performance review, but it’s more of an interview. I thought this strategy was very refreshing, and it worked to keep Iwata close to the people he was leading.
Ultimately this is a good book, it’s a short read and has many anecdotes to enjoy upon a second look. Ask Iwata is one of those books that is good to read in full and also take off the shelf from time to time to revisit. Open to just about any page and you’ll find a simple, compact statement about life as a leader or a designer.