While many senior executives continue to talk about the "voice of the customer," few demonstrate their commitment to this concept by spending time with customers. Many continue to use their intuition or `golden gut' in their attempt to provide superior customer value. Unfortunately, `senior executive intuition' is rarely attuned to the needs of their customers. While the competitive environment continues to intensify, executives have cut back on the time devoted to customers just when it should be increasing. This article discusses the need for senior executives to spend time with customers and provides examples of the benefits that this approach will provide.

One of the heart-warming features of the Post-World War II scenario is the policy of rapproachment followed by the US and Japan, who had embarked on a suicidal path. The spirit of mutual understanding and respect between the two giant nations extends to the arena of literature too. This is evident from the works of the Japanese scholars, who exhibit immense respect for the work of John Steinbeck, the Nobel Prize winner, and the most read writer in Japan. The Land of Rising Sun organized the first International Steinbeck Congress in 1976 and the sixth International Congress in 2005, which was attended by scholars from India, China, Korea, Thailand, Slovenia, apart from a large contingent from Japan. The theme was `Steinbeck and Global Dimensions' and most of the keynote speeches and papers focused on the continued global appeal of Steinbeck, the theme of ethics and his philosophy and relationship with Quantum Physics. The Congress thus provided an opportunity for a meaningful evaluation of the work of one of the most enduring novelists of America.

The giant mushroom cloud that hung over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on the fateful day in August 1944 was a horrifying warning to the mankind of the destructive potentials of the monster created out of the union of science and technology. That the two super powers, the United States and Japan, which had thus embarked on a suicidal path during the World War II, should bury the hatchet so quickly and begin a policy of rapprochement to the advantage and progress of both nations is one of the heartwarming features of the Post-World War II scenario, however, paradoxical it may appear to be. It is also heartwarming and indeed, paradoxical that an American writer who scarcely included any significant Japanese character in his fiction (but he used a Chinese character almost as his mouthpiece in his last great novel!) should have such a wide readership and an academic/scholarly interest in that author in such a significant manner as to brace itself to conduct the First International Congress in Japan to celebrate and deliberate on the wonderful writings of that author, John Ernest Steinbeck.To state the most obvious, Stienbeck is possibly the most famous American novelist in Japan and probably the most widely read, if we go by the number of copies of his novels sold in Japan!

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