Why Japanese companies do so many different things

Photos from Lars Tunbjörk’s “Office” seriesConsider Toto.If you spend much time in American public bathrooms, or rather if you’re simply a particularly attentive patron of American public bathrooms, you’ll probably have noticed Toto’s toilets at some point or another: they’re distinguished by a quite memorable serif-font “TOTO” logo. Toto toilets aren’t quite dominant in American bathrooms, since they have healthy competition from our homegrown toilet champions American Standard and Kohler—though Toto is doing better and better as Americans start to fall in love with the bidet-toilet—but globally Toto is the world’s largest manufacturer of toilets and bidets. And in its home country of Japan, Toto is simply everywhere: 80 percent of Japanese homes contain a Toto bidet-toilet.And if you’re a longtime Toto shareholder—maybe an investor with a particular interest in bathroom fixtures—this has been a wonderfully lucrative year for you. Toto’s stock is up 60 percent year to date; in just…