The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Being an Aussie I don’t have the right to select the next US President or get involved in American politics.  I will steer clear of this minefield and concentrate on what we can all learn from the Biden train wreck. One moment he is a contender and in an instant he is struggling to hold on to power.  Why?  Because he gave a rambling speech in his debate with Donald Trump, viewed by over 50 million Americans. He was prepped for this debate by his handlers and yet it was a debacle. What happens in business?  If you are the CEO of a listed company, there is a lot of public scrutiny of what you say and how well you say it.  If the company is not listed, then the internal team are studying the CEO to gauge how the firm is faring and if their jobs safe or what are the chances to do well within this company.  One of the young people I know who has just finished university and has entered his company mentioned how shocked he was to hear the President speak in public for the first time.  Usually new entrants are vette

I am a maniac.  A less charged descriptor might be an “enthusiast”.  Now Japan is a country chock full of enthusiasts.  They win best pizza maker, best sommelier, best hula dancer, best shoe maker awards, etc., out gunning the Westerners who supposedly should be winning these home town advantage awards.   This is a country where work is taken very seriously.  Growing up in laid back Brisbane, we didn’t live to work, we worked to live.  At 5.30pm most people were in the pub, the gym, the ocean, or at home getting ready for dinner. Japan took a different track. Back in the day, working late wasn’t about productivity, because it was all about devotion, being part of the team, pulling your weight, in order to be taken seriously. In the late 1970s, I taught English at night while I was a student here at Jochi University, usually from 6.30pm – 9.30pm. I was always amazed to finish the classes and walking out see all of these people still there working.  Many of them, though, I observed, were seemingly engrossed in

They are not making as many Japanese as they used to.  Every year we get these headlines about the new lows in numbers of births in Japan.  The demographic trend is obvious to everyone.  What is not obvious is how this is going to force a change in the way we lead.  Until now, we have all applied the like it or lump philosophy to staff working for us.  They were infinitely replaceable – lose one and go get another one.  Not anymore. It is hard to understand, really.  The economy is not doing remarkably well.  The prospects for future growth are also not looking great, so why is it we are not seeing a parallel step down in business needs which translates into less need for staff?  I am not sure and I will let the economists duke that one out, but it is an interesting question to ponder. We are certainly seeing an uptick in demand for people and a corresponding downturn in their availability.  That translates into higher costs, which is only starting to happen now and increased competition for people.  This isn

Tough Love Or Fake Praise To Motivate Staff In Japan This tough love or fake praise alternative is a dubious construct. Are these two alternatives really the only options?  For some leaders they may feel that the staff are getting paid to do a professional job and their corresponding need is to get on with it.  The boss doesn’t need to be pandering to their needs.  This is especially the case toward these self-indulgent, coddled, spoiled brats who are now entering the workforce.  Giving this lot praise is fake and not needed, is the view. I certainly grew up in the “tough love” era of business leadership.  Praise wasn’t heard, and all you got was a hard time about not doing things well enough or fast enough.  They weren’t singling me out for a hard time, because this is what we all got.  In that sense, it was very democratic.  When you are raised that way in business, you think that is normal and how things are done, because the most experienced leaders in the company all operated that way. Today, the problem

APAC always ranks low in global engagement surveys. At the very bottom of the APAC calculation sits Japan. Part of the reasons are language and cultural. The translations from English can sometimes be off the mark and lead the Japanese to score lower.  I always recommend carefully checking the translations to try to tighten them up and make the meanings clearer. Other hurdles can be cultural.  One question often asked is “would you recommend the company to your family and friends as a place to work”.  This is a straightforward question in most countries, but not in Japan.  The sense of responsibility and accountability here is high and those taking the survey will answer this question with a low score.  It isn’t because they don’t like the company, but they are risk averse.  They worry if they recommend the company, their family or friends may complain to them and quit the company because it is not a match.  Alternatively, they worry the company will complain to them about the person they recommended.  They s

Alan Mulally has had a very successful career at Ford and Boeing.  Over his 45 years as a leader, he developed an approach called “Working Together: Principles, Practices and Management System”.  His number one principles is “People first….Love them up”. This type of declaration is simple to make, but not that easy to live when you are facing quarterly reporting of results and the full glare of the stock market.   We see so many cases of CEOs firing people, the stock price getting a big boost and that axing of the people turning into many millions of dollars for the CEO personally, as part of their stock-based remuneration package. Mulally believes that “working together” must be based on a supportive culture propping up the headline.  Culture alone won’t do it, though.  His system has a governance aspect directing how the leadership team should work together and which maps out how to create value.  His review process is central to translating aspirations into realities.  The basis of all of this is the philo

Ideas are free and sometimes frivolous.  We can brainstorm anything we like and we will come up with a bunch of ideas. Often that is where things grind to a shuddering halt.  I have been in those rooms, where we covered all the walls with ideas great and mighty.  What happened thereafter?  Nothing. In Australia, in the 1990s, the government tightened up their regulations on company expenditures and particularly looked more carefully at “off-site” session expenditures. In many cases, these were boozy get away weekends for the Directors and they could put the tab on the government’s bill by claiming it as a tax expense.  One year, the Directors decided to have an actual offsite with intention.  They gathered a group of people christened “game changers” and called in a consulting company to run the weekend.  It was a phenomenal experience. We came back from that off-site ready to conquer the world.  Some seriously good and extremely practical ideas emerged.  They were all duly put into a canvas bag by the Direct

Effective leaders actively coach their staff and move them through four stages. In Phase One, they create a psychologically safe environment.  In Phase Two, they engage the team members. In Phase Three, they evaluate the response to those engagement activities and finally, in Phase Four, they empower their subordinates. Let’s choose some of the most appropriate Dale Carnegie Human Relations Principles to help us execute on these four phases as a coach. Phase One: Psychologically Safe Environment. Principle 10 recommends that the only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.  This makes sense because how often do those arguing with us become convinced we are right? Never.  Rather, they dig their heels in and argue the point with us.  If we want to keep the relationship with our staff and create a calm atmosphere, it is better to not go there. Principle 11 says to show respect for the other person’s opinion and to never say they are wrong.  Bosses often think they have to coach people who hold a diffe

Ideas are free and sometimes frivolous.  We can brainstorm anything we like and we will come up with a bunch of ideas. Often that is where things grind to a shuddering halt.  I have been in those rooms, where we covered all the walls with ideas great and mighty.  What happened thereafter?  Nothing. In Australia, in the 1990s, the government tightened up their regulations on company expenditures and particularly looked more carefully at “off-site” session expenditures. In many cases, these were boozy get away weekends for the Directors and they could put the tab on the government’s bill by claiming it as a tax expense.  One year, the Directors decided to have an actual offsite with intention.  They gathered a group of people christened “game changers” and called in a consulting company to run the weekend.  It was a phenomenal experience. We came back from that off-site ready to conquer the world.  Some seriously good and extremely practical ideas emerged.  They were all duly put into a canvas bag by the Direct

Japan has a lot of wisdom to share and one of my favourites is to not start with the solution to a problem.  In Japan, the idea is to start with making sure you have the right problem to solve.  This is not easy, because often we are super busy and moving at warp speed all the time, so just jumping in to fix a problem sounds like the best approach.  There is a follow-on metaphor of the scaling of the wall. We work hard and progress rung by rung up the ladder, getting us to the top - the solution – only to find our ladder is up against the wrong wall.  We don’t want that, do we? Problem definition is sometimes obscured by having a number of factors to confront and not enough insight into which are the priority items.  This might be for a lack of a data or from conflicting opinions. The issue remains a large one, though, which we must deal with at the very start of the process.  Here are some steps to consider in problem definition. Step One: Silence Is Our Super Power Once we get into an open discussion about

Founded in 2000, Baidu has 39,800 employees and is one of the largest global AI and internet companies.  Based in China, its major success has been its search engine business.  Its quarterly revenues ending June 2024 were $4.67 billion, so it is a substantial company.  The Head of Public Relations and Vice-President, Ms. Qu Jing, posted a video on social media demeaning Baidu staff, telling them she “can make you jobless in this industry”.  She told staff she demanded they must be dedicated enough to travel by her side for 50 days straight and she doesn’t care about the impact on their families and personal lives, noting, “I’m not your Mum”.  Her mantra to the staff was “I only care about results”. She was proud to say she was so devoted to Baidu, that she didn’t know what school year her son was in.  She publicly posted her video outlining her leadership philosophy as an example to her PR team of how to use social media to promote Baidu!  Her professional skills in PR seem dubious to me. Also, her EQ or “emo

The era of the boss who had done all the tasks in the section and was the main expert on the business has well and truly passed.  Today, it is more of a team effort and there are a lot more specialisations required than in the past.  Collaboration is the key to creativity by grouping all the brain power in one place and unleashing it to solve the problem. To my surprise, very few firms have any clear methodology on how to unleash the creative ideas of the team.  So far, I have done over 200 interviews with CEOs here in Japan for my podcast “Japan’s Top Business Interviews”. I ask them all about their house methodology to harvest the ideas of their teams, and I am struggling to recall anyone who could answer that question well.  Here are some things to think about to create your own house brand on idea development and creativity. Step One: Begin with the end in mind. What is it you want to achieve with this exercise?  We are going to tie up the valuable time of a lot of key people, so the end must justify the

The leader has a different role to that of the manager.  The manager makes the business run on time, to quality and on budget.  The leader does all of those things, plus sets the strategic direction for the business, crafts the culture and builds the people.  If we want to control every aspect of the firm, then we have to micro-manage everything.  Obviously, that is a choice, but as the leader we need to develop our people too and so we need to delegate work to them so that they can grow.  In fact, as the leader, the ideal situation would be that we are only working on the most high-level things that only we can do. If possible, we want to set the parameters of the business so that the team can self-manage themselves.  Those parameters come in the form of some very useful tools called Vision, Mission and Values.  Some people may think that Vision, Mission and Value are rather flowery, fluffy, flaky statements of little use, but they are denying themselves some important leverage points as the leader. The Visi

As the boss, we are always super busy.  We have the management of the team and the results to work on.  Everything has to be progressing on cost, on time and on quality.  At the same time, we are setting the strategy, the direction for the team, communicating that so that everyone understands, establishing the values, and we are coaching and building the team members. Phew, I get tired just thinking about all of those boss roles. It is rare though that we can take a breath and reflect on the effectiveness of the teamwork.  When problems arise, we tend to work on those in isolation and never have a moment to see the team as a unit, as a whole. Here are three things to look at in your team and reflect on if you are happy with the effectiveness of the team. 1.    Conflict In a Western context, we might think we need to have constructive conflict which will help us to make better choices?  In Japan, disagreements are more likely to be ignored because if we surface them, we have to publicly deal with it and discr

Managers manage.  That means they make sure everything runs on time, to cost and to quality.  The leader does all of that, plus some additional important things. These include setting the strategic direction for the team and building the people’s capabilities.  Part of the leader’s role is to unite everyone behind the direction they are setting for the team.  There can be a lot of detail at the micro level about how to make the strategy a reality. One key component which needs to be set at the start is to re-clarify the purpose of the team.  You would think that was pretty obvious. However, if the leader doesn’t work on defining it, there could be 10 people in the team and eleven different purposes. Here is a simple six-step guide to setting the purpose. 1.         What is meaningful about what your team does, from the perspective of the organisation as a whole (such as in relation to the stated purpose and vision)? The team operates within the framework of the firm, but the leader must break that down to the

There is a debate about whether Japan is any different from anywhere else when it comes to leading the team.  Intellectually, I can appreciate there are many similarities because people are people, but I always feel there are important differences.  One of the biggest differences is how people are trained to become leaders in Japan.  I should really clarify that statement and say how they are not trained to become leaders. The main methodology for creating leaders in Japan is through On The Job Training (OJT). I can see there is a crisp logic to the idea of OJT back in the day, however it is now a flawed system in the modern world of Japan.  In the West, leadership training is a given, because the value is recognised and so the investment is made to better educate the leadership cohorts through each generation. The first problem with Japan OJT is it presumes your boss knows about leading.  There is very little formal leadership training going on in Japan.  I don’t believe it just about investing the money.  T

Do leaders have to be perfect? It sounds ridiculous to expect that, because none of us are perfect. However, leaders often act like they are perfect. They assume the mantle of position power and shoot out orders and commands to those below them in the hierarchy. They derive the direction forward, make the tough calls and determine how things are to be done. There are always a number of alternative ways of doing things, but the leader says, “my way is correct, so get behind it”. Leaders start small with this idea and over the course of their career they keep adding more and more certainty to what they say is important, correct, valuable and needed to produce the best return on investment. With an army of sycophants in the workforce, the leader can begin to believe their own press. There is also the generational imperative of “this is correct because this was my experience”, even when the world has well and truly moved on beyond that experience. If you came back from World War Two as an officer, you saw a certa

Here is a handy success equation which is easy to remember: our mindset plus our skill set, will equal our results.  This is very straightforward and unremarkable, but we get so embroiled in our day to day world, we forget to helicopter above the melee and observe the lay of the land.  A great mindset coupled with lacklustre skills, won’t get us very far.  A poor mindset with great skills won’t do it either, so we need both. What is our mindset composed of?  How we think is critical.  Are we operating with a positive mindset?  If we are deep in depression about the circumstances of the business, we are stuck in a hole from which it can be hard to emerge.  We are what we think, so control over what we think becomes so important. That also means being strict about what we put into our minds.  Stay away for fluff, endless scrolling on social media and negativity.  Find the useful, positive and valuable and make that the diet for our mind. Our opinions influence how we see the world.  Where do these opinions come

It is very common to hear from expat leaders here about their frustrations with leading teams in Japan.  They get all of their direct reports together in a meeting room to work through some issues and reach some decisions.  All goes according to plan, just like at home.  Weeks roll by and then the penny drops that things that were agreed to in the meeting are not happening.  “Why is it so hard to get people who are being paid good money to do their job?”, they ask me. One reason is that some of the people in the meeting room looked like they were in agreement because they don’t want to single themselves out as disagreeing with the boss in a public forum.  They keep a low profile and choose not to execute on a piece of work they think is a bad idea.  The Japanese methodology is the exact opposite.  Before the meeting, the boss checks in with the key people about this idea they have and gets input and feedback.  Once these consultations have taken place and any necessary adjustments have been made, then the mee