The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Stressed Leaders Must Lead Their People Through This Stress   Watching your business implode is stressful.  Losing access to good staff through furloughs, firing loyal people through brutal necessity, bum rushing suppliers by not paying them, seeing your clients cancel orders, smelling burning cash reserves are all hurtful and hit hard.  You didn’t sign up for this meltdown, but it is upon you anyway.  You are under immense stress and so are your people.  How are you dealing with your team in this environment?   I was watching a video of an American sales guru talking about how to lead your team in lockdown.  He had already fired one third of his own team and had some harsh advice on how to inspire the survivors of the first wave of cuts.  Those working from home had to be ridden hard to make sure they performed.  If people couldn’t match their number targets, they needed to be fired immediately.  Whenever there has been a recession, companies fire people and those remaining fear they are next, every working

Leading From The Covid-19 War Frontline   In wartime, there are leaders back at HQ, pouring over maps, receiving intelligence, creating strategies and making decisions about where to position their troops.  On the frontline, there are on the ground commanders, assessing the situation and then following or adjusting HQ orders, based on what they see in front of them. At the sharp point of battle, leaders are with their troops, as they all move into close mortal combat with the enemy.  Where are you in this battle with Covid-19 and the business terrors it has unleashed?   We are in lockdown, so for many of us our troops have been dispersed to the winds.  Contact is done remotely over video conferencing or phone hook-ups.  The chain of command has become much more fraught, than when we were all happily congregated in the office.  In this situation, communication and coordination can become more challenging in the fog of war against the virus enemy.  Delegation becomes a necessity and with it the challenges that

Lockdown Leadership and Coordination   Technically Japan hasn’t gone into lockdown, as other countries have, but in typical Japanese fashion, it is effectively the same thing.  By requiring “honourable everyone” to cooperate with the Government’s “request”, they have achieved the same outcome as a lawful direction.  My fellow Aussies have had to be given fines for not cooperating with lawful requirements, making us toe the line, because we are wild colonial boys and girls.  Not here in Japan though and so now we have many more people working from home.    Leading from home is a challenge.  The first things that pop up are the difficulties of coordinating things that were so much easier in the office.  In this isolation environment there is a greater degree of separation between the team members and with the boss.  Everything seems to slow down and drift even more than normal.  Actually, in the best of times, despite your heroic leadership efforts, nothing moves at a rapid pace in white collar work in Japan an

The Nuts And Bolts Of Running Virtual Meetings   Running meetings used to pretty straightforward.  We would all assemble in the meeting room, go through the agenda and then get back to work.  Now people are sitting alone, operating at all different levels of adjustment to working in isolation. They are in all different family situations too, some of which can make concentrating on remote meetings very taxing.    As the host of the meeting or as the leader of the meeting, you have a role to play.  Start by making sure to welcome people by their name as they join the call. It can be simple, “welcome Sachiko, thanks for joining the meeting”.  Using people’s names gives them a feeling of inclusion and comfort.  Some people will join the meeting by phone and the name won’t necessarily pop up on the attendees list screen.  If so, just ask who is joining by phone today, so you can connect the code for participation, with the name of the person on the call.   The worst combination is having some people on a speaker p

Leading Your Japanese Team In Lockdown   Your team are sitting at home, unable to go outside and so as the leader what are your priorities?  Crunching out work, pushing people to perform, driving results?  Are you concerned about your people’s mental health?  They are used to working together in a group for 16 hours a day and now they are at home, either on their own or jammed together with the family, in their small home.  What are your expectations and what is the tone of your communication?   This has never happened before, so the road map doesn’t exist for us as leaders. Where do we start and how do we cope? Let’s start with the identification of the possible and the impossible.  If you were able to go through this exercise in the office, while everyone was still together great, but if you didn’t, then you need to do it now.  The technology exists to group people together on video calls.  A massive town hall of everyone might even be possible, but probably division by division, section by section will be

Covid-19 Financial Crisis Leadership   The Covid-19 virus is nomadic, persistently wandering around the countries of the world infecting people and proving deadly for those over 70 and or with an existing health condition.  Health professionals provide advice on how to limit the spread of the virus and washing your hands, cancelling events, restricting travel, working from home and social distancing have proven to be good advice.  For those businesses impacted by these preventative measures however, the restriction of activities to reduce virus contagion means constricting their ability to make revenues and therefore make payroll.  For small and medium sized business, it can seem like a race to the bottom, between which one will get you first, the virus contagion or bankruptcy.    As the business leader, you can feel you are staring down the barrel of oblivion.  You are worried.  Your team are worried.  They look to you for a way out of this and for some comfort that you know what you are doing.  Do you actua

Two Waves Theory And Covid-19 Leadership   As an Aussie, I enjoy going surfing in Australia.  Blue skies, golden beaches, clean oceans and good surf make the whole experience very enjoyable.  What is less enjoyable is when you catch a wave, get severely dumped, find yourself pressed to the bottom under the weight of the wave and have to struggle to claw your way to air.  You break the surface to grab some air and at that moment, you are smashed by an even bigger wave.  That is where we are as leaders right now.  The First Wave is the virus disruption to business, particularly hammering small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).  The Second Wave is a global recession that takes everyone down.   Naturally in Japan, we initially thought the virus was a Chinese problem, like SARS. Then we discovered that big influx of Chinese tourist money brought with it carriers of the virus.  We also had political leadership who after Cabinet debate, concluded that the 1000 people who had been locked in their cabins on the Dia

Covid-1929: Are You A Wartime Or A Peacetime Leader?   “Hey Greg, you misspelt the name of the virus, you dummy - it’s Covid-19”.  Well, did I now?  Actually the 1929 reference is more accurate.  Wall Street crashed and the chain reaction pushed the whole world into a miserable recession, that destroyed lives and businesses.  In my view, that is what we are looking at here and the question is, as a leader, are you ready for the commercial carnage?    Launching a start-up, maintaining market share and seeking rapid growth escalation are all different requirements and not all leaders can do all three with equal flair. China’s retreat from markets has thrown a lot of business plans straight out the window.  Now the virus contagion goes global. We are entering an economic war zone and are your leadership skills ready for the challenge?    As a leader, focusing solely on the health aspects is to join the media led sensationalist panic.  If you have an existing health condition or are over 70 years of age, then you

Stress Is Mounting In Japan And What You Can Do About it   PM Abe’s sudden announcement closing every school in the country from Elementary level on and up created immediate panic buying of toilet paper, face masks and people stocking up on rice and other long lasting food products.  This has pushed anxiety levels much higher. Hokkaido is in lockdown and the Covid-19 virus keeps popping up in unanticipated locations.  If you are unhealthy and or over 70 years of age, then you definitely don’t want to catch this virus, because the mortality rate for that grouping is relatively high.   For everyone else, the health concern while real it isn’t the most concerning issue.  Business disruption impacts the livelihoods of many, many more people. The majority of companies in this country are small medium sized enterprises (SMEs), seventy percent of which don’t make a profit.  Yes, they arrange their accounts to run everything they can through the books to avoid paying tax, but how much cash in reserve do they have?  T

Vijay Deol summary   Vijay Deol originally came to Japan to teach English in rural Kyoto before starting at en world, a global recruiting company where he now serves as Regional Director. During his first 8 years, Mr. Deol worked his way up to Sales Director ast enworld before becoming President of a British multinational recruitment firm. As the sole employee in Japan, Mr. Deol grew the firm to about 30 staff by the time he left in 2017, to make return to en world. He currently leads en world Japan, Australia and Singapore, managing approximately 350 employees.   Mr. Deol constantly puts en world’s vision of nyuushago shuukatsu, Enabling Success, to practice in order to effectively lead a large and diverse team. He emphasizes the importance of hiring the right talent, continuous improvement and active listening. For example, Mr. Deol admits his own mistakes in company meetings to encourage his staff to be more creative without fearing failure. To understand and address the different demands and expectations

Building A Media Empire In Japan From Scratch: Episode #13 Japan's Top Business Interviews Robert Heldt summary Robert Heldt, founder and President of Custom Media, an award-winning bilingual media agency, originally started his career in the Maladives in the hospitality industry. Founded in 2008, Custom Media company had a rough start following the Lehman shock, but picked up soon after launching the bilingual lifestyle travel magazine WITHIM and BCCJ Acumen, the British Chamber of Commerce magazine, which recently celebrated its 10th year anniversary. Additionally, they help create ACC Journal of the American Chamber of Commerce, The Canadian of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, INTOUCH of Tokyo American Club and Mansion Global, a luxury real estate magazine. In 2013, the company won the prestigious British Business Award for their success. Starting as a close-knit team of just 3-5 staff, Mr. Heldt talks about the difficulties of recruiting and retaining a multicultural group of people in today’s Japanese w

Allan Smith: Ex-CEO of RGA Japan   Generally speaking, compared to other nationalities, they are a bit more reluctant to state their opinions so you have to know that, and cater for that by asking for opinions and waiting. They do however speak amongst themselves, so another useful source of information is having fellow Japanese people who are willing to come and tell you the vibe of things going on. I have found in Japan there are two extremes. People who do not speak English well, but want to speak English, and people who speak English perfectly well but would rather speak Japanese. Employees always rate the company and their job satisfaction as very low in Japan, but that is a cultural bias, no matter whether you survey Japanese companies or foreign companies in Japan. I tried to go out once a month with my direct reports and I expected my managers to do the same with their direct reports. I always tried to hire people who were smarter than me, and then trusted their judgement. We tried to share best prac

Nikhil Gutpe   The standard dress code is much more formal in Japan than many other countries, even including other Asian countries. Casual Friday, for example, is not a thing here in Japan. I have had to make sure in meetings, as the boss, that I do not state my opinion first, because then there will just be silence and no one will be willing to speak up. While in other countries, you are free to question the boss, and even say to a certain extent that I do not agree with this, in Japan, it would be a disaster. One thing that is excellent about Japan is the network of expats. You just need to ask the questions. You hear a big noise about how different Japan is, about how tough it is, but once you get here, and you ask questions of expats, and you experience things with an open mind as to why and how they are occurring, you can pick up simple things and start connecting the dots. You have not come here to be comfortable. You have come here for the challenge, so throw yourself into it and learn and have fun.

Seiichiro Asakawa   As a leader, I learned to not compete on things I did not have expertise in. I had a financial background, not a technical background, so there was no use trying to convince technically strong employees on that front – I had to use financial data as facts in order to convince my employees to accept that things needed to change in order to grow on the global scale that I wanted. While I accept there are differences in practices between cultures, I think the basics of people are the same. People are motivated to learn, to grow, to advance. Young people particularly, regardless of culture, are willing to challenge themselves and are not afraid to try and even fail. We invested heavily in the company computer systems so that all staff can, at the touch of a button, contact any other member of our overseas team. So, apart from being conscious of time differences, there is no excuse for a lack of communication. We communicate, even at the Japanese headquarters, mainly in English and what I enco

Paul Hardisty Once you walk the talk over a given period of time as a leader, you gain trust, and then people will follow you, instead of just doing what you say. Then you start getting buy-in and ideas and you can work cross-functionally. On engagement surveys, if you are giving a very low score, then you should not be coming into the office. If you are not going to be part of the solution, then you should reconsider your career and job. Engagement scores however tend to coincide with big decisions, e.g. head count freezes has a negative impact on scores, but bonus time has a positive impact. It is also not helpful to compare countries against other countries. It is about trends and patterns and feedback. You are always going to get people who score low, but it is when you see big swings that you know there is an issue. I used to think that my job was to find a local leader to replace me once I moved on, but I have realized we are an international company and rotation is a better solution, so succession pla

The 2020 Leader   Are you a perfect leader?  If you are, bully for you.  For the rest of us we continue on the journey.  As the great American philosopher Yogi Berra once noted, leading is easy, the getting people to follow you bit, is the snag.  Leaders do make such a huge difference. This sounds like the great man ideology in history, where specific individuals are credited with making the difference, rather than socio-economic factors and the contribution of others, who didn’t get their names into the official histories.   Business is different though.   The same industry, the same market, the same firm, the same staff, the same technology, the same capital, the same competitors but the outcomes can be so different depending on who is leading the firm.  We see this phenomenon all the time in various turnarounds.  A new leader is sent in and things begin to improve.  They bring in their own trusted people to execute their decisions.  They break many eggs in order to make the new corporate omelette.  They dr

341: Want To Be A Great Leader - Then Be Yourself Masa Namiki   While you can be ready for a position from a capability or mindset perspective, it does not necessarily mean you are ready from an actually `doing the job` perspective. One of the biggest struggles is that I did not have a viable local leader reference point when I was not sure, because my managers were regional leaders but their advice inevitably did work in Japan because they were drawing from their own experiences in different countries, with different people and different cultures. I also was not resourceful enough back then to have an outside of company network to draw upon. The key in leadership for me has been understanding that I do not have to be some big CEO type, I need to be authentic to who I am, building personal connections and showing vulnerability helps me lead by being able to connect with staff as a real person. Change is also not effective if it is leader-driven because once the leader shifts their attention elsewhere, the ch

2020 Will Be Different   Let’s make IWWCW our motto for 2020.  Quite a mouthful as far as acronyms go, but the meaning is sensible, yet challenging.  In What Way Can We is a perfect foil for inspiring those who resist peaking out from deep inside their comfort zone.  By the way, we have now captured a big proportion of the Japan archipelago right there.  Problems arise but we should never be defeated by them. This country however is the risk aversion capital of the universe.  This is important - don’t be put off by other people’s limitations.  They may see no way forward because their thinking is too negative.  We need IWWCW thinking to overcome all of that negativity roiling around us.   We should use IWWCW thinking to focus on your own problems and conquer them.   The new calendar year is always a time for reflection and goal setting.  We get a few days off and can put some distance between ourselves and the everyday bustle and minutiae of the business.  This affords an opportunity to think more strategical

Reflecting On Your Leadership Journey   We all tend to live in the moment as leaders.  We swing from meeting to meeting like a great ape moving across the jungle canopy.  We descend to indulge in some mindless email time and then we are off again, up into the meeting morass.  We are constantly pushing, always vigilant for trouble and permanently insecure about making our KPIs.    We struggle through the year to get the results, month by month.  We collapse in a heap at the end and see if we made it or not.  Even if we did, the relief is short lived because now we have to chase this next year’s numbers.  We have to rally the troops, exhausted and beaten by the last year’s efforts, to poke their heads above the parapet and go over the top into battle again.   The time for reflection on our leadership journey is slight to nothing.  I have been interviewing CEOs here for a project called “Japan’s Top Business Interviews” and there is a significant similarity between the leaders so far. They have all grown as lead

Leading An Intentional Leader Life In 2020   Leaders are made not born.  Yes there are some bossy types and charismatic types who bubble to the top and assume the mantle of leader, as their rightful place.  For the rest of us, we have to learn about leadership in the angry fire of the real world of work, where the stakes are high, the competition fierce and the mood unforgiving.  In Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull’s 1969 book “The Peter Principle” we all rise in the hierarchy to our to our level of incompetence.  In other words, we get promoted to a point where the job requirements outstrip our capabilities.  Well that makes sense, but we don’t have to be relegated to supremely low level though in the process.  We can push ourselves to the highest height possible if we do a few things along the way.  Here are some ideas for 2020 on becoming a more skilful leader.   Understand the difference between being a leader and a manager.A manager makes sure all of the processes are working correctly.  Things get do