The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Build Your Successor’s Storytelling Skills   We enjoy movies, dramas, novels, plays because they all excel at telling stories. They are not executed as simple chronologies – this happened, then this happened after that and then after, this happened.  They have what is a called an arc in writing.  It takes us on a journey that engages our emotions.  The majority of business presentation journeys are as engaging as road kill.  That is to say, mainly on the depressing side or at best, just plain boring.  “But business is boring”, you say.  “Greg, we are all about the numbers over here baby. We don’t have time for fluffy stuff like bedtime stories.  We live in the real world dude, get it”.  Well that is not true.   Leaders have two jobs.  One is to manage processes.  We make sure the system is working on time, on budget, on point for quality and on plan. This is the execution piece and without it, things turn ugly real fast.  Try missing a salary payment sometime in your company and see Pandora’s Box spring open

Don’t Take Bad Advice From The Buyer   Clients worry about their bottom line, cash flow, brand reputation and their own career.  They often move around between countries and companies.  We are still here though.  When the client requests something that ultimately impacts our brand in a negative way, we are the one who has to face the subsequent and consequent ramifications.  The lure of the fee payment is powerful but sometimes we should walk away from the money.  We are in haste to get the dough, to make the target, but we reap the whirlwind down the track and then repent at leisure.   My client was new to us and this was the first solution we had delivered for them.  In the prior discussions about their needs, we had identified what was required for developing their sales team.  The client had quite a split between the newbies recently hired and more experienced salespeople. Naturally, I proposed we split the groups out, because they had quite divergent requirements.  The slow pace suitable for training a n

Leading Projects Across Multiple Offices   What a nightmare this is, dealing with different times zones, work styles, understandings, offers, commitments and varying degrees of time consciousness. Big projects bring big headaches with them, especially when the client wants something done in a hurry, across multiple markets.  In a global world of business these types of challenges are only going to increase.  The hard bits are when you have to rely on others for vital information.   The client has a formula which suits their situation.  If you are dealing with procurement officers they want to get it all down to a one size fits all spread sheet.  The fact that you are being asked to fit the square peg in the round hole is of no interest to them.  They want to gauge comparisons of cost across all the potential suppliers participating in the beauty parade.  This has the effect of warping some of the information from certain markets.    Even in the same organisation, not everyone offers exactly the same thing acr

Killing Rumours And Misconceptions   Staffing is a subject that gets a lot of attention from those within and without the organisation.  Those outside see staff movements as a bellwether of how the company is travelling. High turnover indicates disruption and uncertainty about the future.  Rapid high turnover indicates real trouble within the ranks.  When executives arrive in Japan, they often discover a lot of deadwood and they get about cleaning them out.  They are wholly focused on internal issues.  The outside perspective hasn’t been a consideration in their minds. They have forgotten about their competitors and how they will try to use this information to damage the firm. They think they can operate in a vacuum.   Japan being such a risk averse culture, unscrupulous rivals have a field day playing up your instability and therefore heightened risk as a business partner.  I remember running ads for sales staff when I was in Osaka.  I merrily ran the ads looking to expand the sales team.  Now I knew that, b

How To Fix Burnout   Previously we looked at preventing burnout but what happens if we missed that tide and the ship didn’t sail?  Burnout can be a gradual build up of tensions, stress and issues that affect our physical and mental health.  There isn’t a buzzer that sounds to tell us we have hit burnout and the whole lead up phase is a bit vague.  Is this burnout or am I just a bit tired after a big week, month or year?  Many of us were brought up in cultures where you suck it up, soldier own and don’t grumble.  The grumbling usually starts in intensive care, as the medicos rush to save our life, because we have pushed it too hard.  Few people in Japan die from excessive hard work.  They normally kill themselves instead because they are so stressed about their situation and so tired from the ridiculous hours they are working, that they want it all to end.  No one pushed the emergency break to get off the careening, runaway train.    Burnout is beyond stress.  When stressed we still care.  With burnout, we are

Networking When Doing Business In Japan   There are two varieties of networks here for me - the Japanese speaking and the English speaking. With regards to the Japanese speaking groups, there are a few things which are a bit different.  Japanese people are raised not to talk to strangers and guess what, they carry this idea over to networking events as well.  In a typical Japanese event, it goes like this: if I know you and I meet someone else I know, I will introduce you to each other.  I won't walk up to a complete stranger and start introducing myself.     This is how it is done here, but it is pretty limited in terms of how many people you can get to meet. In our case, with my team, we bowl straight up to strangers at networking events and introduce ourselves. If you are going to create a contact point with someone new, you have to make it happen.  You have to be polite and reasonable, but you also have to break through the barriers.   As a foreigner, the social rules are not as strict for me, as compared

Don’t Hit Burnout Baby   Leaders encountering this title preventing burnout might be thinking “I am tough, self-reliant, hairy chested and resilient. I don’t need to worry about it”. This means your business is probably sailing along smoothly and everything is hunky-dory.  What happens when the economy starts dropping precariously or key people bail out and join the competition.  Or when rivals within the organisation start making things difficult for you internally or the new “bad penny” boss turns up and upends your neat little world? One day you are a hero and the next day zero is in the offing. Also, what about the members of your team who are not like you?  Those who are more vulnerable to becoming stressed or who are sacrificing their health for the business, through a strong sense of duty and loyalty?  We know the impact of psychosomatic illnesses today, so sucking it up and carrying on isn’t the answer for everyone.  On the sea or in the air, the captain of the vessel is responsible for the lives of e

Dealing With Superstars In Your Business   We are all looking to develop talent within the ranks.  We invest time and treasure to boost skills and experience.  We succeed. We produce outstanding individuals who can really take the business forward.  Whether it is a large enterprise or a small-medium sized firm, the superstar looms large.  We might think that a superstar’s influence gets dispersed inside a large company, because they have so many staff.  The problem is that the numbers of superstars are relatively few and their presence inside certain divisions or sections makes them crucial to that part of the business.  If it is a smaller business then the talent concentration become intense.   Superstars usually come with super egos.  They may have had tiny egos at the start, but over time we have promoted them and boosted them to become the superstar they are today.  What happens when they start to go rogue?  Their self belief becomes vast and they want to strike out on their own.  They have been cosseted

How You Can Get Change Engagement In Japan   We know there are many challenges to getting the team to embrace changes. Resistance, poor buy in, fear of the unknown, the breakdown of cooperation, vague priorities etc. are common problems.  Change engagement won’t be achieved by email announcements or mass town halls.  These usually spark cynicism, criticism, scepticism and outright hostility.  We need a better approach.   Begin by placing your feet firmly in the moccasins of your team members who are about to undergo the change.  Think back to workplace changes you have experienced in the past.   What was your initial reaction at that time?  What were the outcomes as a result of the changes? What went well and what didn’t go so well?  Reflecting on your own history, positive or negative, is useful when trying to enlist others into the brave new world of change which coming down the pike.   How do we do it? We should not get tied up in the logistics of change – reporting lines, Division restructures etc.  Inste

Anticipating Trouble Before Activating Change Engagement   Change is glacial in Japan.  Everyone complains about everything but no one wants to change anything if it impacts them.  We call this the NIMBY Protocol.  Not In My Back Yard sums up this philosophy toward change.  This company should change what it is doing, my boss should change, my colleagues should change, but I want to stay exactly the same. It would be good if everyone got behind the changes with full enthusiasm and cooperation.  However, that is rarely the case.  Caroline Schoeder’s advice is salutary, especially for Japan.  “Some people change when they see he light, others when they feel the heat”.    “Forewarned is forearmed” is ancient wisdom, so if we are contemplating change, what are some of the roadblocks we can anticipate?  If we know what is coming down the pike, we will be better able to me deal with it. In this week’s episode we will look at the blocker issues and next week we will look at how to make change engagement work.   Here

What Do You Do When Key People Quit?   I once had the perfect team in business.  I had spent years hiring well and really putting a lot into training everyone.  I thought, “finally, I have the perfect team”.  That wondrous situation probably lasted about six months before one of them quit.  A client poached them from us.  Why? Because we had done such a stupendously excellent job in training and developing them, that they were considered highly, highly  valuable by other companies.  What does this tell us?  We will never create the perfect team and even if we do, it won’t last, so get used to instability.   Whether it is a division within a large company or within a small company, there will always be key people.  Sometimes they are in highly specialised roles, which take years of investment in their training and qualifications to get them there.  They are truly unique talents, who are almost impossible to replace.  So what do we do?  We start treating them like princesses.  We are very keen to ensure they st

Why Japanese Staff Refuse Leadership Positions   It is an irony. In the West ambitious people have the elbows out to bundle you out of their way.  They are scheming and plotting to get the next promotion.  They exaggerate their qualifications, experience, talent and capability at every turn, if they think it will serve to see them step up over the bodies of their rivals.  They fake it now hoping they can make it later.  They suck up to those above and criticize those below.  Their peers are seen as the enemy who must be vanquished if they are to prevail.  In the Game Of Thrones and in the Game of Promotion “you win the game or you die” is the prevailing philosophy.  In Japan, when staff are recognized for their good work and given the chance to move up often they refuse.  They say things like, “it is too early”, “I am not ready yet”, “maybe in two years time”. This drives Western leaders here nuts.   Why are these Japanese staff so bashful and unmotivated?  The speed of promotion is fast in Western companies.

Value Led Leadership   When we think of the value of the leader, we are drawn to things like insight, vision, experience, technical knowledge, expertise.  The Yogi Berra quote on leadership however points to a fatal truism in being in charge of others, “Leading is easy.  Getting people to follow you is the hard part”.  Being individually talented and polished in the production of outcomes isn’t enough.  Our personal skill level as a doer is no automatic qualification for leading.     The real value proposition of the leader is in how they make their team members feel valued.  Here is where we locate the real value equation in leadership.  Getting everyone behind the leader’s vision requires that they be engaged.  Think about your own case and various places you have worked and bosses you have worked for. If you were not engaged, then you didn’t care about direction, vision, innovation etc.  Unengaged staff simply turn up to get paid, but don’t do much beyond that.  Now imagine your crew up against the opposit

The Leader Player Conundrum   When we are promoted into leadership positions or when we are running a small business, there is no luxury option of just being a leader, focused solely on working through others.  We have to both lead and produce.  As a first time leader, this can be extremely dangerous.  Often our career trajectory is shot down because we blow ourselves up.  We fail as both a producer and a leader and then we get shown the door.  Usually, we are promoted and left to our own devices to work it out, because there is no training on how to be a leader.   As the player, we are comfortable and as the leader we are feeling out of our depth.  Naturally we gravitate to where we feel the most comfortable and capable.  We were chosen as a leader because we were the best at our functional responsibilities.  The best accountant or IT specialist, the top sales person etc.  We distinguished ourselves through our ability to produce results.     The trick here though is all we had to worry about were our own nu

Virtual Leader Best Practices   Developing people who you can walk up to and speak with face to face is hard enough for most leaders, let along doing this when they are in another country and in a difficult time zone. Fortunately these days the technology is pretty good when it comes to virtual meetings, where we can see each other as well as talk.  We can share our screens and show various data as well, which makes the whole experience much richer.  This is fine for one on one, but what about when there are multiple team members scattered to the winds?  How do we create a team feeling, when all we ever do is see each others photos, in thumbnail size on a screen?  There are five things we can focus on to become a better virtual leader.   The leader’s job is to create a connection between the team members.  They can be remotely located but they don’t have to be remote from each other.  For example, sharing information is a good way to connect with each other and to establish some feeling of unity and solidarit

As The Leader, Never Assume In Japan   Leaders are busy people. Processes become established and we assume they are working properly.  You are sent in to run the Japan operation and or you join a new company here and you are faced with major tasks, like raising the revenues  or reducing costs or expanding market share or all three.  These tend to be the big chunks of work which command all of your attention.  Because these are usually not start-up operations, there are existing methods for the functions of the business.  Over time, you start to play around with how the business is run, introducing innovations or making changes.  Time moves on and you assume that these changes are part and parcel of the standard operation procedure for the business.  In Japan, assume nothing.   When we take over and concentrate on the key KPIs we have been given, we don’t have a lot of time to dig down too deeply on the operations component.  This is a mistake, because there are bound to be inefficiencies, anti-client structur

Power Harassment And Being the Boss In Japan   “Pawahara” the Japanese adoption of the English term “power harassment” has only appeared in the last few years in this country.  In 2006, there were 22,153 complaints lodged with the Japanese labor Bureau and in 2016 it has jumped to 70,917 cases.  In a 2016 government survey, 33% of respondents said they had experienced power harassment in the past three years.  The Japanese government is drafting a bill to go to the Diet to ban power harassment in the workplace, but the bill does not include any penalties. What does this mean for bosses trying to get results from their teams?   Power harassment is defined by the Government as being an act that causes physical or emotional pain, or demoralizing the workplace by exploiting one’s position.  In 2012 the Labor Ministry listed six examples of power harassment: physical attacks, verbal abuse, deliberate isolation from other employees, making excessive demands, making too few demands and infringing on the privacy of o

You Have To Chastise People, Right?   I was meeting with the HR team from a client company.  In fact, this was the first meeting with the HR team, because previously we had been directly dealing with the sales line managers.  They were looking for a leadership programme for people being moved up into leadership positions for the first time.  They had requested the manuals, so I brought them with me and we were going through them.  The HR head stopped on a page where it referred to giving praise to staff.  “Doesn’t the boss have to give out corrections and chastise staff for poor performance, rather than giving praise”, she asked? She said she had a attended training from a competitor – a very large Japanese domestic training company and that is what they were teaching in their programs – how to give strong leadership to staff.   I have to say I was overjoyed when I heard that piece of market intelligence.  It means this behemoth rival of ours is a dinosaur and so far behind it is breathtaking.  I explained to

Change Agent Leaders Are Highly Vulnerable In Japan   The Japan business has been around for many years, but it never seems to live up to the expectations the firm had for the initiative.  They employed an aging Japanese CEO thinking, ”well a Japanese person is the obvious one to lead the business in Japan”.  It seemed logical at the time and the individual chosen had many years experience working in the industry.  Gradually the penny drops that this very expensive CEO is not much of a leader and isn’t up to the task to take on the market and win in Japan. This is where you come in.  You are selected for the Tokyo assignment. You are honored to be selected and off you go, bringing the family to this new and exciting country.   You don’t speak the language, so you have trouble being able to directly discuss issues with the staff. Your assistant doubles as your interpreter and off you go to change the world.  Headquarters keeps reminding you they expect you to get the business to start performing, after many ye

How To Kill Off Organisational Silos   Every organisation suffers from the Not Invented Here syndrome.  This is where collaboration is dismisseD in favour of independence, even when it is a cost to the business.  Sections or divisions within the body of the organisation do not cooperate and form a united front to win in the market, because of rivalry, stupidity, egos, history, politics etc.  The cost of all of this hairy chested independence is high.    Gaining collaboration from other parts of the organisation is the mark of the superior leader.  The good news is that we don’t have to work this out for ourselves.  There is a nine step method we can follow to make sure 1 + 1 = 5 rather than 2.   Goal Defintion What is the issue exactly? What is the central goal we wish to achieve through this collaboration?  How will this increase the competitiveness of our team against the rival companies’ team?  We need to define what success lookS like at the start.   Building A Case Opinions are cheap and everybody ha