The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Building Your Team   Teams are fluid. People move or leave and new people join. Targets go up every year. The compliance and regulatory requirements become more stringent, the market pivots and bites you, currency fluctuations take you from hero to zero in short order. Head office is always annoying. There are so many aspects of business which line up against having a strong sense of team. We can’t be complacent if we have built a strong team and we have to get to work, if we are in the process of team building.   Sports teams are always high profile and successful sports coaches are lauded for their ability to produce results, especially when they are always dealing with tremendous fluctuations in the make up of the team. Vince Lombardi is one of those much heralded coaches and he noted: “Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity”.   Sterling stuff, but how do you do that? Vince had access to some of the most highly paid and motivated team m

Common Sense Baby Is Not Common   As the leader we have to work on the presumption that people know what they are doing. It is impossible to micro manage every single person, every moment of the day. By the way, who would want to do that anyway? The issues arise when things deviate from the track we think they are on or expect that they are on. We find that a process has been finessed, but we don’t like the change. We find that some elements have been dropped completely, but we only find this out by accident or substantially after the fact. We are not happy in either case.   Why does this happen? Training can cover the basics, but there is always a wide margin of discretion in carrying out jobs. We need to allow this or the team become asphyxiated by the confines of the narrowly defined tasks we have set for them. We all own the world we help to create, so we need to allow people to be creative, if we want them to take ownership of their jobs. It is when things start to stray that we run into trouble. There i

The Olympics’ Generation   We are on the cusp of a change amongst youth in Japan. Those already entered into the workforce have memories of the Lehman Shock and the triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear core meltdown and the impact this had on the job market. They are looking for security of employ and family life, because of the fragility of both were exposed to them in September 2008 and again in March 2011. They saw the dire straights of those who slipped into the part-time employee hell of low wages, no prospects and everything tough, tough, tough.   In 2016, only 6.9% of those in the 25-34 age group switched jobs. The September 2016 survey by the Japan Institute For Labor Policy and Training also found nearly 90% supported lifetime employment. This figure was only 65% in 2004. Of those in their 20s, 55% wanted to work for the same company right through. That same number was only 34% in 2004.   There is a generation coming behind them though who will be different again. They were born around th

Customer Service     All interfaces with the customer are designed by people.  It can be on-line conversations with robots or in store interactions, but the driving force behind all of these activities are the people in our employ.  The way people think and act is a product of the culture of the organisation.  That culture is the accountability of senior management.  The common success point of organisations is to have the right culture in place, that best serves the customer.  The success of senior management in making all of that work is a combination of their leadership, people and communication skills.   This sounds infinitely reasonable in theory, but the reality is often so different.  Senior leaders, who themselves are not particularly people focused, expect their customer interaction designers and in store staff to be customer focused.  They don't walk the talk themselves and what is worse, they don't see the contradiction.   They haven't worked out yet that good customer service begins with good empl

The Fog of Busyness       Focus is under constant attack.  The speed of business makes longer term planning a dubious endeavor.  Projecting 5 years forward sounds reasonable.  That is until you go back 5 years and look at all the changes that have taken place through technology, societal attitudinal changes, business realities and logistics.  The leader is supposed to be defining the way forward for the team.  The vision of the future is the guiding light on the hill toward which the troops are pointed.  The relevancy of that vision is constantly being challenged by the market and by clients.   The leader can no longer easily keep up with all of the demands on their time.  Social media has become a major source of information and we are all drinking from the firehouse.  Meetings are numerous and suck up time at a prodigious rate.  Email comes gushing forth in relentless fashion and inboxes become archives.  "I will get to that email" is a plaintive cry from the oppressed masses.  If we are traveling across ti

End Your Fear Of Failure For decades I drove myself hard, based on a fundamental fallacy. Fear of a future of living in a cardboard box haunted me. I pushed hard so that cardboard box and I would never become well acquainted. You see homeless people in Japan and other countries living that way and it is a reality for them, that they never chose. It happened to them anyway. The odd part was that this was a deep seated fear within me, that I wasn't really all that conscious of. It was sort of sitting there in the background. My father had been a big smoker (died of lung cancer at 51), big drinker (every night) and a big gambler (every Saturday at the track). If you grew up in a gambler's household, then you know what never having any money is all about. The weekly pay packet received on Friday evening is taken down to the racetrack and blown on Saturday morning. I never gamble, I never smoke and I drink very, very moderately. Hanmen Kyoshi (反面教師) it is called in Japanese – my Dad was my teacher by negative exam

Twelve Steps To A Win-Win Conflict Resolution (Part 2)   Conflict is with us everywhere, everyday.   That is the nature of the human condition. We have different desires and thinking. Some conflicts can be very low level and minor and we continue to cruise through the day. In other cases however, it becomes a lot more problematic.   In any organization, when the machine is fighting against itself, progress becomes suspended. Instead of concentrating on beating the other guy, we have suddenly become locked into an internal battle against ourselves. In large firms these can be driven by strong personalities thrusting themselves forward to get to the top. They bring their divisions with them into the fight and a lot of energy and time is wasted dropping large rocks on our own feet!   We need to see the bigger picture here and look for how we can marshal our strength, access the diversity in our ranks and maximize the creative possibilities rather than concentrating on the battling within our own ranks.   In Part

Twelve Steps To A Win-Win Conflict Resolution Part One     “Remember that other people may be totally wrong, but they don’t think so”. This quote from Dale Carnegie sums up the problem. All those other people we have trouble with, had better fly straight. All they need is a better understanding of why they are wrong and we are right. By force of will, strenuous, sustained argument and politicking we will win the day. Or will we?   Actually, getting a clear win in internal conflict situations is rarely the result. Battles are won but wars are lost. Energy that should be directed at the competitors is instead turned loose on our own team, to no good outcome. We need to be able to deal with internal conflicts in a way that resolves the issues in a positive way. Not so easy!   People tend to gravitate toward extremes. They either fold and don’t stand up for what they feel is right or they try and bulldoze everyone else and make them bend to their will. If we want progress, we need a better way forward, achieved t

International Japanese Staff Armageddon   Japan seems to be going in opposing directions at the same time, when it comes to the supply of internationalised staff suitable for foreign companies. The statistics show a peak in 2004 of 83,000 Japanese students venturing off-shore. This dropped to a low of 57,500 in 2011 and since that point has climbed back above 60,000. Just to put that in context, Korea has over 73,00 students studying overseas but has half the population of Japan. Today, with many international companies looking to hire English speaking, internationalised Japanese staff, the supply situation is looking grim. Some Japanese domestic companies are becoming strong competitors because they need more international Japanese as well. These firms are branching out overseas because they fear the decline in the Japanese consumer population will stunt their future growth. Once upon a time, this meant shipping Japanese expats off overseas to be forgotten for five years, before sending the next one. The sho

How To Resolve Internal Conflicts   Business is more fast paced that ever before in human history. Technology boasting massive computing and communication power is held in our palm. It accompanies us on life’s journey, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, everywhere we go. We are working in the flattest organisations ever designed, often in noisy, distracting open plan environments. We are also increasing thrust into matrix relationships with bosses, subordinates and colleagues residing in distant climes. We rarely meet them face to face, so communication becomes more strained.   Milestones, timelines, targets, revenues, KPIs are all screaming for blood. We are under the pressure of instant response and a growing culture of impatience. If our computer is slow to boot up, or if a file takes time to download, we are severely irritated. Twenty years ago we were amazed you could instantly send a document file by email from one location to another. Oh, the revolution of rising expectations!   Imagine our forebears w

A Soft Skills Revolution Required   The Spa magazine in Japan released the results of a survey of 1,140 male full-time employees in their 40s, about what they hated about their jobs. The top four complaints were salaries have not risen because of decades of deflation; a sense of being underappreciated and undervalued and a lost sense of purpose. Apart from not enough money, in a time of massive corporate profits, the other issues are all about leadership soft skills. Dale Carnegie Training did a global study of engagement. The results for Japan were consistent with the global trends. Japan’s scores were also consistent with every survey I have ever seen on the subject of engagement in this country. The percentages of those who are not engaged are always gob smacking.   Why would staff feel underappreciated? The reason is obvious. No one in a leadership position has shown them any sign that they are important, that what they are doing is important and that they have a future in the organisation. Part of the re

Where Is My Praise?   The Spa magazine in Japan released the results of a survey of 1,140 male full-time employees in their 40s, about what they hated about their jobs. The top four complaints were salaries have not risen because of decades of deflation; a sense of being underappreciated and under evaluated and a lost sense of purpose. Feeling unappreciated and under evaluated are both boss failings. This is the direct result of decades of neglect of the soft skills of leadership.   The feeling of being valued by the boss and the organisation is the trigger to producing high levels of engagement for your work. Japan is renown for always scoring poorly on international comparative engagement surveys. The global study on engagement by Dale Carnegie showed that feeling valued was the key factor. The results for Japan were the same.   Good to know that we have the answer at hand to improve levels of engagement. By the way, disengaged or hardly engaged staff are not going to add any additional extras to their work

Japan Still Scared Of It’s Own Shadow   The world’s third largest economy and one of the most sophisticated and advanced countries is a notorious underperformer on the international stage. I was reminded of this by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. She was a guest speaker at a foreign Chamber event drawing a capacity crowd. She is whip smart, charismatic and knows how to charm the crowd. She speaks Arabic fluently and her English is simply excellent. Yet, she chose to address the assembled Chamber members in Japanese not in English. What an opportunity missed to show Tokyo and Japan’s internationalism.   Having been a diplomat, I know how these events are totally scripted beforehand, so nothing can possibly go wrong. The event featured a series of questions from the Director of the Chamber to Koike. These questions were all vetted prior to the event, so Koike had complete knowledge of what she was going to be asked. They were all softball questions anyway, which made them easy to handle. The foreign Chamber is nev

Tatemae, Honne and the Gaijin Boss   Japanese people are famous for having learnt over many centuries how to get along with others.  High density living in the modern era and village communal agricultural activities in the past, have both seeded probably the best example of how to have a complex, but low friction society.  Arguments, fights, road rage do occur but compared to anywhere else with such a large population pressure cooker, Japan doesn't even rate as a contender for worst practice.  The concepts of tatemae or proffered reality and honne or actual reality, are a big part of creating that harmonious environment.     Of course, as foreigners we initially struggle with this separation of the real world and the imagined world.  It can seem that Japanese people can be two faced - saying one thing but doing another.  Being the bearer of bad news rarely becomes an issue in Japan, because no one ever delivers it.  No shooting the messenger here because people have learnt to be extremely circumspect about ho

“Sontaku”: The Secret Sauce For Leaders in Japan     Sontaku is a Japanese word which means to surmise or conjecture about someone else’s feelings or desires. It is often associated with another Japanese word omotenashi or superb levels of hospitality, for which Japan is rightly famous. Sontaku means supplying an omotenashi style high level service before the customer has realised they actually need that service – anticipating the customer, based on the host’s conjecture about what they might need.   Steve Jobs at Apple did that with the iPhone. We didn't realize we needed it when we were all happy with Nokia, Blackberry, etc., but now we can’t go back. Wayne Gretzky, the legendary ice hockey star made the same point, when he said “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now”. Gary Vaynerchuk from Vaynermedia is famous for understanding where our “digital attention” is heading before we understand it ourselves. All of these aspects have a sontaku or conjecture element to them.   What about lea

Leaders Need To Skate To Where The Puck Will Be     Wayne Gretzky is famous for this ice hockey quote about anticipating where and when the critical actions have to be taken, rather than just following what is already happening. This metaphor applies even more in business, because the complexities are much higher, the team is usually a lot bigger and the ramifications much larger. In reality though, we often find ourselves following, rather than leading.   We are frequently looking at numbers which are historical indicators, not forward guides to what is coming. The ebb and flow of the day also sucks up all of our time. We are dealing with people issues and these are inspired by something that has already happened and can’t easily be undone or was missed and didn’t happen. Again, we are all historians, poking over the bones of the event to try and create a narrative to explain what has happened, so that we won’t see a repeat of a failure.   The puck location idea here is to get ahead of that daily grind and l

Productivity Not Immigration   During the “bubble years” of surging economic growth, Japan could not keep up with the supply of workers for the 3K jobs – kitsui, kitanai, kiken or difficult, dirty, dangerous undertakings. The 1985 Plaza Accord released a genie out of the bottle in the form of a very strong yen, which made everything, everywhere seems dirt cheap. Japanese people traveled abroad as tourists in mass numbers for the first time. They often created havoc in international destinations, because they were so gauche – a bit like we are experiencing now with mass Chinese tourism. Companies bought up foreign companies and real estate at a rapid clip. French champagne and beluga caviar was being downed at a an alarming pace.   Finding Japanese workers became difficult, so the Japanese government turned to immigration. We had a very special immigration however. Countries with oil like Iran were allowed to send their citizens to Japan without requiring visas and suddenly we had an influx of Iranians, a bit

How To Resolve Internal Conflicts   Business is more fast paced that ever before in human history. Technology boasting massive computing and communication power is held in our palm. It accompanies us on life’s journey, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, everywhere we go. We are working in the flattest organisations ever designed, often in noisy, distracting open plan environments. We are also increasing thrust into matrix relationships with bosses, subordinates and colleagues residing in distant climes. We rarely meet them face to face, so communication becomes more strained.   Milestones, timelines, targets, revenues, KPIs are all screaming for blood. We are under the pressure of instant response and a growing culture of impatience. If our computer is slow to boot up, or if a file takes time to download, we are severely irritated. Twenty years ago we were amazed you could instantly send a document file by email from one location to another. Oh, the revolution of rising expectations!   Imagine our forebears w

Fear and Loathing In Japan   The Spa magazine in Japan released the results of a survey of 1,140 male full-time employees in their 40s, about what they hated about their jobs. The top four complaints were salaries have not risen because of decades of deflation; a sense of being underappreciated and undervalued and a lost sense of purpose. The Lehman Shock in 2008 opened to door to job losses in larger companies, something which only had been possible in smaller forms in the past. The sense of lifetime employment as a given was removed and a brand new world of work emerged.   Feeling unappreciated is a construct of leadership. The Japanese system of hierarchy in companies has followed the lessons proffered during the military service experienced by those who participated in World War Two. Brutalisation was widespread and everyone was expendable. Postwar leaders in the West were also the graduates of battle as well. Things changed in the late 1960s however and modern economies moved away from the old military m

Big Brother Japan Inc Style   “What anchors their behavior is the salaryman’s desire to protect himself – no one wants to put their position at risk by telling the truth”. This little gem of an insight was made by a retired nuclear engineer who worked for Toshiba. He was referring to the various scandals that had taken place there and explaining why illegal decisions made by senior management like cooking the books went unchecked internally.   Corporate Japan in some ways, could be a modern model for George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”. Big Brother is the leadership who define that truths are lies and lies are truths. That anyone against the system must be eliminated because 100% loyalty is the minimum. There are facts and then there are “alternative facts”. We do the thinking around here, your job is to carry out our genius ideas.   This is not surprising because kids are inculcated into accepting authority, doing not questioning, following authority figures even if they are only one year older. Sempai (s