The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

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

Bad Business Battlefield Promotions  In the military, junior officers are the equivalent of middle management in business. In times of warfare these middle managers are often wounded or killed in battle. There are no replacements from officer school, so the most capable member of the team is promoted on the battlefield, as the replacement leader. It makes no sense in business to have this as the model. Yet, this is often what happens.   The current middle manager is poached by a vigilant recruiter or they jump ship for greener pastures. The organisation has had no capacity or has given no great thought to the issue of succession planning and there is no opportunity to transfer in a seasoned manager as the replacement. The most capable member of the team is tapped on the shoulder to step up into a leadership role. How are these individuals judged to be the most capable? Usually, this is never based on their leadership capability, because they have never had an opportunity to display their latent talent. It is

Positive Mindset For Leaders   How do we set up a positive mindset?  More importantly how do we set it up from morning when we awake and when we start work?  What are we feeding our mind?  What things are occupying our thoughts?  How do we control what we allow into our mind?  Who has influence over our mindset?  Are we in control or are we being controlled?   Usually, our start of the day begins with a quick scan of our email or social media to see what has happened overnight. The problems of yesterday and the one’s we will be facing hereafter are brought straight into the brain from the start of the day. We then access the media in some format or other, but the content is consistently the same – predominantly bad news!   Is this the best way to get us into a positive mindset? It is reality and we are unlikely to change the need to access our email or to check on world and local events. We could just ignore it all, but in this fast paced world, that is a luxury that we won’t be enjoying anytime soon.   We ca

Hey Boss, Teach Your Japanese Staff How To Relax     METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and industry), and the peak industry bodies the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and industry have launched their Premium Friday campaign, encouraging firms to allow their workers to depart early on the last Friday of each month. Approximately 70% of the Japanese economy is based on domestic consumption and the idea is to give consumers more time to consume, thus stimulating the economy. All good stuff, but there is a deeper problem for companies than more consuming.   Parkinson’s law that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion” fits Japan perfectly. The very long hours spent in work in japan are producing work at a relatively glacial pace. There is a surprisingly slow rhythm here in white collar work. If you want to see work being done at a fast clip, then look at the manufacturer’s factories and the construction industry.   Big city office workers though are a dif

Japanese Leaders Needed Now   Rising in a company in Japan requires talent, but this is often held hostage to time. Your age, longevity and seniority in the system are factors that often trump talent.  The usual internal talent development programme is based on OJT (On The Job Training).  This is fine if your boss is a great practitioner, communicator and coach.  Not many of those floating around Japan.   There is also a degree of humility (or is it fear of failure?) in Japan that surprises the gaishikei foreign multi-national company foreign bosses.   Inexplicably, they see potential rising stars decline promotions. When they ask why they are told because “they don't feel they are ready yet”.  As we move along the demographic trend line of a declining youth population, every company will need more people willing to step up to replace those retiring. The “I am not ready” mentality needs to shift some gears.   Looking at how people rise in organisations in Japan there are some interesting tweaks. The Personal

Leaders Who Can’t Listen   Dynamic, powerful, driven, single-minded leaders get stuff done.  They are resourceful, disciplined, patient, highly demanding of themselves.  They are often poor listeners.  They are so focused on making things happen, getting decisions executed, pushing through, that conversations become monologues rather than dialogues.  They are so into their thing, that they want to talk about that and not much else.  Often they are the founder of the business or someone sent in to turn it around.   Crash through or crash is tattooed on the inside of their brain.  In Japan, if you are an entrepreneur, then you have additional hurdles to overcome.  The process of overcoming them sets up a style, a default operating procedure where you have to push like crazy to get anything done in this country.    The danger is the under done listening component of the skill base can be denying access to opportunities.  Vital information isn't being processed.  This is because the leader is only operating with

Leaders Be Persuasive   A friend of mine was lamenting that he had not taken the time to complete our High Impact Presentations Course. He had had it in the back of his mind for some time, that he really ought to work on these key skills, but had never managed to lock it down and actually do it. Now he is facing a really, really big pitch and he knows his capacity isn’t where it needs to be. He is not fully confident he can be successful. Uh oh!   As the leader we represent the “face” of the company. People judge the whole thing on what they see us do. Usually, they don’t get to peek behind the scenes like we see famous entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk from Vaynermedia doing with his daily video blog called the “Daily Vee”. Our public persona is usually much more contained and controlled. Internal meetings are internal and we can be a bumbling, horrible communicator and only our long suffering staff are any the wiser.   Public forays do pop up in the most unexpected places though. It might be the school PTA meeti

Accountability In Your Team     Holding our people accountable is one of the basics of being a leader. They flounder, deadlines pass unheeded, things get missed, work is not completed to a satisfactory standard.  Why is that?  People are not trying to fail in their jobs, but they do let the team down with their poor performance and lack of accountability.  What can we do about it?   As the leader we have to start with ourselves. The most crucial resource we have is our time and how we choose to use it.  If we are poor time managers then we apply unnecessary stress to our own lives and those of our colleagues.  We show up with unreasonable turn around times for work, because we were not properly organized.  We become very stressed and that spreads like an epidemic across the team. Our stress immediately impacts our mood control and our mood can lighten or darken the workplace within seconds.   We are time poor because we haven't done a good enough job on defining our priorities.  We are also rushing around bec

Boss Stimulation Is Needed   Our education moves through many transitions.  We do our basic academic education at school and university and then we hit the university of life.  Company education programs begin with very basic induction sessions.  We may be studying technical subjects for regulatory requirements or the firms specified areas for further study.  We might get some rudimentary soft skill education, although the majority of companies rely on OJT - On The Job training, particularly in Japan.     During the middle management years we might get some leadership training or in the case of large firms be despatched to some worthy academic institution for a week of executive training.  The instructors are academics, the case study method is a favorite as is group work.  Often the course colleagues are from around the globe.  The whole thing is fascinating and very cool.  The nature of the approach means we are usually focused on the middle to distant future.  Very macro and broad in nature.     It is hard

Get Ready For Your Productivity Nosedive     Brace yourself for everything to take a big hit. Speed, attention to detail, output, results are about to fall off a cliff. No this has nothing to do with currency rates, trade regulations, tariffs, gunboat diplomacy or anything Donald Trump is about to do as President. This is here in Japan, right now and mainly relevant in the major cities. This is when JPY750billion is about to get taken out of domestic consumption, lowering the nation’s GDP by 0.6%.   Roughly one third of your team in Tokyo are going to become a lot less productive, as they battle with the demon pollen plague that hits every spring. Cherry blossom time has had the gloss taken off it substantially, since the cedar pollen levels have risen to such grandiose heights. Those pinky-white buds herald the onset of a living hell. It is hard to concentrate when you are crying and your eyes are so itchy you think you are going to go crazy. Just to offset these maladies, you can insert massive intermittent

Hey Donald Trump, Try “Winning Friends and Influencing People” Instead   Donald Trump’s phone call with Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s Prime Minister was major news. The tastier parts of that conversation were leaked from the American side, but the style and language reported seems to be in keeping with Donald Trump’s style, so they are probably true. Did he have to take such an aggressive approach with Malcolm? Could he have dealt with his concerns over bringing people into the US in a different way?   The issue here is Trump doesn’t want to honour the people swap agreement previously made between Obama and Turnbull. His choice to criticise Turnbull over the phone was a poor one. Dale Carnegie came up with 30 Human Relations Principles and Donald Trump would do much better, if he followed them. As Dale Carnegie noted, you get more cooperation with honey than vinegar.   Principle number one is “don’t criticise, condemn or complain”. The thinking behind this principle is to take into account human psychology. W

Buying People  When we buy a company, we are buying the people and all the “assets” - plant and equipment come with them, rather than the other way around. The due diligence gets done, the books are looked at carefully for any signs of “cooking”. Hidden debts, secret undertakings, compliance and regulatory issues are scrutinized. The people part however is given a “once over lightly” look because this is much harder to do thoroughly, than the other investigations. HR can tell us a lot about the structure of the pay arrangements, who are the high potentials, previous performance review results and the current staffing levels. Gauging staff productivity however is much more obtuse. The silly part though is that this is exactly what we are buying – staff productivity.   Often, the perceived productivity gap is “fixed” by firing staff to reduce costs and at the same time drive the leaders to push the team harder for higher revenues. This scenario usually doesn’t happen straight away. It takes time to get a sense