The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

This week we will look at getting the team members engaged.   Now this is a tricky subject in Japan because what is the native Japanese word for engagement?  We always have this dilemma when we try to translate “engagement” into Japanese.  In the end, we just leave it as “engagement” in the katakana script which reproduces the sound, but which in itself has no meaning, as opposed to kanji pictographs, which have actual meanings.    So, if there is no word for engagement in Japan, how on earth can you get people more engaged?  Also, how do you measure it?  Gallup have been running engagement surveys around the world on a regular basis for a long time and invariably Japan scores low by comparison with other countries.  Usually only around 7% of the working population are “highly engaged”.  This always triggers a reaction back at HQ for multi-national companies who run these global surveys.    I have sat in those regional heads’ meetings and seen the world’s scores paraded up on screen, with APAC the lowest regi