Japan is a unique country where underperformance is not considered a legitimate reason to terminate someone’s employ.  Leaders new to the country will often run into this issue.  They arrive with a mandate from HQ to “fix” Japan and get it up to a required performance standard.  As soon as the new broom brings in changes to achieve the HQ revenue targets, the trouble starts. Change is never an easy thing for Japan to deal with because the same old, same old is a known commodity and therefore a safe choice.  New represents risk and everyone here has been raised to avoid mistakes and errors and new things are inevitably going to be difficult to execute perfectly from the start.  Ergo, don’t do new things. The new boss will have religion about the changes they want to see and in short order they discover that despite all of that head nodding agreement in the room, no one is executing the agreed changes.  The answer is simple.  As far as the Japanese leaders are concerned, they have not agreed but they have chosen not to raise their concerns in the meeting where they were discussed.  This is the western way of doing things – get everyone together, debate, then decide.  Japan doesn’t do it that way. The nemawashi or groundwork method requires a lot of consensus building, so that the meeting is only there to rubber stamp something which has been worked out behind the scenes over a long period.  Every angle has been studied, every correlation considered, every impact divined.  Once this has been agreed to everyone’s satisfaction, then it will be raised to the top of the tree for a decision. The new boss just raising this at a meeting before the proper due diligence has been undertaken is not considered the professional way of doing things and that is why the follow-up doesn’t get done.  People just haven’t agreed yet.  The boss remonstrates with his or her executive team but cannot get a handle on what is going on.  Some people are more resistant than others and these people get marked for removal, as individuals who are not aligned with HQ’s direction nor the new boss’s strategy. Who is right and who is wrong isn’t particularly clear, but resistance and non-performance are clear and that is how people are ejected from the team. To the new boss, these resisters need to be dealt with ruthlessly or the mandate will never get done.  There is no tolerance for a perceived lack of loyalty.  The irony is often that the resisters are often super loyal and are trying to save the machine from itself.  They are usually super loyal to the clients and always take their side in any contest between what is good for the client and what is good for the organisation. A bunch of outside HQ ideas being forced on Japan is not seen as having the right amount of depth of understanding of the market and the customer base.  Not doing what HQ suggests is seen as the smarter move because the people sitting in HQ have close to zero understanding of Japan and how things really work.  The newly minted boss has been given their marching orders and they will be removed if they don’t follow them to the letter.  The new boss is therefore resisted as a clueless plant from HQ, doing the bidding of people even more clueless than they are.  It is a head-on collision just waiting to happen. After a couple of years of experience gained in Japan and a better understanding of client needs, the new boss starts to open their eyes and become a lot less rambunctious.  The resisters have been canned or calmed.  Those who left have moved on to the next company and they won’t be coming back.  They took all the client relationships with them too, as the new boss slowly discovers to their chagrin.  This happened for one of the senior Japanese staff at an organisation I know well.  The new broom got rid of him and without knowing it, had just destroyed decades of deep relationship build with the buyers, once a market leading jewel in the crown for that organisation. That new broom was arrogant and clueless, so I am not sure if he ever appreciated what he had done. New leaders have their marching orders from HQ but they would be wise to take their time trying to implement them.  Get to know the people first, especially the key clients.  It is much easier to educate HQ idiots about Japan, than to find people with decades of relationships and deep knowledge of the area.  Of course, there will be underperformers who should be removed, but make sure they actually are underperformers first before taking any drastic action.

Japan is a unique country where underperformance is not considered a legitimate reason to terminate someone’s employ.  Leaders new to the country will often run into this issue.  They arrive with a mandate from HQ to “fix” Japan and get it up to a required performance standard.  As soon as the new broom brings in changes to achieve the HQ revenue targets, the trouble starts. Change is never an easy thing for Japan to deal with because the same old, same old is a known commodity and therefore a safe choice.  New represents risk and everyone here has been raised to avoid mistakes and errors and new things are inevitably going to be difficult to execute perfectly from the start.  Ergo, don’t do new things. The new boss will have religion about the changes they want to see and in short order they discover that despite all of that head nodding agreement in the room, no one is executing the agreed changes.  The answer is simple.  As far as the Japanese leaders are concerned, they have not agreed but they have chosen not to raise their concerns in the meeting where they were discussed.  This is the western way of doing things – get everyone together, debate, then decide.  Japan doesn’t do it that way. The nemawashi or groundwork method requires a lot of consensus building, so that the meeting is only there to rubber stamp something which has been worked out behind the scenes over a long period.  Every angle has been studied, every correlation considered, every impact divined.  Once this has been agreed to everyone’s satisfaction, then it will be raised to the top of the tree for a decision. The new boss just raising this at a meeting before the proper due diligence has been undertaken is not considered the professional way of doing things and that is why the follow-up doesn’t get done.  People just haven’t agreed yet.  The boss remonstrates with his or her executive team but cannot get a handle on what is going on.  Some people are more resistant than others and these people get marked for removal, as individuals who are not aligned with HQ’s direction nor the new boss’s strategy. Who is right and who is wrong isn’t particularly clear, but resistance and non-performance are clear and that is how people are ejected from the team. To the new boss, these resisters need to be dealt with ruthlessly or the mandate will never get done.  There is no tolerance for a perceived lack of loyalty.  The irony is often that the resisters are often super loyal and are trying to save the machine from itself.  They are usually super loyal to the clients and always take their side in any contest between what is good for the client and what is good for the organisation. A bunch of outside HQ ideas being forced on Japan is not seen as having the right amount of depth of understanding of the market and the customer base.  Not doing what HQ suggests is seen as the smarter move because the people sitting in HQ have close to zero understanding of Japan and how things really work.  The newly minted boss has been given their marching orders and they will be removed if they don’t follow them to the letter.  The new boss is therefore resisted as a clueless plant from HQ, doing the bidding of people even more clueless than they are.  It is a head-on collision just waiting to happen. After a couple of years of experience gained in Japan and a better understanding of client needs, the new boss starts to open their eyes and become a lot less rambunctious.  The resisters have been canned or calmed.  Those who left have moved on to the next company and they won’t be coming back.  They took all the client relationships with them too, as the new boss slowly discovers to their chagrin.  This happened for one of the senior Japanese staff at an organisation I know well.  The new broom got rid of him and without knowing it, had just destroyed decades of deep relationship build with the buyers, once a market leading jewel in the crown for that organisation. That new broom was arrogant and clueless, so I am not sure if he ever appreciated what he had done. New leaders have their marching orders from HQ but they would be wise to take their time trying to implement them.  Get to know the people first, especially the key clients.  It is much easier to educate HQ idiots about Japan, than to find people with decades of relationships and deep knowledge of the area.  Of course, there will be underperformers who should be removed, but make sure they actually are underperformers first before taking any drastic action.

526 Leader Ruthlessness With Underperformance

It is very frustrating at times, being a leader.  Staff don’t hit their targets, forget things they need to do, complete tasks in a less than satisfactory manner and make stupid mistakes.  Time poor leaders are the norm, so we are always operating on minimums to get it all done.  We are usually in a rush, and this is when we get ourselves into trouble as the leader.  We genuflect in the general direction of empathy, being a critical aspect of the leader’s people skills but often we forget to walk the talk.  Our mouth gets ahead of our brain and we say things which may not have been the best choice or at the appropriate moment.  Too late, it is out there.  Our internal tensions push us to being more direct than needed.  There can be a tough conversation requiredand a plan for that is the best course of action, but we sometimes go ahead with no plan.  Our emotional quotient, rather than just our intelligence quotient, is highlighted as being so important today, but that word “emotional” is hanging there.  We can be dragged off course and abandon the best laid plans because of that emotional preponderance to say what we are thinking with no filters.  One habit we should get into is to beat around the bush a bit more.  That sounds counter-intuitive for a leader doesn’t it?  Leaders should be clear, concise and efficient.  Efficient is not the same as effective though.  Our concise communication skill can sometimes be too sharp for the situation and a more rounded, softer approach may be a better alternative.  We don’t have to go on verbal wanderings at length, but sometimes a detour may be the best way to get to where we want to arrive.  The piece which we often miss in our communication with staff is the context or the background of our point or our thinking.  We just wade straight in with what we want.  This what is often followed up with by the how they should do it.  That is all fine and good but the why bit is missing.   The habit we have to develop is to start with the context and the background, and this is where the why is incorporated.  That means we have to break up a routine we may have been following for many years and it may take us some practice to get used to doing things this way, but we need to stick with it. So when we want to make a point, we should ask ourselves why we think what we think.  We will have come to this conclusion through experience, from something we have read, heard, or seen.  Usually we are not just making stuff up or winging it.  Rather, we are operating from a solid viewpoint which informs our opinion.  The key point here is to not just state the opinion, but to share how that opinion was arrived at.  The temptation though is to tell the staff stuff and we leave it at that, because that is what we have found is the fastest way of getting the message across, so we can get scurry back to the many other tasks confronting us.  By leaving out the context, we run the danger of the staff not fully understanding the urgency or the rationale for the action needed.  We should begin with the background to the issue and then very succinctly nominate the action we need from them.  There should only be one action because the temptation is to load them up with a multitude of tasks which can dilute the key action required.  Immediately following the action requirement, we need to add why this will be the best course of action and what is the benefit if we do this.  Again, this should concentrate on the main benefit, even though there may be many.  If we keep adding benefits, we are again diluting the power of the main benefit and weakening our idea’s potency.  This combination is disarming for the listener.  Often, while we are explaining the background, their mind is racing toward an action which will suit the situation being unveiled. In fact, they will often get there before we do and so when we state the action, it is already accepted and now old hat for them.  That would be a perfect outcome from a persuasion point of view.  As I mentioned, this requires quite a shift in approach and we need to defuse the constant desire to shorten the time for everything.  Building new habits seems to take forever and there will be many failures along the way, as we just launch forth with the what and the how and then reflect, “damn, I forgot to talk about the context first and explain the why”.  The point is to keep trying and gradually make this the default mode of explanation to staff.

It is very frustrating at times, being a leader.  Staff don’t hit their targets, forget things they need to do, complete tasks in a less than satisfactory manner and make stupid mistakes.  Time poor leaders are the norm, so we are always operating on minimums to get it all done.  We are usually in a rush, and this is when we get ourselves into trouble as the leader.  We genuflect in the general direction of empathy, being a critical aspect of the leader’s people skills but often we forget to walk the talk.  Our mouth gets ahead of our brain and we say things which may not have been the best choice or at the appropriate moment.  Too late, it is out there.  Our internal tensions push us to being more direct than needed.  There can be a tough conversation requiredand a plan for that is the best course of action, but we sometimes go ahead with no plan.  Our emotional quotient, rather than just our intelligence quotient, is highlighted as being so important today, but that word “emotional” is hanging there.  We can be dragged off course and abandon the best laid plans because of that emotional preponderance to say what we are thinking with no filters.  One habit we should get into is to beat around the bush a bit more.  That sounds counter-intuitive for a leader doesn’t it?  Leaders should be clear, concise and efficient.  Efficient is not the same as effective though.  Our concise communication skill can sometimes be too sharp for the situation and a more rounded, softer approach may be a better alternative.  We don’t have to go on verbal wanderings at length, but sometimes a detour may be the best way to get to where we want to arrive.  The piece which we often miss in our communication with staff is the context or the background of our point or our thinking.  We just wade straight in with what we want.  This what is often followed up with by the how they should do it.  That is all fine and good but the why bit is missing.   The habit we have to develop is to start with the context and the background, and this is where the why is incorporated.  That means we have to break up a routine we may have been following for many years and it may take us some practice to get used to doing things this way, but we need to stick with it. So when we want to make a point, we should ask ourselves why we think what we think.  We will have come to this conclusion through experience, from something we have read, heard, or seen.  Usually we are not just making stuff up or winging it.  Rather, we are operating from a solid viewpoint which informs our opinion.  The key point here is to not just state the opinion, but to share how that opinion was arrived at.  The temptation though is to tell the staff stuff and we leave it at that, because that is what we have found is the fastest way of getting the message across, so we can get scurry back to the many other tasks confronting us.  By leaving out the context, we run the danger of the staff not fully understanding the urgency or the rationale for the action needed.  We should begin with the background to the issue and then very succinctly nominate the action we need from them.  There should only be one action because the temptation is to load them up with a multitude of tasks which can dilute the key action required.  Immediately following the action requirement, we need to add why this will be the best course of action and what is the benefit if we do this.  Again, this should concentrate on the main benefit, even though there may be many.  If we keep adding benefits, we are again diluting the power of the main benefit and weakening our idea’s potency.  This combination is disarming for the listener.  Often, while we are explaining the background, their mind is racing toward an action which will suit the situation being unveiled. In fact, they will often get there before we do and so when we state the action, it is already accepted and now old hat for them.  That would be a perfect outcome from a persuasion point of view.  As I mentioned, this requires quite a shift in approach and we need to defuse the constant desire to shorten the time for everything.  Building new habits seems to take forever and there will be many failures along the way, as we just launch forth with the what and the how and then reflect, “damn, I forgot to talk about the context first and explain the why”.  The point is to keep trying and gradually make this the default mode of explanation to staff.

525 Framing Direction As The Leader

Some problems are relatively difficult and can be fixed, ignored or coped with.  Others are more substantial and can place the entire enterprise at risk.  Covid certainly struck some industries harder than others and we have seen many venerable establishments disappear.  The Japanese government wisely made low-interest loans available to many companies on the basis that keeping the doors open and the staff employed would be a better outcome for the economy.  In 2008, during the Global Financial Crisis, the Australian government pumped money into the economy and the country sailed through that crisis unscathed.  This works at the macro level but what about what is going on inside the organisations?  Staff realise that business is bad and they become concerned about the ability of the organisation to survive.  When something like Covid affects a whole industry, there may be no real alternatives for those staff thinking of leaving.  A case of “am I jumping out of the frying pan into the fire?”.  What should the leader do, though?  Is transparency about the actual financial situation the right move?  Will a clearer knowledge of how bad things are spur the team on to work harder or will they collapse into lethargy, as nothing seems it will make a difference, because things are so bad?  This is a broad stereotype, but in Japan, staff are loyal and willing to work hard to preserve the enterprise.  I believe transparency is a good idea up to a certain point.  It must be matched with a solid communication package of hope to go with it.  The boss must be upbeat, no matter how depressed they are about the financial situation.  They cannot share those feelings with anyone.  Even your spouse or partner has to be kept in the dark about how you are really feeling.  That may sound like bad marital advice, but scaring the family about the security of the family source of income doubles the stress levels.  Somehow, the boss has to be positive in every environment, no matter how dark their feeling or their sense of doom and gloom. Exhortations to work harder is a fine thing for the boss to disseminate to the team, but that won’t be enough.  The team needs a plan of action.  Actually, they need to be told about Plans A, B and C.  They also need to see these plans being rolled out and they need to be kept up to date on progress, no matter how humble. Preserving cash has to be the number one goal.  Cash is not King, as we often hear.  That designation only applies when things are going well.  In bad times, cash is oxygen.  We can last quite a long time with just water, but only a few minutes without oxygen and so that is the better metaphor.  There may be a call to be made over how transparent the boss is about the financial situation.  Explaining the current profit and loss situation is one level of transparency.  Revealing the cash burn rate and the cash reserve situation is another entirely different level of openness.  I don’t have a good answer on this one, because it will depend on so many things.  How much cash is left and how severe is the burn rate?  What is the revenue forecast for the coming months?  What monies can we stop paying for a while until things get better? The danger is when some sectors in the industry recover faster than yours or when other industries are hiring and there are escape routes for those team members worried about the firm’s longevity.  This is when the communication skills of the leader are really tested.  Explaining that there is a future for the business and that this too will pass becomes critical for keeping people on board.  It is a delicate balance between expressing a strong sense of urgency without it beginning to sound like panic.  That is the needle we have to thread as leaders.  Be realistic but upbeat, open but not gloomy.   All of this has to be done against a background of sleepless nights and constant worries about the collapse of the enterprise.  The key is to protect our mental health.  We need to be directly working on managing our stress and inserting positive messages into our brain.  The negative messages will find their way in on their own without us helping them, so we need to accentuate the positive as a counterbalance.  We need to read positive texts and work on conditioning our brain to have hope and belief that we can pull through this period of turmoil.  Listening to positive motivational messages is a good thing to be doing, so we need to find those authors and then pump that good stuff into our mind.  None of these are instant fixes, but they will rally our hopes, change our perspectives and coalesce our strengths for the fight. One of the simplest tools is this three-part analysis: 1.     Very carefully clarify, in minute detail, what is the worst thing which could happen 2.     Stop kidding yourself and accept that the worst will happen and you cannot stop it 3.     Try to find as many ways as possible to improve on the worst case scenario Again, there is no panacea here. What we can do is switch our mental framework from falling apart while facing oblivion, to forging some degree of hope.  We have to look for how to survive the looming apocalyptic meltdown.

Some problems are relatively difficult and can be fixed, ignored or coped with.  Others are more substantial and can place the entire enterprise at risk.  Covid certainly struck some industries harder than others and we have seen many venerable establishments disappear.  The Japanese government wisely made low-interest loans available to many companies on the basis that keeping the doors open and the staff employed would be a better outcome for the economy.  In 2008, during the Global Financial Crisis, the Australian government pumped money into the economy and the country sailed through that crisis unscathed.  This works at the macro level but what about what is going on inside the organisations?  Staff realise that business is bad and they become concerned about the ability of the organisation to survive.  When something like Covid affects a whole industry, there may be no real alternatives for those staff thinking of leaving.  A case of “am I jumping out of the frying pan into the fire?”.  What should the leader do, though?  Is transparency about the actual financial situation the right move?  Will a clearer knowledge of how bad things are spur the team on to work harder or will they collapse into lethargy, as nothing seems it will make a difference, because things are so bad?  This is a broad stereotype, but in Japan, staff are loyal and willing to work hard to preserve the enterprise.  I believe transparency is a good idea up to a certain point.  It must be matched with a solid communication package of hope to go with it.  The boss must be upbeat, no matter how depressed they are about the financial situation.  They cannot share those feelings with anyone.  Even your spouse or partner has to be kept in the dark about how you are really feeling.  That may sound like bad marital advice, but scaring the family about the security of the family source of income doubles the stress levels.  Somehow, the boss has to be positive in every environment, no matter how dark their feeling or their sense of doom and gloom. Exhortations to work harder is a fine thing for the boss to disseminate to the team, but that won’t be enough.  The team needs a plan of action.  Actually, they need to be told about Plans A, B and C.  They also need to see these plans being rolled out and they need to be kept up to date on progress, no matter how humble. Preserving cash has to be the number one goal.  Cash is not King, as we often hear.  That designation only applies when things are going well.  In bad times, cash is oxygen.  We can last quite a long time with just water, but only a few minutes without oxygen and so that is the better metaphor.  There may be a call to be made over how transparent the boss is about the financial situation.  Explaining the current profit and loss situation is one level of transparency.  Revealing the cash burn rate and the cash reserve situation is another entirely different level of openness.  I don’t have a good answer on this one, because it will depend on so many things.  How much cash is left and how severe is the burn rate?  What is the revenue forecast for the coming months?  What monies can we stop paying for a while until things get better? The danger is when some sectors in the industry recover faster than yours or when other industries are hiring and there are escape routes for those team members worried about the firm’s longevity.  This is when the communication skills of the leader are really tested.  Explaining that there is a future for the business and that this too will pass becomes critical for keeping people on board.  It is a delicate balance between expressing a strong sense of urgency without it beginning to sound like panic.  That is the needle we have to thread as leaders.  Be realistic but upbeat, open but not gloomy.   All of this has to be done against a background of sleepless nights and constant worries about the collapse of the enterprise.  The key is to protect our mental health.  We need to be directly working on managing our stress and inserting positive messages into our brain.  The negative messages will find their way in on their own without us helping them, so we need to accentuate the positive as a counterbalance.  We need to read positive texts and work on conditioning our brain to have hope and belief that we can pull through this period of turmoil.  Listening to positive motivational messages is a good thing to be doing, so we need to find those authors and then pump that good stuff into our mind.  None of these are instant fixes, but they will rally our hopes, change our perspectives and coalesce our strengths for the fight. One of the simplest tools is this three-part analysis: 1.     Very carefully clarify, in minute detail, what is the worst thing which could happen 2.     Stop kidding yourself and accept that the worst will happen and you cannot stop it 3.     Try to find as many ways as possible to improve on the worst case scenario Again, there is no panacea here. What we can do is switch our mental framework from falling apart while facing oblivion, to forging some degree of hope.  We have to look for how to survive the looming apocalyptic meltdown.

524 Dealing With Problems As The Leader

Artificial intelligence is bringing a lot of speed to tasks and helping with mundane work.  As we all become better at prompting the machine, we will uncover greater utility for it to propel our work.  It will not be able to replace the human aspect of leadership though. One thing it won’t fix is watching 40% of new hires walk out the door within the first three or four years of employ.  I was talking to an HR person from a very large international firm about this issue.  Originally, there had been a plan to provide training for these new recruits, with a view to keeping them in the company and not having them wander off to competitors.  In the end, they budgeted nothing for the training, so the whole idea collapsed.  The early departure problem is still there though. I suggested that the actual issue is with the young recruits’ supervisors and that this group needs some remedial training.  I said “remedial” because they have to unlearn some bad thinking and bad habits.  Most of these supervisors will be section heads and they have grown up in business in eras when candidates for employ were plentiful.  If one left, no problem, you just hired in a replacement.  That is no longer that easy, as a declining youth population throws up an increasing free agent mentality on the part of the young. They know they can easily get a job somewhere else, if they don’t feel they are appreciated enough or that the firm culture is the right fit.  If the section heads don’t understand that point, then they are not adjusting their thinking about how to retain these vibrant and increasing sought after resources.  Confusion about the difference between managing and leading will also become a barrier to retention.  Most Japanese leaders are actually managers.  What is the difference?  Leaders do three things in particular: (1) they set the direction for the team (2) they develop their people through coaching and feedback and (3) they make sure the processes run on time, on budget and at the quality standard required.  Japanese managers find all of their time taken up with just number three on this list and unfortunately, they neglect number two to the detriment of the firm. To make it even worse, poor time management and delegation skills will ensure that the supervisors won’t have enough time to coach their young charges, even if they were to recognise this was an important part of their work.  Doubling down on the human dimension of leadership requires a lot of time.  Feedback that isn’t positive will not suit the young and they will soon feel dissatisfied with their bosses.  They want coaching and attention, but it will be a “leftover” activity, rather than a primary leadership time allocation.  Delegation is widely misunderstood in Japan.  It is seen as shovelling the boss’s work on to the desk of an underling, as a way of reducing the boss workload.  In fact, delegation is a powerful coaching tool.  It enables younger staff to experience parts of the boss’s job and to build their skills as a springboard to taking on higher responsibility.  Even the peak industry body the Keidanren is talking about promotion through capability, rather than time in the company. If we are in an era of individual capability driving promotion, then the ability to do parts of the boss’s job will help select certain people to rise to the next step in their career path. We know that staff engagement is triggered when the staff feel the boss really cares about them.  Busy bosses may not be able to communicate that because they are not putting in the time to make that feeing real. The boss’s communication skills may be underdeveloped and they may fail in that basic regard. They probably have never had leadership training.  So far, they have been piecing it together by themselves, but have ended up with a partially completed puzzle and important skill sets have remained undeveloped. When there were candidates aplenty, it probably didn’t matter, but those days are far behind us. Supervisors who cannot allocate the time will be puzzled when the young up and depart and their pleas for replacements to HR are not yielding any fruit.  The war for talent and especially the young and talented, will only become diabolical.  It is going to get worse. The hiring costs of an in demand and in short supply group of young people will go up and they will start to hit the radar of ravenous recruiters.  Usually, the fees for placing the young are not worth the effort, but as recruiters become more desperate for revenues, they will lower their entry price points. The rising wage costs of the young will create a nexus of cross over that will work for the recruiters.  The next stage will be recruiters luring the young out of their current firms like the Pied Piper and placing them with the competitors.  They know that 40% of the population is ready to move and so this will become a happy hunting ground for recruiters - at your expense. Companies need to train their supervisors to cope with this war for talent, which is rapidly becoming a zero-sum game of winners and losers.  Those firms who don’t get it will be the training ground for their competitors new hires, as the young are getting pried out of their current company to go elsewhere.

Artificial intelligence is bringing a lot of speed to tasks and helping with mundane work.  As we all become better at prompting the machine, we will uncover greater utility for it to propel our work.  It will not be able to replace the human aspect of leadership though. One thing it won’t fix is watching 40% of new hires walk out the door within the first three or four years of employ.  I was talking to an HR person from a very large international firm about this issue.  Originally, there had been a plan to provide training for these new recruits, with a view to keeping them in the company and not having them wander off to competitors.  In the end, they budgeted nothing for the training, so the whole idea collapsed.  The early departure problem is still there though. I suggested that the actual issue is with the young recruits’ supervisors and that this group needs some remedial training.  I said “remedial” because they have to unlearn some bad thinking and bad habits.  Most of these supervisors will be section heads and they have grown up in business in eras when candidates for employ were plentiful.  If one left, no problem, you just hired in a replacement.  That is no longer that easy, as a declining youth population throws up an increasing free agent mentality on the part of the young. They know they can easily get a job somewhere else, if they don’t feel they are appreciated enough or that the firm culture is the right fit.  If the section heads don’t understand that point, then they are not adjusting their thinking about how to retain these vibrant and increasing sought after resources.  Confusion about the difference between managing and leading will also become a barrier to retention.  Most Japanese leaders are actually managers.  What is the difference?  Leaders do three things in particular: (1) they set the direction for the team (2) they develop their people through coaching and feedback and (3) they make sure the processes run on time, on budget and at the quality standard required.  Japanese managers find all of their time taken up with just number three on this list and unfortunately, they neglect number two to the detriment of the firm. To make it even worse, poor time management and delegation skills will ensure that the supervisors won’t have enough time to coach their young charges, even if they were to recognise this was an important part of their work.  Doubling down on the human dimension of leadership requires a lot of time.  Feedback that isn’t positive will not suit the young and they will soon feel dissatisfied with their bosses.  They want coaching and attention, but it will be a “leftover” activity, rather than a primary leadership time allocation.  Delegation is widely misunderstood in Japan.  It is seen as shovelling the boss’s work on to the desk of an underling, as a way of reducing the boss workload.  In fact, delegation is a powerful coaching tool.  It enables younger staff to experience parts of the boss’s job and to build their skills as a springboard to taking on higher responsibility.  Even the peak industry body the Keidanren is talking about promotion through capability, rather than time in the company. If we are in an era of individual capability driving promotion, then the ability to do parts of the boss’s job will help select certain people to rise to the next step in their career path. We know that staff engagement is triggered when the staff feel the boss really cares about them.  Busy bosses may not be able to communicate that because they are not putting in the time to make that feeing real. The boss’s communication skills may be underdeveloped and they may fail in that basic regard. They probably have never had leadership training.  So far, they have been piecing it together by themselves, but have ended up with a partially completed puzzle and important skill sets have remained undeveloped. When there were candidates aplenty, it probably didn’t matter, but those days are far behind us. Supervisors who cannot allocate the time will be puzzled when the young up and depart and their pleas for replacements to HR are not yielding any fruit.  The war for talent and especially the young and talented, will only become diabolical.  It is going to get worse. The hiring costs of an in demand and in short supply group of young people will go up and they will start to hit the radar of ravenous recruiters.  Usually, the fees for placing the young are not worth the effort, but as recruiters become more desperate for revenues, they will lower their entry price points. The rising wage costs of the young will create a nexus of cross over that will work for the recruiters.  The next stage will be recruiters luring the young out of their current firms like the Pied Piper and placing them with the competitors.  They know that 40% of the population is ready to move and so this will become a happy hunting ground for recruiters - at your expense. Companies need to train their supervisors to cope with this war for talent, which is rapidly becoming a zero-sum game of winners and losers.  Those firms who don’t get it will be the training ground for their competitors new hires, as the young are getting pried out of their current company to go elsewhere.

523 Doubling Down On Being A Human Leader In The Time Of ChatGPT

 Many of our clients have told us that Covid and especially remote working situations, revealed a lot about the leadership frailty of their organisations.  When everyone was in the office, the inability of mid-level leaders to lead was effectively masked.  However, once the big homeward bound migration took place, sizeable gaps suddenly became apparent. These gaps were around the communication of the firm’s strategy, direction, the alignment of the team and getting things done.  Each of these aspects had to be updated in a rapidly changing Covid environment, where in the early phases, there were no vaccines and people were dying in droves. The latest Covid variants are highly contagious, but less lethal.  The government has moved Covid down the scale to be equivalent with the flu.  Current numbers are about 70% of firms are back in the office in Japan, so there is now a more complex hybrid challenge to deal with.  Communication becomes more difficult when some staff are meeting colleagues in person and others are at home not joining those spontaneous “water cooler” conversations.  This creates a two-tier work-force of those in the know and those who suffer “FOMO” – the fear of missing out. The boss’s job is to make sure the coordination of the work and communication across the firm are working.  This has become more difficult and so new tools are required.  More frequent all-hands meetings create opportunities to get key messages out to everyone simultaneously.  Mid-level managers then need to drive that messaging further. We all know, a message once told, melts very quickly and people don’t recollect it for long.  The forgetting curve is vicious.  We forget half of what we are told in an hour, seventy percent in a day and ninety percent in a week.  No wonder we have to keep hammering important content to make sure everyone hears it and understands it. A simple thing like the “chorei” or morning team meeting become more complex.  These were a standard tool for coordinating within the team and for messaging to the team from their supervisors.  If they are being held in the office again, then those at home cannot attend.  If it is held on-line, with those at home and those in the office all online, then what is the point of having people get together in the office?  We can easily find ourselves getting the worst of both worlds, if we are not careful. Email and different apps become important tools of communication, which allow people to access the information at their pace.  Getting key details written creates a permanent record which can be referred to, easily shared and stored.  Verbal instructions and information sharing are effervescent however and don’t linger long.  Email becomes a bit of a pain because we are inundated with tsunamis of email into our inbox and we can quickly become overwhelmed.  The balance between the spoken and written word needs some consideration, to ascertain which communication vehicles are now needed, work best and also how the whole messaging strategy should hang together.  Teamwork is like a muscle which atrophies when not exercised.  Trying to build teamwork when everyone was at home was difficult and probably for most firms, unsatisfying for the team members.  Even though we may troop back into the office, the assumption shouldn’t be made that we can just pick up the threads of where we were and everything will automatically fit back into place again.  There are some bound to be some people who have become isolated during Covid and have retreated into themselves over these last three years.  Issues which may not have been apparent when everyone was mixing every day in the office may now require some close observation and monitoring.  We can physically bring them back to the office, but they remain isolated and avoid others, seeking seating arrangements where they can work alone, away from everyone.    Mental health issues become a concern in these cases and we need to gently and gradually re-tribalise some of the team.  Many firm’s CFOs are re-thinking the layout of the office space to make it smaller, given there are rent savings to be had by outsourcing to the staff, to have them pay for and provide their own working space at home.  Others are keeping the same amount of space, but removing desks and creating more collaborative areas and also quiet spaces, to cater for a variety of working style preferences.  These are issues we never faced before, when we had traditional office working arrangements and naturally it all becomes an experiment to some extent.  There is also a new question which is popping up in staff interviews. In the background are certain expectations, given there are more jobs going than candidates available to fill the positions.  The potential new hires are asking, “Can I work from home” and if the answer is “no”, then many are declining the opportunity to join.  Having everyone back together after three years may instil some buzz. We may be getting better engagement back into office, with people laughing and chatting together again, yet this new hire demand for isolation defeats the purpose of re-grouping.  Are we going to trade off the teamwork we want to resuscitate against the recruitment requirement to source more resources?  This is a tricky path we have to tread and sadly, there are no simple answers for this one.  The post -Covid world of work has changed.  There is no reliable road map we can use and it will probably take a couple of years before some conclusions can be drawn about which path is the best one.  The keys will be greater flexibility and a willingness to host dual, possibly even contradicting systems simultaneously, until there is greater clarity about how best to move forward.

Many of our clients have told us that Covid and especially remote working situations, revealed a lot about the leadership frailty of their organisations.  When everyone was in the office, the inability of mid-level leaders to lead was effectively masked.  However, once the big homeward bound migration took place, sizeable gaps suddenly became apparent. These gaps were around the communication of the firm’s strategy, direction, the alignment of the team and getting things done.  Each of these aspects had to be updated in a rapidly changing Covid environment, where in the early phases, there were no vaccines and people were dying in droves. The latest Covid variants are highly contagious, but less lethal.  The government has moved Covid down the scale to be equivalent with the flu.  Current numbers are about 70% of firms are back in the office in Japan, so there is now a more complex hybrid challenge to deal with.  Communication becomes more difficult when some staff are meeting colleagues in person and others are at home not joining those spontaneous “water cooler” conversations.  This creates a two-tier work-force of those in the know and those who suffer “FOMO” – the fear of missing out. The boss’s job is to make sure the coordination of the work and communication across the firm are working.  This has become more difficult and so new tools are required.  More frequent all-hands meetings create opportunities to get key messages out to everyone simultaneously.  Mid-level managers then need to drive that messaging further. We all know, a message once told, melts very quickly and people don’t recollect it for long.  The forgetting curve is vicious.  We forget half of what we are told in an hour, seventy percent in a day and ninety percent in a week.  No wonder we have to keep hammering important content to make sure everyone hears it and understands it. A simple thing like the “chorei” or morning team meeting become more complex.  These were a standard tool for coordinating within the team and for messaging to the team from their supervisors.  If they are being held in the office again, then those at home cannot attend.  If it is held on-line, with those at home and those in the office all online, then what is the point of having people get together in the office?  We can easily find ourselves getting the worst of both worlds, if we are not careful. Email and different apps become important tools of communication, which allow people to access the information at their pace.  Getting key details written creates a permanent record which can be referred to, easily shared and stored.  Verbal instructions and information sharing are effervescent however and don’t linger long.  Email becomes a bit of a pain because we are inundated with tsunamis of email into our inbox and we can quickly become overwhelmed.  The balance between the spoken and written word needs some consideration, to ascertain which communication vehicles are now needed, work best and also how the whole messaging strategy should hang together.  Teamwork is like a muscle which atrophies when not exercised.  Trying to build teamwork when everyone was at home was difficult and probably for most firms, unsatisfying for the team members.  Even though we may troop back into the office, the assumption shouldn’t be made that we can just pick up the threads of where we were and everything will automatically fit back into place again.  There are some bound to be some people who have become isolated during Covid and have retreated into themselves over these last three years.  Issues which may not have been apparent when everyone was mixing every day in the office may now require some close observation and monitoring.  We can physically bring them back to the office, but they remain isolated and avoid others, seeking seating arrangements where they can work alone, away from everyone.    Mental health issues become a concern in these cases and we need to gently and gradually re-tribalise some of the team.  Many firm’s CFOs are re-thinking the layout of the office space to make it smaller, given there are rent savings to be had by outsourcing to the staff, to have them pay for and provide their own working space at home.  Others are keeping the same amount of space, but removing desks and creating more collaborative areas and also quiet spaces, to cater for a variety of working style preferences.  These are issues we never faced before, when we had traditional office working arrangements and naturally it all becomes an experiment to some extent.  There is also a new question which is popping up in staff interviews. In the background are certain expectations, given there are more jobs going than candidates available to fill the positions.  The potential new hires are asking, “Can I work from home” and if the answer is “no”, then many are declining the opportunity to join.  Having everyone back together after three years may instil some buzz. We may be getting better engagement back into office, with people laughing and chatting together again, yet this new hire demand for isolation defeats the purpose of re-grouping.  Are we going to trade off the teamwork we want to resuscitate against the recruitment requirement to source more resources?  This is a tricky path we have to tread and sadly, there are no simple answers for this one.  The post -Covid world of work has changed.  There is no reliable road map we can use and it will probably take a couple of years before some conclusions can be drawn about which path is the best one.  The keys will be greater flexibility and a willingness to host dual, possibly even contradicting systems simultaneously, until there is greater clarity about how best to move forward.

522 Post-Covid Leadership Challenges

 Three candidates in a row with mental health problems and recruiting fees in the tens of thousands of dollars.  Am I just unlucky or is this a trend? Our first instinct as leaders will be to not recruit people who are broken and to avoid those who are suffering with mental health issues. We will worry they will just disappear into a prolonged medical leave absence and we will be footing the bills for the duration.  The issue though is these candidates are often ninja level masters of illusion and obfuscation. The hidden mental health problems don’t reveal themselves until after they have passed probation.  Some recruiting companies have nifty little clauses in their contracts that state if the person isn’t fired or resigns before the end of the first three months’ probation period, then there will be no contractual obligation to replace them and you are out of pocket.  Everyone, go back and read this clause in your existing contract with your recruiters and agitate to change it.  I think 60 days should be the period, rather than thirty, because you can’t tell anything much about the potential problems in such a short span.  On the other hand, is this going to be the new reality?  I have written before about leaders having to brace themselves to deal with under-performance and low levels of ability on the part of their new hires.  This is another level up in the degree of difficulty we will potentially be facing.  The core reasons are the same - we just cannot get people.  Will we have to make some severe choices here?  Will we have to say to ourselves, “am I better off having someone with mental health problems and then try and deal with that problem, rather than have no one on board and have the other issues associated with a lack of resources?”. Do we have to learn how to accommodate the needs of new hires with mental health problems and accept that they may disappear for extended periods of time?  There is a lot of talk today about having Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) inside companies.  This is seen as a way to invigorate the organisation, by enabling it to tap into creativity and innovation through promoting diverse thinking and ideas.  Does this approach extend to people with mental health issues?  Part of DEI is providing a psychologically safe environment where people can feel safe to contribute in their own way.  Is the logical extension of this idea, creating an environment where staff with mental health issues can feel safe and able to perform their roles, without having to retreat to sick leave to recover? There is a lot of attention now on harassment of various types in the workplace.  Bosses scolding staff, yelling at them in public, pressuring people for results etc., are getting flagged as potential harassment.  For a lot of bosses dragged up in business in the “tough love” school of hard knocks, this is almost like a joke.  Increasingly, companies are not treating it as a joke. HR will be making the rounds to talk to bosses who are having claims of power harassment etc., made against them by their staff.  The pressure on bosses for results doesn't diminish by the way, so the navigation of this issue is getting increasingly more difficult. Okay, where were the psychologically safe environments for me, when I was being pressured by my bosses for results, as I was growing up in business?  There were none.  So the issue is how do I adjust my expectations for this current reality?  I am sure many bosses recall their own experiences and tough times and think young people are weak and indulgent.  What do these bosses make of people with mental health issues wanting to work in their companies?  I am asking for a friend! Many of us are adjusting our expectations, communication and manner to accommodate these young people, who come to us with quite different ideas to what we knew as our reality.  We do this because we have few choices about who we can hire these days and this generation all seem to have a similar need, which is quite different from our own experiences. Do we now have to make another adjustment and accommodate people with mental health issues?  We still cannot get people, so we are making hard choices. Are we trained for this type of thing?  Are we flexible enough to make the necessary changes.  Let me tell a joke I made up to illustrate the point.  I tell people that Japanese staff love change.  The listeners look at me like I am totally nuts.  I then tell them that the Japanese staff want the boss, colleagues, clients, markets and organisation to change and they will stay just the same.  Is this us, the bosses?  Do we want everyone else to change, but we want to stay the exact same and keep leading as we always have, as if nothing has changed in society?

Three candidates in a row with mental health problems and recruiting fees in the tens of thousands of dollars.  Am I just unlucky or is this a trend? Our first instinct as leaders will be to not recruit people who are broken and to avoid those who are suffering with mental health issues. We will worry they will just disappear into a prolonged medical leave absence and we will be footing the bills for the duration.  The issue though is these candidates are often ninja level masters of illusion and obfuscation. The hidden mental health problems don’t reveal themselves until after they have passed probation.  Some recruiting companies have nifty little clauses in their contracts that state if the person isn’t fired or resigns before the end of the first three months’ probation period, then there will be no contractual obligation to replace them and you are out of pocket.  Everyone, go back and read this clause in your existing contract with your recruiters and agitate to change it.  I think 60 days should be the period, rather than thirty, because you can’t tell anything much about the potential problems in such a short span.  On the other hand, is this going to be the new reality?  I have written before about leaders having to brace themselves to deal with under-performance and low levels of ability on the part of their new hires.  This is another level up in the degree of difficulty we will potentially be facing.  The core reasons are the same - we just cannot get people.  Will we have to make some severe choices here?  Will we have to say to ourselves, “am I better off having someone with mental health problems and then try and deal with that problem, rather than have no one on board and have the other issues associated with a lack of resources?”. Do we have to learn how to accommodate the needs of new hires with mental health problems and accept that they may disappear for extended periods of time?  There is a lot of talk today about having Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) inside companies.  This is seen as a way to invigorate the organisation, by enabling it to tap into creativity and innovation through promoting diverse thinking and ideas.  Does this approach extend to people with mental health issues?  Part of DEI is providing a psychologically safe environment where people can feel safe to contribute in their own way.  Is the logical extension of this idea, creating an environment where staff with mental health issues can feel safe and able to perform their roles, without having to retreat to sick leave to recover? There is a lot of attention now on harassment of various types in the workplace.  Bosses scolding staff, yelling at them in public, pressuring people for results etc., are getting flagged as potential harassment.  For a lot of bosses dragged up in business in the “tough love” school of hard knocks, this is almost like a joke.  Increasingly, companies are not treating it as a joke. HR will be making the rounds to talk to bosses who are having claims of power harassment etc., made against them by their staff.  The pressure on bosses for results doesn't diminish by the way, so the navigation of this issue is getting increasingly more difficult. Okay, where were the psychologically safe environments for me, when I was being pressured by my bosses for results, as I was growing up in business?  There were none.  So the issue is how do I adjust my expectations for this current reality?  I am sure many bosses recall their own experiences and tough times and think young people are weak and indulgent.  What do these bosses make of people with mental health issues wanting to work in their companies?  I am asking for a friend! Many of us are adjusting our expectations, communication and manner to accommodate these young people, who come to us with quite different ideas to what we knew as our reality.  We do this because we have few choices about who we can hire these days and this generation all seem to have a similar need, which is quite different from our own experiences. Do we now have to make another adjustment and accommodate people with mental health issues?  We still cannot get people, so we are making hard choices. Are we trained for this type of thing?  Are we flexible enough to make the necessary changes.  Let me tell a joke I made up to illustrate the point.  I tell people that Japanese staff love change.  The listeners look at me like I am totally nuts.  I then tell them that the Japanese staff want the boss, colleagues, clients, markets and organisation to change and they will stay just the same.  Is this us, the bosses?  Do we want everyone else to change, but we want to stay the exact same and keep leading as we always have, as if nothing has changed in society?

521 As Leaders, Do We Have The Ability To Take In The Walking Wounded?

As a leader, try yelling “be inclusive, be inclusive, be inclusive” at your staff members.  You are trying to move the organisation toward achieving greater creativity and innovation through the benefits of diversity.  You know that becoming more inclusive is the catalyst for gaining diversity inside the firm.  The President and the Executive Team have made the official pronouncements about using diversity to better prepare for a more creative and successful future.  Whatever your own thoughts on the merits of diversity, it is your leader job to turn their pronouncement into reality.  Being a smart leader, you know that just yelling at your staff to be more inclusive is a nonsense and won’t work.  Great, so what do you do about those in your charge? This type of major transformation is not the moment for shotgun style team meetings or town halls to convince everyone to get on board with senior management’s directions.  En masse, that blanket approach will yield a lot of tatemae or superficial acceptance, but the honne of entrenched resistance will still remain there, hidden and submerged. In Japan, diversity actually means gender diversity, rather than LGBTQ, racial or religious diversity.  To drive gender diversity requires a lot of one-on-one meetings with the team members.  Busy leaders may think, “well diversity is a noteworthy aspiration, from the President, but in reality, I am already busy with my current workload. Where can I possibly fit in time for this additional activity?”.  All true, but there will be no change unless the leaders make the time available to have those individual conversations with their team members. What will those conversations involve?  To get transformational change, we need to work on our emotional change (EC) and add to it changes in behaviour (BC), to get the performance change (PC) we need.  In our talks with our staff, we should explore their mindset about inclusion?  They may have never thought about it before, so this is a vital first step for them. What are they thinking about this new direction?  Do they think this new direction will harm the organisation and that the senior executives are mistaken in their approach? What is their opinion about gender diversity?  Do they have female relatives or friends who may currently be affected by a lack of inclusion in their workplaces? What are their set of beliefs about this topic?  Have they inherited dated or mistaken ideas from others, rather than investigating what they think, based on their own research? What emotions does inclusion trigger for them?  Are they fearful of the consequences?  If they are men, do they see women as rivals or competitors for future promotion to senior positions? What insights do they have about how to secure an inclusive workplace?  If it was going to work here, how would we get it to work?  What could we do to make this environment more inclusive and more innovative by drawing on the strengths of the whole team?  How can we position ourselves to beat the competition?  Today 54% of women are in the workplace in Japan, predominantly in low paying part-time jobs.  Assuming a five-day work week, 70% of men worked an eight-hour day or more while only 40% of women did the same. More women will have to enter the workforce to make up for the labour shortage being driven by the declining birth rate in Japan.  There will be some increased immigration for blue collars workers into Japan, as government policy has become more flexible to deal with a shortage of workers.  Nevertheless, the capacity of firms to access women will only grow in importance. Companies will need to become more inclusive to attract and retain them. Leaders need to work through these scenarios with their staff. Everyone needs to understand this is a vital step for the economy, if Japan is to prosper as a sophisticated and advanced economy in the world.  They also need to align that macro view with what it means at the micro level for the team members.  None of us work in a bubble and what happens to the overall economy impacts all of us.  The point needs to be made that the whole country needs inclusivity first, in order to get to diversity, to tap into the full innovation potential of all the workers. Once we have worked on the emotional component of the transformational change, we need the staff to engage in behaviour change.  Skill sets need to be upgraded around time management, teamwork and communication with colleagues. The actions each staff member takes adds up to the totality of the firm’s actions to embrace inclusivity to get to diversity.  It has to be clarified that this is not someone else’s responsibility and certain members of staff cannot simply continue doing what they have always done.  If we are going to do this, what do we need to change and what things do we need to introduce? Behaviour change is difficult, but once awareness levels have been heightened, it gets easier to spot where a previous behaviour has to be replaced with a new behaviour.  Communication styles also need attention.  Inclusivity in communication may force old habits to change.  Clubby all male cliques will need to change, so that the women working in the organisation feel they are valued and welcomed too.  Interactions on a daily basis set the tone of the organisation’s commitment to inclusion.  This is where the EQ part comes in and the realisation made that the IQ component can’t solely be relied upon for change. When we get the emotional and behavioural elements to work, then we can see actual results where inclusivity is happening on a daily basis.  This will provide the platform to sustain the diversity needed in the organisation.  Leaders will incorporate inclusivity into the leadership repertoire and deeper relations between colleagues will become a given.  We can open the door to diversity and with it to innovation.

As a leader, try yelling “be inclusive, be inclusive, be inclusive” at your staff members.  You are trying to move the organisation toward achieving greater creativity and innovation through the benefits of diversity.  You know that becoming more inclusive is the catalyst for gaining diversity inside the firm.  The President and the Executive Team have made the official pronouncements about using diversity to better prepare for a more creative and successful future.  Whatever your own thoughts on the merits of diversity, it is your leader job to turn their pronouncement into reality.  Being a smart leader, you know that just yelling at your staff to be more inclusive is a nonsense and won’t work.  Great, so what do you do about those in your charge? This type of major transformation is not the moment for shotgun style team meetings or town halls to convince everyone to get on board with senior management’s directions.  En masse, that blanket approach will yield a lot of tatemae or superficial acceptance, but the honne of entrenched resistance will still remain there, hidden and submerged. In Japan, diversity actually means gender diversity, rather than LGBTQ, racial or religious diversity.  To drive gender diversity requires a lot of one-on-one meetings with the team members.  Busy leaders may think, “well diversity is a noteworthy aspiration, from the President, but in reality, I am already busy with my current workload. Where can I possibly fit in time for this additional activity?”.  All true, but there will be no change unless the leaders make the time available to have those individual conversations with their team members. What will those conversations involve?  To get transformational change, we need to work on our emotional change (EC) and add to it changes in behaviour (BC), to get the performance change (PC) we need.  In our talks with our staff, we should explore their mindset about inclusion?  They may have never thought about it before, so this is a vital first step for them. What are they thinking about this new direction?  Do they think this new direction will harm the organisation and that the senior executives are mistaken in their approach? What is their opinion about gender diversity?  Do they have female relatives or friends who may currently be affected by a lack of inclusion in their workplaces? What are their set of beliefs about this topic?  Have they inherited dated or mistaken ideas from others, rather than investigating what they think, based on their own research? What emotions does inclusion trigger for them?  Are they fearful of the consequences?  If they are men, do they see women as rivals or competitors for future promotion to senior positions? What insights do they have about how to secure an inclusive workplace?  If it was going to work here, how would we get it to work?  What could we do to make this environment more inclusive and more innovative by drawing on the strengths of the whole team?  How can we position ourselves to beat the competition?  Today 54% of women are in the workplace in Japan, predominantly in low paying part-time jobs.  Assuming a five-day work week, 70% of men worked an eight-hour day or more while only 40% of women did the same. More women will have to enter the workforce to make up for the labour shortage being driven by the declining birth rate in Japan.  There will be some increased immigration for blue collars workers into Japan, as government policy has become more flexible to deal with a shortage of workers.  Nevertheless, the capacity of firms to access women will only grow in importance. Companies will need to become more inclusive to attract and retain them. Leaders need to work through these scenarios with their staff. Everyone needs to understand this is a vital step for the economy, if Japan is to prosper as a sophisticated and advanced economy in the world.  They also need to align that macro view with what it means at the micro level for the team members.  None of us work in a bubble and what happens to the overall economy impacts all of us.  The point needs to be made that the whole country needs inclusivity first, in order to get to diversity, to tap into the full innovation potential of all the workers. Once we have worked on the emotional component of the transformational change, we need the staff to engage in behaviour change.  Skill sets need to be upgraded around time management, teamwork and communication with colleagues. The actions each staff member takes adds up to the totality of the firm’s actions to embrace inclusivity to get to diversity.  It has to be clarified that this is not someone else’s responsibility and certain members of staff cannot simply continue doing what they have always done.  If we are going to do this, what do we need to change and what things do we need to introduce? Behaviour change is difficult, but once awareness levels have been heightened, it gets easier to spot where a previous behaviour has to be replaced with a new behaviour.  Communication styles also need attention.  Inclusivity in communication may force old habits to change.  Clubby all male cliques will need to change, so that the women working in the organisation feel they are valued and welcomed too.  Interactions on a daily basis set the tone of the organisation’s commitment to inclusion.  This is where the EQ part comes in and the realisation made that the IQ component can’t solely be relied upon for change. When we get the emotional and behavioural elements to work, then we can see actual results where inclusivity is happening on a daily basis.  This will provide the platform to sustain the diversity needed in the organisation.  Leaders will incorporate inclusivity into the leadership repertoire and deeper relations between colleagues will become a given.  We can open the door to diversity and with it to innovation.

520 How To Get Transformational Change To Achieve An Inclusive Mindset

“Does this candidate have a pulse?  Yes? Then we need to hire them”.  Does this sound ridiculous, a fantasy and dystopian snippet from the future?  The Japanese Government says that if we don’t see a turnaround in the population decline before 2030, then the country will get tipped over the edge and into a decline from which it cannot easily recover.  Covid wiped out the tourism and hospitality industries and there are still difficulties in hiring people.  A lot of workers decided these industries were too unstable and have quietly moved elsewhere and are not going back. If you need English speakers, then good luck because they are in massive short supply.  The Kishida Cabinet says they are going to encourage 150,000 young Japanese to get degrees overseas.  This is up from the current 62,000 a year and they want to achieve this increased target by 2033.  That is good and we need this programme to work, but what do we do between now and 2033?  Once upon a time, the foreign multi-nationals had this English-speaking market for themselves.  Western educated English speakers were a challenge for Japanese companies, as they had been exposed to foreign concepts and weren't as easy to manage as local staff. Things have changed.  Japanese companies have to search beyond Japan for new and larger markets, as Japan contracts and the domestic growth prospects are meager. The problem with this approach is you need people you can send off shore to run the show or you need people here, who can deal with the enterprise staff located overseas.  Now these domestic but internationalising companies are vying for the few English speakers.  The move toward meritocracy rather than the typical nenko joretsu (年功序列) escalator promotion system has made domestic companies more tolerable.  Mid-career hiring has also become more accepted, so this gradual increase in flexibility makes it easier for domestic companies to jostle for English speakers. We are moving to a free agent system of employ, where the candidates are interviewing the hiring staff, rather than the other way around.  Does this firm provide training, allow working from home, what is the work/life balance philosophy here, etc., are the types of questions popping up in interviews, which we have never had to contemplate before. We know that 80% of the staff account for 20% of the results and in the past we had some freedom of having the worst performers move on.  Given the hot market for candidates this is still a viable option, to have them depart willingly, except what do you about finding a replacement?  I heard a Japanese HR executive working for a foreign multinational making some macho remarks about moving out underperformers the other day and I was quietly thinking, is that really a sustainable policy, given where we are headed?  What fantasy world is this guy living in? The future for leaders is going to be how to lead seriously underperforming staff?  We have all grown up in a buyer’s market and we are now in a seller’s market.  We were raised on tough love and no excuses for underperformance, but if we apply this regimen, we won’t have enough staff to run the organisation.  Suddenly, empathy has become a clear market differentiator for leaders between those who will keep staff and those who will see them tramp out the door to the competitors.  What empathy did we experience on the way up through the ranks?  Not much that I can remember, so how do we tap into this mysterious well of goodness and bonhomie? Our staff are also getting older and it seems to me that there is a definite increase in sick leave requests.  I don’t know whether the pressure of modern business is causing more stress than before and therefore sick leave applications are increasing or is it because they are just getting older?  Time off has to be respected for illness and we can’t be beating the drum to ramming speed on the oars of the slave galley, just because we can. Bosses need a lot more patience with and empathy for the team and more tolerance for the days of productive work which are increasingly being lost. They are definitely lost but the targets are not coming down to compensate. We are finding ourselves in a vice. We are being crushed by targets and the pressure to produce on the one side and a staffing situation on the other, where if you push too hard, you won’t have enough people left to run the ship. Despite our own harsh upbringing in business, we have to strike out in a new direction where communication, people skills, empathy and coming out of your Comfort Zone are the aces in the pack for leaders.

“Does this candidate have a pulse?  Yes? Then we need to hire them”.  Does this sound ridiculous, a fantasy and dystopian snippet from the future?  The Japanese Government says that if we don’t see a turnaround in the population decline before 2030, then the country will get tipped over the edge and into a decline from which it cannot easily recover.  Covid wiped out the tourism and hospitality industries and there are still difficulties in hiring people.  A lot of workers decided these industries were too unstable and have quietly moved elsewhere and are not going back. If you need English speakers, then good luck because they are in massive short supply.  The Kishida Cabinet says they are going to encourage 150,000 young Japanese to get degrees overseas.  This is up from the current 62,000 a year and they want to achieve this increased target by 2033.  That is good and we need this programme to work, but what do we do between now and 2033?  Once upon a time, the foreign multi-nationals had this English-speaking market for themselves.  Western educated English speakers were a challenge for Japanese companies, as they had been exposed to foreign concepts and weren't as easy to manage as local staff. Things have changed.  Japanese companies have to search beyond Japan for new and larger markets, as Japan contracts and the domestic growth prospects are meager. The problem with this approach is you need people you can send off shore to run the show or you need people here, who can deal with the enterprise staff located overseas.  Now these domestic but internationalising companies are vying for the few English speakers.  The move toward meritocracy rather than the typical nenko joretsu (年功序列) escalator promotion system has made domestic companies more tolerable.  Mid-career hiring has also become more accepted, so this gradual increase in flexibility makes it easier for domestic companies to jostle for English speakers. We are moving to a free agent system of employ, where the candidates are interviewing the hiring staff, rather than the other way around.  Does this firm provide training, allow working from home, what is the work/life balance philosophy here, etc., are the types of questions popping up in interviews, which we have never had to contemplate before. We know that 80% of the staff account for 20% of the results and in the past we had some freedom of having the worst performers move on.  Given the hot market for candidates this is still a viable option, to have them depart willingly, except what do you about finding a replacement?  I heard a Japanese HR executive working for a foreign multinational making some macho remarks about moving out underperformers the other day and I was quietly thinking, is that really a sustainable policy, given where we are headed?  What fantasy world is this guy living in? The future for leaders is going to be how to lead seriously underperforming staff?  We have all grown up in a buyer’s market and we are now in a seller’s market.  We were raised on tough love and no excuses for underperformance, but if we apply this regimen, we won’t have enough staff to run the organisation.  Suddenly, empathy has become a clear market differentiator for leaders between those who will keep staff and those who will see them tramp out the door to the competitors.  What empathy did we experience on the way up through the ranks?  Not much that I can remember, so how do we tap into this mysterious well of goodness and bonhomie? Our staff are also getting older and it seems to me that there is a definite increase in sick leave requests.  I don’t know whether the pressure of modern business is causing more stress than before and therefore sick leave applications are increasing or is it because they are just getting older?  Time off has to be respected for illness and we can’t be beating the drum to ramming speed on the oars of the slave galley, just because we can. Bosses need a lot more patience with and empathy for the team and more tolerance for the days of productive work which are increasingly being lost. They are definitely lost but the targets are not coming down to compensate. We are finding ourselves in a vice. We are being crushed by targets and the pressure to produce on the one side and a staffing situation on the other, where if you push too hard, you won’t have enough people left to run the ship. Despite our own harsh upbringing in business, we have to strike out in a new direction where communication, people skills, empathy and coming out of your Comfort Zone are the aces in the pack for leaders.

519 Empathy, Underperformance Management and Dealing With Population Decline As Leaders In Japan

The big chiefs in the organisation have embraced the idea of Diversity, Equity and inclusion (DEI).  Even more, they expect Middle Management to get on board with this push and make it happen.  That means people who probably haven’t spent one second thinking about DEI now have to be the role models for the new cause.  I always tell people that the success or failure of DEI in Japan is decided at the kacho or section chief level.  This is where the bulk of the people are being supervised and where the decisions about coaching, promotion and role allocations are made.  The President has signed off on the idea and the kacho level leaders have to drive this throughout the ranks.  Here are nine ideas for kacho level leaders to consider regarding how to turn the rhetoric into a reality.  1.      Avoid negative self-talk It is not unusual that change represents a challenge and the self-talk we generate as a result may easily become negative.  If we allow this to happen, then the people under our supervision will follow our lead. The change effort will flounder.  We may have concerns, fears and even resentment.  The President however, didn’t ask us for our input and expects us to lead the charge on getting DEI stitched into the fabric of the firm.  What comes out of our mouth will determine what everyone in the section will think about the change and so we must be highly disciplined to get the messaging right.  2.     Be open about your concerns There is no problem with expressing our own struggle with the change.  That is different to saying this is nonsense and we can all just ignore the President’s initiatives.  It is a good launching point to get the team involved in how we can implement the new approach and what we can do about it in our part of the machine.  Never forget “people own the world they create”, so allow them to have ownership of the process.  3.     Be realistic Installing a new accounting system or a production line, are relatively concrete changes which are easy to understand.   Having people adopt a new way of thinking and the values which go with that are much higher order tasks.  This is territory which is at the highest levels of complexity,  for which we have probably has very little training.  We need to adjust our expectations about the speed of change possible.  4.     Gather information through questions and research The team is looking to our leadership. We have been made the leader because we have been an expert in our area of the business.  This DEI area is a new area concerning which we need to become expert.  Any new initiative requires study and we should approach DEI in the exact same manner.  5.     Be as productive as possible in your current role DEI is the type of initiative which is a major change in how we think about the possibility of getting more creativity in our business and how we work together.  It doesn't mean that all of the other goals are dropped or that our accountability is reduced.  In fact the opposite, this is now a an additional role we must play and so do so to the best of our ability.  Our capacity to rise through the ranks is reflected in how well we adjust and adapt to change and this is an arena where we can demonstrate that capacity.   6.     Give new ideas a chance We may know little about the WHY of DEI and often organisations are not skilled in this department.  Nonetheless, we have to self-educate on this topic.  We can dwell on the negatives or we can look for the positives. As we are the leader, we can be assured our team members will have no problem identifying the negatives, so it is up to us to lead the charge on the positives.  7.     Recognise successes Leaders have a tendency to wait until everything is completed before they celebrate success of recognise the efforts put into the project.  DEI isn't a project with a timeline.  It is a fundamental change in how we work, so there is no end point.  We need to be looking for any progress on the journey and making a point to embrace, recognise and celebrate it.  8.     Consider contacting your organisation’s internal resources This could be a perfect opportunity to ask for coaching or mentoring on how to execute on delivering DEI.  This is new and maybe there are resources which can save us time and effort.  No one would be expected to know all there is to know about something as new as DEI and therefore there is no stigma to asking for help to become a better leader of the process on integration of DEI into daily work.  9.     Work on being a leader Leaders do three things – set the direction, make sure all the processes are working well and build the people. Introducing DEI into the leadership equation is part of the building the people component.  If we are able to gather all of the creativity of our teams and our competitors cannot, then we will win against them over the long term.  We will out innovate them and our role is to make sure DEI does its part to deliver that innovation. Big cultural changes like DEI can’t be easily forced downward from the Executive Suite.  At some point the people leaders have to get behind it or the whole thing becomes a box ticking exercise and none of the benefits accrue to the organisation.  Work on the kacho level leaders if you want to get real benefits from DEI, they hold the keys to the kingdom.

The big chiefs in the organisation have embraced the idea of Diversity, Equity and inclusion (DEI).  Even more, they expect Middle Management to get on board with this push and make it happen.  That means people who probably haven’t spent one second thinking about DEI now have to be the role models for the new cause.  I always tell people that the success or failure of DEI in Japan is decided at the kacho or section chief level.  This is where the bulk of the people are being supervised and where the decisions about coaching, promotion and role allocations are made.  The President has signed off on the idea and the kacho level leaders have to drive this throughout the ranks.  Here are nine ideas for kacho level leaders to consider regarding how to turn the rhetoric into a reality. 1.      Avoid negative self-talk It is not unusual that change represents a challenge and the self-talk we generate as a result may easily become negative.  If we allow this to happen, then the people under our supervision will follow our lead. The change effort will flounder.  We may have concerns, fears and even resentment.  The President however, didn’t ask us for our input and expects us to lead the charge on getting DEI stitched into the fabric of the firm.  What comes out of our mouth will determine what everyone in the section will think about the change and so we must be highly disciplined to get the messaging right. 2.     Be open about your concerns There is no problem with expressing our own struggle with the change.  That is different to saying this is nonsense and we can all just ignore the President’s initiatives.  It is a good launching point to get the team involved in how we can implement the new approach and what we can do about it in our part of the machine.  Never forget “people own the world they create”, so allow them to have ownership of the process. 3.     Be realistic Installing a new accounting system or a production line, are relatively concrete changes which are easy to understand.   Having people adopt a new way of thinking and the values which go with that are much higher order tasks.  This is territory which is at the highest levels of complexity,  for which we have probably has very little training.  We need to adjust our expectations about the speed of change possible. 4.     Gather information through questions and research The team is looking to our leadership. We have been made the leader because we have been an expert in our area of the business.  This DEI area is a new area concerning which we need to become expert.  Any new initiative requires study and we should approach DEI in the exact same manner. 5.     Be as productive as possible in your current role DEI is the type of initiative which is a major change in how we think about the possibility of getting more creativity in our business and how we work together.  It doesn't mean that all of the other goals are dropped or that our accountability is reduced.  In fact the opposite, this is now a an additional role we must play and so do so to the best of our ability.  Our capacity to rise through the ranks is reflected in how well we adjust and adapt to change and this is an arena where we can demonstrate that capacity.  6.     Give new ideas a chance We may know little about the WHY of DEI and often organisations are not skilled in this department.  Nonetheless, we have to self-educate on this topic.  We can dwell on the negatives or we can look for the positives. As we are the leader, we can be assured our team members will have no problem identifying the negatives, so it is up to us to lead the charge on the positives. 7.     Recognise successes Leaders have a tendency to wait until everything is completed before they celebrate success of recognise the efforts put into the project.  DEI isn't a project with a timeline.  It is a fundamental change in how we work, so there is no end point.  We need to be looking for any progress on the journey and making a point to embrace, recognise and celebrate it. 8.     Consider contacting your organisation’s internal resources This could be a perfect opportunity to ask for coaching or mentoring on how to execute on delivering DEI.  This is new and maybe there are resources which can save us time and effort.  No one would be expected to know all there is to know about something as new as DEI and therefore there is no stigma to asking for help to become a better leader of the process on integration of DEI into daily work. 9.     Work on being a leader Leaders do three things – set the direction, make sure all the processes are working well and build the people. Introducing DEI into the leadership equation is part of the building the people component.  If we are able to gather all of the creativity of our teams and our competitors cannot, then we will win against them over the long term.  We will out innovate them and our role is to make sure DEI does its part to deliver that innovation. Big cultural changes like DEI can’t be easily forced downward from the Executive Suite.  At some point the people leaders have to get behind it or the whole thing becomes a box ticking exercise and none of the benefits accrue to the organisation.  Work on the kacho level leaders if you want to get real benefits from DEI, they hold the keys to the kingdom.

518 Shepherding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Change Within The Organisation

The organisation gets religion about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).  The senior management team, led by the President, decide this is a key path for moving forward.  The upside in achieving greater innovation and creativity by embracing a more inclusive workplace is seen as the Holy Grail.  The Middle Managers are told to get behind the push on DEI.  Brilliant that getting change in Japan is so easy.  Japanese staff love change.  They want their boss to change, their subordinates to change, their colleagues to change, their clients to change, but they want to stay precisely the same.  DEI in Japan is mainly about gender issues, rather than race, religion or national identity. The male Middle Managers themselves are part of the cohort of not wanting to change, regardless of what senior management may be saying.  No one will openly oppose the pronouncements from the top, but that doesn’t mean there is any real enthusiasm for change. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist wrote a book called “On Death and Dying” which identified five stages of grief, which can be extrapolated to assist our understanding about how humans deal with DEI change.     1.     Shock The initial reaction to hearing that the organization is going to embrace change around DEI, can be very confronting for male Middle Managers and the males in their teams.  Usually, the communication in organisations around change is minimal.  Basically, senior management has made this decision, this is why and get on with it.  The lack of what is considered satisfactory explanation sets off rumours, mis-information and confusion in the ranks.  This is why companies must do a thorough job of selling DEI to the team, in depth and continuously.  2.     Denial After the initial shock of the announcement a sense of disbelief can spread and hopes that this will be a “light” intervention which won’t really affect the status quo.  Japan defers to age and stage in companies and what will DEI mean for the current hierarchy?  Will there be a lessening of opportunities for males to advance, in order to meet some arbitrary ratio of female managers?  Why do we need to change at all, when this is how it has always been done?  Senior management needs to recognise these fears and directly address them.  Information vacuums will get filled with gossip, inuendo and false flags unless there is a big sales effort on the positives of change.  3.     Anger Isn’t this a stupid idea from senior management? Won’t this weaken the strength of the organisation, relative to our rivals and won’t clients have trouble accepting the change and therefore we will lose business?  Pronouncements are clearly not going to be enough.  When DEI first popped up on the radar in Japan, companies would ask us to train the women.  I always questioned that assumption.  The kacho or section head is the key person who needs educating.  Usually a he, the kacho determines who gets coached, given delegated tasks for personal development and who gets promoted. Unless the kacho gets it, there will be an underlying resistance to DEI which will never be vocalized, but which will continue regardless.   4.     Bargaining “DEI is okay in theory, but our case is different.  We have special circumstances here and so some adjustments have to be made”.  This is typically how Middle Management whittles away at changes they don’t like.  They are ninja at finding all the problems and can come up with tons of justifications to dilute the change effort, while all the while embracing the headline statements as gospel.  Naturally, there will be some flexibility needed to role out DEI programmes however senior management have to be very vigilant about how the processes are worked though.  5.     Dejection When male Middle Managers realise that this DEI change is here to stay, they can become demotivated.  They fear their years of loyal service has been devalued and their future promotion prospects have been impinged, all for a fad.  They need to be told they are valued, they have a role here and that the form needs their contribution to arm it with the creativity and innovation needed to best the competition.  6.     Letting Go People believe what they see.  When the benefits of greater inclusion become a reality, it is easier to get behind the idea, which is no longer seen as just some ivory tower theory.  Also, the consistent support for DEI from the senior leadership group underlines this isn’t going away and is becoming a permanent fixture of how the organisation functions.   7.      Exploration Diversity of opinion and inclusion of different angles around decision-making is what makes the adoption of DEI an advantage inside the organisation.  If the decisions are better and if the outcomes are better, than what could have been achieved before, then this initiates a different set of responses and changes thinking about what is possible.  8.     Acceptance Gradually, it becomes clear that the worst fears were not realized. Even unexpected benefits appeared.  The doomsayers were proven wrong, the system settles down to a new reality and everyone moves forward.  Planning for these stages would be a clever move by senior management, in addition to their various pronouncements from on high.  The DEI process is a process and as such, it has to be supported all the way through these seven stages, if it is going to stick.  That requires consistent work over many years, until DEI becomes part of the culture of the organisation.  Best to plan for that from the beginning.

The organisation gets religion about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).  The senior management team, led by the President, decide this is a key path for moving forward.  The upside in achieving greater innovation and creativity by embracing a more inclusive workplace is seen as the Holy Grail.  The Middle Managers are told to get behind the push on DEI.  Brilliant that getting change in Japan is so easy.  Japanese staff love change.  They want their boss to change, their subordinates to change, their colleagues to change, their clients to change, but they want to stay precisely the same.  DEI in Japan is mainly about gender issues, rather than race, religion or national identity. The male Middle Managers themselves are part of the cohort of not wanting to change, regardless of what senior management may be saying.  No one will openly oppose the pronouncements from the top, but that doesn’t mean there is any real enthusiasm for change. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist wrote a book called “On Death and Dying” which identified five stages of grief, which can be extrapolated to assist our understanding about how humans deal with DEI change.    1.     Shock The initial reaction to hearing that the organization is going to embrace change around DEI, can be very confronting for male Middle Managers and the males in their teams.  Usually, the communication in organisations around change is minimal.  Basically, senior management has made this decision, this is why and get on with it.  The lack of what is considered satisfactory explanation sets off rumours, mis-information and confusion in the ranks.  This is why companies must do a thorough job of selling DEI to the team, in depth and continuously. 2.     Denial After the initial shock of the announcement a sense of disbelief can spread and hopes that this will be a “light” intervention which won’t really affect the status quo.  Japan defers to age and stage in companies and what will DEI mean for the current hierarchy?  Will there be a lessening of opportunities for males to advance, in order to meet some arbitrary ratio of female managers?  Why do we need to change at all, when this is how it has always been done?  Senior management needs to recognise these fears and directly address them.  Information vacuums will get filled with gossip, inuendo and false flags unless there is a big sales effort on the positives of change. 3.     Anger Isn’t this a stupid idea from senior management? Won’t this weaken the strength of the organisation, relative to our rivals and won’t clients have trouble accepting the change and therefore we will lose business?  Pronouncements are clearly not going to be enough.  When DEI first popped up on the radar in Japan, companies would ask us to train the women.  I always questioned that assumption.  The kacho or section head is the key person who needs educating.  Usually a he, the kacho determines who gets coached, given delegated tasks for personal development and who gets promoted. Unless the kacho gets it, there will be an underlying resistance to DEI which will never be vocalized, but which will continue regardless.  4.     Bargaining “DEI is okay in theory, but our case is different.  We have special circumstances here and so some adjustments have to be made”.  This is typically how Middle Management whittles away at changes they don’t like.  They are ninja at finding all the problems and can come up with tons of justifications to dilute the change effort, while all the while embracing the headline statements as gospel.  Naturally, there will be some flexibility needed to role out DEI programmes however senior management have to be very vigilant about how the processes are worked though. 5.     Dejection When male Middle Managers realise that this DEI change is here to stay, they can become demotivated.  They fear their years of loyal service has been devalued and their future promotion prospects have been impinged, all for a fad.  They need to be told they are valued, they have a role here and that the form needs their contribution to arm it with the creativity and innovation needed to best the competition. 6.     Letting Go People believe what they see.  When the benefits of greater inclusion become a reality, it is easier to get behind the idea, which is no longer seen as just some ivory tower theory.  Also, the consistent support for DEI from the senior leadership group underlines this isn’t going away and is becoming a permanent fixture of how the organisation functions.  7.      Exploration Diversity of opinion and inclusion of different angles around decision-making is what makes the adoption of DEI an advantage inside the organisation.  If the decisions are better and if the outcomes are better, than what could have been achieved before, then this initiates a different set of responses and changes thinking about what is possible. 8.     Acceptance Gradually, it becomes clear that the worst fears were not realized. Even unexpected benefits appeared.  The doomsayers were proven wrong, the system settles down to a new reality and everyone moves forward.  Planning for these stages would be a clever move by senior management, in addition to their various pronouncements from on high.  The DEI process is a process and as such, it has to be supported all the way through these seven stages, if it is going to stick.  That requires consistent work over many years, until DEI becomes part of the culture of the organisation.  Best to plan for that from the beginning.

517 Facing The Realities Of Change With Diversity, Equity and Inclusion In Japan

Leading in Japan is distinct and different from other countries.  The language, culture and size of the economy make sure of that.  We can learn by trial and error or we can draw on real world practical experience and save ourselves a lot of friction, wear and tear.  This podcasts offers hundreds of episodes packed with value, insights and perspectives on leading here.  The only other podcast on Japan which can match the depth and breadth of this Leadership Japan Series podcast is the Japan's Top Business interviews podcast.

The Leadership Japan Series

How To Give Praise That Resonates Cynical, skeptical, doubtful, cautious, suspicious, worried – yep, that is our usual reaction when we hear praise being directed toward us.  You're the boss, you have read about the power of praising staff, however it never quite seems to work the way it should.  You recognize and praise outstanding work by your Japanese staff to the whole work group, but nobody looks very happy about it, especially the praised. Why is this so hard?   Japan throws up a few additional challenges when it comes to praising people.  We all know about Japan’s strong group culture, the preference here for consensus decision-making and the submersion of individual preferences to the bias of the group.  One of the by-products of this groupthink, is that the boss singling out one person publically for praise, creates issues within the group dynamic.     The majority of the group are probably OK with the praise, but there are bound to be those who feel unhappy.  They think they should have been recognized too,  or that the recipient of the praise is hogging the group limelight.  The praised staff member feels the cold hard steel of piercing eyes in their back and faintly hears the muffled, malicious comments being passed around about them.  Instead of the praise being a powerful motivator, it becomes a burden and an embarrassment, as the herd harmony is damaged.  The expression “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down” tells you a lot about the pressure to conform in Japan.   So how should bosses in Japan use praise to motivate people?   Pick your mark carefully.  For some, public praise is what they want and they don’t care about a few whiner losers.  They have the strength to stand apart and are comfortable.  For those who are more concerned about what their work neighbours might think, then best to praise them in private.     As mentioned earlier though, even praising in private has its challenges when we who are on the receiving end are doubtful about the praiseworthy words we are hearing.  Praise is also a pretty rare commodity in the Japanese business world, so it’s oddity draws double suspicions.  One is that the praise is a trap and the other that it is not warranted.  The idea that praise is dangerous or misdirected often springs forth because of the way it is delivered.  The boss has good intentions but is a fluffy and flawed communicator in the praise department.   The main problem is a poor connectivity between the worthy deed and the word choice.  Vague stuff, such as “good job” or “well done” are feeble, unconvincing and ineffective.  To help wind our way though this semantic minefield, let’s use a simple acronym to prompt our thoughts around how to give praise. TAPEQ stands for Things, Accomplishments, Personal Qualities (strengths, traits), Evidence and Questions.     Things includes appearance, accoutrements, possessions.   Accomplishments are their achievements, the outcomes, the results. Personal Qualities are items like patience, discipline, concentration, energy. Evidence is the observable indictor of the above three areas for praise. Questions refers to switching the airtime away from you and over to them, to get them talking about what they did.   TAPEQ can be applied anytime, anywhere but in the workplace, Accomplishments and Personal Qualities are most likely to be the focus of praise.  The key is to link these observations back to the proof of the achievement or trait.  An example would be, “Thank you for your work on landing Megacorp as a new big client.  I saw the email traffic and noted your sustained effort, despite all the difficulties thrown up by the client, to satisfy their needs, so well done.  How did you manage to keep it going, when it looked like this deal was going to collapse so many times?”.   In this case, we have mentioned the outcome, provided proof of what we saw and then tossed the ball to them to talk about how they did it.  The comment and the evidence were linked and therefore credible.  The pivot to them talking allows them to add further proof by dropping in some detail that backs up your observation, thus making the whole story hang together.  The focus is off the boss and on to the praised and so there is little dwelling on any feared second agendas behind the words of praise.   Bosses be ambitious – look for those TAPEQ moments and get busy engaging your team through praise.

How To Give Praise That Resonates Cynical, skeptical, doubtful, cautious, suspicious, worried – yep, that is our usual reaction when we hear praise being directed toward us.  You're the boss, you have read about the power of praising staff, however it never quite seems to work the way it should.  You recognize and praise outstanding work by your Japanese staff to the whole work group, but nobody looks very happy about it, especially the praised. Why is this so hard? Japan throws up a few additional challenges when it comes to praising people.  We all know about Japan’s strong group culture, the preference here for consensus decision-making and the submersion of individual preferences to the bias of the group.  One of the by-products of this groupthink, is that the boss singling out one person publically for praise, creates issues within the group dynamic.  The majority of the group are probably OK with the praise, but there are bound to be those who feel unhappy.  They think they should have been recognized too,  or that the recipient of the praise is hogging the group limelight.  The praised staff member feels the cold hard steel of piercing eyes in their back and faintly hears the muffled, malicious comments being passed around about them.  Instead of the praise being a powerful motivator, it becomes a burden and an embarrassment, as the herd harmony is damaged.  The expression “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down” tells you a lot about the pressure to conform in Japan. So how should bosses in Japan use praise to motivate people?   Pick your mark carefully.  For some, public praise is what they want and they don’t care about a few whiner losers.  They have the strength to stand apart and are comfortable.  For those who are more concerned about what their work neighbours might think, then best to praise them in private.  As mentioned earlier though, even praising in private has its challenges when we who are on the receiving end are doubtful about the praiseworthy words we are hearing.  Praise is also a pretty rare commodity in the Japanese business world, so it’s oddity draws double suspicions.  One is that the praise is a trap and the other that it is not warranted.  The idea that praise is dangerous or misdirected often springs forth because of the way it is delivered.  The boss has good intentions but is a fluffy and flawed communicator in the praise department. The main problem is a poor connectivity between the worthy deed and the word choice.  Vague stuff, such as “good job” or “well done” are feeble, unconvincing and ineffective.  To help wind our way though this semantic minefield, let’s use a simple acronym to prompt our thoughts around how to give praise. TAPEQ stands for Things, Accomplishments, Personal Qualities (strengths, traits), Evidence and Questions.  Things includes appearance, accoutrements, possessions.  Accomplishments are their achievements, the outcomes, the results. Personal Qualities are items like patience, discipline, concentration, energy. Evidence is the observable indictor of the above three areas for praise. Questions refers to switching the airtime away from you and over to them, to get them talking about what they did. TAPEQ can be applied anytime, anywhere but in the workplace, Accomplishments and Personal Qualities are most likely to be the focus of praise.  The key is to link these observations back to the proof of the achievement or trait.  An example would be, “Thank you for your work on landing Megacorp as a new big client.  I saw the email traffic and noted your sustained effort, despite all the difficulties thrown up by the client, to satisfy their needs, so well done.  How did you manage to keep it going, when it looked like this deal was going to collapse so many times?”. In this case, we have mentioned the outcome, provided proof of what we saw and then tossed the ball to them to talk about how they did it.  The comment and the evidence were linked and therefore credible.  The pivot to them talking allows them to add further proof by dropping in some detail that backs up your observation, thus making the whole story hang together.  The focus is off the boss and on to the praised and so there is little dwelling on any feared second agendas behind the words of praise. Bosses be ambitious – look for those TAPEQ moments and get busy engaging your team through praise.

81: How to Give Praise That Resonates 

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 actually know what you are doing or are you just trashing around desperate and uncertain of survival?  The first priority is to face reality and stop kidding yourself.  “It will disappear in the summer, because the virus doesn’t spread as fast once we get to 40% humidity” is not a plan.  I pray for all of us that idea is true, but what if this virus doesn’t follow the same projections as other similar viruses or it just keeps extending, as it rolls out through different populations?   You are the leader, so you must seek clarity around what you are facing, in order to know what to do. Start by writing down the worst business fear you have.  Call it out, don’t try to hide from reality.  Having done that, gather the team, share your worst case scenario and work together to take action to minimise the damage.  Transparency is critical, regular communication both oral and written must be maintained and keep it real. The team will rally to your call to arms, because they all know TINA - There Is No Alternative.  By sharing the scenario that is worrying you the most, you can align the power of the whole group and give them ownership of devising and executing on the right solution.   Be proactive as the leader and you in particular, must be super positive.  Things are never 100% negative in business and you have to be the beacon of light on the hill for your team to give them hope.  Look at your resources, things like cash on hand, accessing available government grants or soft loans, asking for debt repayment moratoriums from your bank or applying to receive a line of credit, negotiating invoice payments to be extended to sixty, ninety or one hundred and twenty days plus.   Smaller companies have almost no margins to help much, because they are grappling with their own death throes.  Larger players have better capacity to help and so ask early and often for assistance.   Plan for three phases, not just what is in front of you today.  Think about things in terms of the immediate, mid term and post-crisis.  Get everyone also living in the future, focused on life after Covid-19 and not just the current confusion of the moment, as key information changes, government policies lurch and markets gyrate.    I remember reading Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search For Meaning” where he noted that those who survived the Nazi concentration camps, tended to be those who maintained a future orientation, as they grappled with the day to day atrocities. We have to give our team hope for a brighter future.  We assemble our immediate action plan, which moves into the second phase as we execute the plan and then the final phase is where we land after the crisis has passed.   When your revenue stream dries up or is reduced to a dribble, it sounds counter-intuitive to be focused on your customers, when you are unsure you will even be in business in a few weeks to be able to service anyone.  This is another aspect of future orientation to keep us all going through the immediate threats to our existence.  Talk to your customers to see where you can help them, because if they don’t survive, your survival is guaranteed to be gone.  Maybe they can’t pay you or engage you today, but this Covid-19 won’t last forever and how do you want to be thought of when the viral cloud finally dissipates?   Is there an area of your business you can pivot to, in order to keep going?  Maybe the income streams aren’t as large, but some income is a lot better than none.  In every crisis there is also an opportunity.  This is part of the positive messaging the team needs to hear. When the share market peels thirty percent off the value of solid companies, there is a buying opportunity.  When people realise they can work from home, there is an opportunity to service that need.  When there is too much reliance on China, there is an opportunity to diversify supply chains, tourist and investment inputs, as well as export markets.    Change itself is agnostic, but our reaction to change is the key.  Forging a strong, proactive, positive, do or die mentality is a must for the leader in a crisis.  Communicating your powerful belief in the future for the company, moulded in the harsh crucible of truth and realism, amplifies the team’s sense of hope. Involve, plan, execute, review, execute, review and keep executing is the way forward.  Winston Churchill’s speech to Harrow, his alma mater, in 1941 should be our guiding light and we need to convey this message to our people “never give in, never, never, never, never….”.       Free LIVE On Line Stress Management Sessions On a separate note, we are running public LIVE On Line Stress Management classes, which will be free to all attendees on April 16th (Japanese) and 17th (English).  We are also offering the same thing as an in-house programme, delivered LIVE On Line for our existing clients and for prospective clients.  This allows us to help our clients and our community.   The registration process for these free stress management sessions is being offered on our website, so please go to this specific page: http://bit.ly/dale_stress_e

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 actually know what you are doing or are you just trashing around desperate and uncertain of survival?  The first priority is to face reality and stop kidding yourself.  “It will disappear in the summer, because the virus doesn’t spread as fast once we get to 40% humidity” is not a plan.  I pray for all of us that idea is true, but what if this virus doesn’t follow the same projections as other similar viruses or it just keeps extending, as it rolls out through different populations? You are the leader, so you must seek clarity around what you are facing, in order to know what to do. Start by writing down the worst business fear you have.  Call it out, don’t try to hide from reality.  Having done that, gather the team, share your worst case scenario and work together to take action to minimise the damage.  Transparency is critical, regular communication both oral and written must be maintained and keep it real. The team will rally to your call to arms, because they all know TINA - There Is No Alternative.  By sharing the scenario that is worrying you the most, you can align the power of the whole group and give them ownership of devising and executing on the right solution. Be proactive as the leader and you in particular, must be super positive.  Things are never 100% negative in business and you have to be the beacon of light on the hill for your team to give them hope.  Look at your resources, things like cash on hand, accessing available government grants or soft loans, asking for debt repayment moratoriums from your bank or applying to receive a line of credit, negotiating invoice payments to be extended to sixty, ninety or one hundred and twenty days plus.   Smaller companies have almost no margins to help much, because they are grappling with their own death throes.  Larger players have better capacity to help and so ask early and often for assistance. Plan for three phases, not just what is in front of you today.  Think about things in terms of the immediate, mid term and post-crisis.  Get everyone also living in the future, focused on life after Covid-19 and not just the current confusion of the moment, as key information changes, government policies lurch and markets gyrate.  I remember reading Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search For Meaning” where he noted that those who survived the Nazi concentration camps, tended to be those who maintained a future orientation, as they grappled with the day to day atrocities. We have to give our team hope for a brighter future.  We assemble our immediate action plan, which moves into the second phase as we execute the plan and then the final phase is where we land after the crisis has passed. When your revenue stream dries up or is reduced to a dribble, it sounds counter-intuitive to be focused on your customers, when you are unsure you will even be in business in a few weeks to be able to service anyone.  This is another aspect of future orientation to keep us all going through the immediate threats to our existence.  Talk to your customers to see where you can help them, because if they don’t survive, your survival is guaranteed to be gone.  Maybe they can’t pay you or engage you today, but this Covid-19 won’t last forever and how do you want to be thought of when the viral cloud finally dissipates? Is there an area of your business you can pivot to, in order to keep going?  Maybe the income streams aren’t as large, but some income is a lot better than none.  In every crisis there is also an opportunity.  This is part of the positive messaging the team needs to hear. When the share market peels thirty percent off the value of solid companies, there is a buying opportunity.  When people realise they can work from home, there is an opportunity to service that need.  When there is too much reliance on China, there is an opportunity to diversify supply chains, tourist and investment inputs, as well as export markets.  Change itself is agnostic, but our reaction to change is the key.  Forging a strong, proactive, positive, do or die mentality is a must for the leader in a crisis.  Communicating your powerful belief in the future for the company, moulded in the harsh crucible of truth and realism, amplifies the team’s sense of hope. Involve, plan, execute, review, execute, review and keep executing is the way forward.  Winston Churchill’s speech to Harrow, his alma mater, in 1941 should be our guiding light and we need to convey this message to our people “never give in, never, never, never, never….”. Free LIVE On Line Stress Management Sessions On a separate note, we are running public LIVE On Line Stress Management classes, which will be free to all attendees on April 16th (Japanese) and 17th (English).  We are also offering the same thing as an in-house programme, delivered LIVE On Line for our existing clients and for prospective clients.  This allows us to help our clients and our community. The registration process for these free stress management sessions is being offered on our website, so please go to this specific page: <a href="http://bit.ly/dale_stress_e" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/dale_stress_e</a>

352: Covid-19 Financial Crisis Leadership 

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 have a very high mortality risk from the virus.  For everyone else, the biggest risk is that your company goes down and you are out of a job.  Are you the leader able to make sure that doesn’t happen?   In 1929 the stock market tanked and everyone, including the Government, started scrambling to preserve cash and stop spending.  This just drove a stake through the heart of the capitalist system, as people’s panic stopped the wheels of commerce.  This will begin to seem very familiar to everyone very shortly.   Japan is the first major capitalist country, apart from Hong Kong, to really suffer from the virus.  The pain starts for small medium sized (SME) businesses.  Here, these SMEs account for 99 percent of all enterprises, 70 percent of employment, 50 percent of the value added manufacturing sector and 60% of the nonmanufacturing sector.  According to Government statistics 70% of companies in Japan don’t make a profit, so many will be SMEs and be in that situation.   The virus is curtailing commercial activities.  Abe closes the schools and people focus on what to do with the kids at home.  The other issue that doesn’t get enough attention is what happens to all those businesses who have revenues tied up in supplying schools with lunches and other services?  Events get cancelled and that means everyone who had revenue potential in that event, gets zero income or maybe even loses money.  Tourists, both domestic and international, are stopping their activities in Japan, so the entire industry takes a huge hit.  This affects thousands of businesses directly and also those who were looking at supplying goods of services to that industry.  Hokkaido gets locked down to avoid the virus, but what about avoiding the corresponding loss of cash flow?   This is how we recreate a 1929 scenario.  I would guess that right now, almost all SME enterprise leaders in Japan, are focused on preserving cash.  This is the oxygen of business and without it you don’t last long.  The way to do that is stop investing, stop spending and stop paying other people for the bills they have already sent you. This chain reaction leads to an economic meltdown and it won’t be contained in Japan alone.  Like the virus, it will envelop the entire world, as it creates the same domino effect on all businesses.   You are the leader.   What are you going to do during this mass slaughter of fellow SMEs, to make sure you don’t go down for the count?  The war time leader doesn’t try and tart up the reality for the team. They tell them straight where the firm is positioned now, regarding cash reserves and are totally transparent about the stages the business will go through.  Stage One is stop all unnecessary spending. Stage Two is stop paying other people, including the Government.  Stage Three is cutting salaries, starting with the President, who leads from the front and goes down to zero, while the others take a progressive haircut of firstly 10%, then 20%, 30%, 40% etc.  Stage Four is to throw in the towel and declare bankruptcy.   During these four stages on the way to the Apocalypse, the leader must be constantly communicating where we are right now and that we can survive this.  The team will not be conveniently gathered in the office anymore, because they will be scattered to the winds at home.  Are they actually working at home?  That is a question, because with the downturn there may be less for them to do.    Suddenly they have time on their hands and can brood about how bad things are and how fragile this company they have trusted with their livelihood is.  Constant media bombardment with bad news wears people’s spirit down. Watch for signs of depression and stress in the team and get them help if these appear.  The leader must be a beacon of raw hope and optimism and more importantly must keep communicating that to the team.   The leader needs to keep them all busy too.  Meetings that were face to face, can still be had by video conferencing, as the tech is very accessible and inexpensive today.  Scheduled meetings should continue to offer some normality, routine and opportunities for good internal communication.  Don’t stop holding them because everyone is at home, hold them anyway, but now do it remotely.  Offer remotely delivered training for your clients or for your own team – it could be product knowledge, technical hard skills or soft skills training.   Create projects and get them involved.  It might be focusing the sales team to take the opportunity of decision makers being at home and contact them there, sans the usual bevy of brilliantly talented gate keepers, who frustrate our efforts to reach the boss.  It might be developing marketing campaigns that align with the current situation.  For example, drop the usual key search words for pay per click leads and go after different terms and phrases.  It might be to clean up systems and projects that have been kept in abeyance, because previously there wasn’t the time available.  Plenty of time available now if there is no work going.   Be positive and radiate belief that we can come out of this long dark tunnel.  Brainstorm what can be done in the new environment, start executing on that plan, constantly communicate, be totally transparent and provide massive hope of a better day coming.  Be a war time general for your team.   Free Live On Line Stress Management Sessions On a separate note, we are running public Live On Line Stress Management classes, which will be free to all attendees on March 19 (English) and 24th (Japanese) and April 16th (Japanese) and 17th (English).  We are also offering the same thing as an in-house programme, delivered Live On Line for our existing clients and for prospective clients.  This allows us to help our clients and our community.   The registration process for these free stress management sessions is being offered on our website, so please go to this specific page: http://bit.ly/dale_stress_e

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 have a very high mortality risk from the virus.  For everyone else, the biggest risk is that your company goes down and you are out of a job.  Are you the leader able to make sure that doesn’t happen? In 1929 the stock market tanked and everyone, including the Government, started scrambling to preserve cash and stop spending.  This just drove a stake through the heart of the capitalist system, as people’s panic stopped the wheels of commerce.  This will begin to seem very familiar to everyone very shortly. Japan is the first major capitalist country, apart from Hong Kong, to really suffer from the virus.  The pain starts for small medium sized (SME) businesses.  Here, these SMEs account for 99 percent of all enterprises, 70 percent of employment, 50 percent of the value added manufacturing sector and 60% of the nonmanufacturing sector.  According to Government statistics 70% of companies in Japan don’t make a profit, so many will be SMEs and be in that situation. The virus is curtailing commercial activities.  Abe closes the schools and people focus on what to do with the kids at home.  The other issue that doesn’t get enough attention is what happens to all those businesses who have revenues tied up in supplying schools with lunches and other services?  Events get cancelled and that means everyone who had revenue potential in that event, gets zero income or maybe even loses money.  Tourists, both domestic and international, are stopping their activities in Japan, so the entire industry takes a huge hit.  This affects thousands of businesses directly and also those who were looking at supplying goods of services to that industry.  Hokkaido gets locked down to avoid the virus, but what about avoiding the corresponding loss of cash flow? This is how we recreate a 1929 scenario.  I would guess that right now, almost all SME enterprise leaders in Japan, are focused on preserving cash.  This is the oxygen of business and without it you don’t last long.  The way to do that is stop investing, stop spending and stop paying other people for the bills they have already sent you. This chain reaction leads to an economic meltdown and it won’t be contained in Japan alone.  Like the virus, it will envelop the entire world, as it creates the same domino effect on all businesses. You are the leader.   What are you going to do during this mass slaughter of fellow SMEs, to make sure you don’t go down for the count?  The war time leader doesn’t try and tart up the reality for the team. They tell them straight where the firm is positioned now, regarding cash reserves and are totally transparent about the stages the business will go through.  Stage One is stop all unnecessary spending. Stage Two is stop paying other people, including the Government.  Stage Three is cutting salaries, starting with the President, who leads from the front and goes down to zero, while the others take a progressive haircut of firstly 10%, then 20%, 30%, 40% etc.  Stage Four is to throw in the towel and declare bankruptcy. During these four stages on the way to the Apocalypse, the leader must be constantly communicating where we are right now and that we can survive this.  The team will not be conveniently gathered in the office anymore, because they will be scattered to the winds at home.  Are they actually working at home?  That is a question, because with the downturn there may be less for them to do.  Suddenly they have time on their hands and can brood about how bad things are and how fragile this company they have trusted with their livelihood is.  Constant media bombardment with bad news wears people’s spirit down. Watch for signs of depression and stress in the team and get them help if these appear.  The leader must be a beacon of raw hope and optimism and more importantly must keep communicating that to the team. The leader needs to keep them all busy too.  Meetings that were face to face, can still be had by video conferencing, as the tech is very accessible and inexpensive today.  Scheduled meetings should continue to offer some normality, routine and opportunities for good internal communication.  Don’t stop holding them because everyone is at home, hold them anyway, but now do it remotely.  Offer remotely delivered training for your clients or for your own team – it could be product knowledge, technical hard skills or soft skills training. Create projects and get them involved.  It might be focusing the sales team to take the opportunity of decision makers being at home and contact them there, sans the usual bevy of brilliantly talented gate keepers, who frustrate our efforts to reach the boss.  It might be developing marketing campaigns that align with the current situation.  For example, drop the usual key search words for pay per click leads and go after different terms and phrases.  It might be to clean up systems and projects that have been kept in abeyance, because previously there wasn’t the time available.  Plenty of time available now if there is no work going. Be positive and radiate belief that we can come out of this long dark tunnel.  Brainstorm what can be done in the new environment, start executing on that plan, constantly communicate, be totally transparent and provide massive hope of a better day coming.  Be a war time general for your team. Free Live On Line Stress Management Sessions On a separate note, we are running public Live On Line Stress Management classes, which will be free to all attendees on March 19 (English) and 24th (Japanese) and April 16th (Japanese) and 17th (English).  We are also offering the same thing as an in-house programme, delivered Live On Line for our existing clients and for prospective clients.  This allows us to help our clients and our community. The registration process for these free stress management sessions is being offered on our website, so please go to this specific page: <a href="http://bit.ly/dale_stress_e" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/dale_stress_e</a>

350 Covid-1929 - Are You A Wartime Or A Peacetime Leader

What Sort Of Coach Are You?   Many Japanese executives have grown up in the “tough love” school of OJT – On The Job Training. They were scolded severely by their bosses and given a very hard time.  Their bosses did this in the belief that this is how to get people to perform correctly.  It might have worked in a different era, but not today.  Young people won’t put up with that type of treatment and they don’t have to put up with it.  The next generation are the first “free agent” employees in Japanese history. There are already 1.6 job offers open for those seeking work.  In the case of youth, they are in serious, serious short supply.  This situation is not going to change or improve.  This means that anyone imagining that “tough love” is how to coach and develop people is in for a rude shock, as young people will simply quit and walk out the door to the competitor.   What sort of coach do we need to become?  We have to be an excellent listener.  How hard can that be?  Not very hard you might be thinking, except we are all becoming poorer listeners in this advanced high tech age.  We are all super busy, so we are rushing around doing many things and we are short circuiting every interaction to fit it all in.  What this means is we are so busy thinking about what we need to do, we are not really listening to the staff members.  We don’t ignore them because that is too confrontational and unprofessional.  What we do though is to pretend to listen.  We look like we are concentrating on what they are saying, but in fact we are tuning them out, because our own thoughts are too dominant.   You may not be guilty of this sin as a listener, but are you a selective listener instead?  This is very common with salespeople, who are listening for verbal cues from the buyer so they can make a comment or offer a suggestion.  They are not really fully concentrating on what the buyer is saying and are only focusing on the pieces that excite them about a possible sale.   Coaches can become guilty of the same thing.  They are listening to part of what they are being told and are racing ahead with their own thoughts anticipating where the conversation will go.  This is a guaranteed method to miss key cues and signals from the staff member.  A better form of listening is attentive listening.  This means shutting out all the distractions and giving your 100% full concentration to what they are saying.  You are “in the zone” so to speak.  This is immediately felt by your listener, who appreciates the fact you are giving them your full and undivided attention.   The highest form of listening is empathetic listening.  It sounds a bit esoteric, but it is listening for what is being said and what is not being said.  It means studying the words that are being chosen and what is not being revealed fully. It is gauging the body language to check this against the words coming out of the staff member’s mouth.  It means really feeling whatever the staff member is feeling and relating to them at that level. This and attentive listening are so powerful today, because everyone else is doing such a poor job of listening.  We will immediately stand out if we operate in this way.   Often the issue is the staff member won’t open up to us with their issues.  There may be some trust requirement not quite built yet, sufficient to tell us their thoughts.  They may be guarded.  It is very difficult to deliver effective coaching if you don’t know the full scale of the problem facing them.  We need to be asking them open questions.  An open question is one to which you can’t answer with just a “yes” or “no”.  You need to state your opinion.  We can also ask hypothetical questions to get them dealing with scenarios they may not have considered as yet.  This is particularly useful when dealing with projects and anticipating problems which may arise once the project is underway.  We can ask exploratory questions to dig a bit deeper into the background, the current situation and why they think what they do.  We might ask them some comparable questions,  “If this happens, is it better to do A or what about B?”.  This gets people engaged and talking.  Sometimes a closed question, where the answer is a yes or no is handy to get clarity around a subject.   Bosses tend to be very interested in what they have to say.  But when we are coaching we have to suspend that desire and get the staff member to do 80% of the talking.  That means asking questions, getting more information and in particular listening in a way that builds trust.  If I feel you are only giving me fake listening, then I won’t open up to you and share what is really going on.  The honesty of the listening invites honesty in reply.  Here are some considerations: which level of listening are you applying – pretend, selective, attentive or empathetic? Also, do you feel you have earned sufficient trust from your staff, where they can tell you honestly what are their issues?  To coach the team is no easy matter because most of us confuse coaching with giving orders.  Take a moment and reflect on how you have been as a coach for your team?

What Sort Of Coach Are You? Many Japanese executives have grown up in the “tough love” school of OJT – On The Job Training. They were scolded severely by their bosses and given a very hard time.  Their bosses did this in the belief that this is how to get people to perform correctly.  It might have worked in a different era, but not today.  Young people won’t put up with that type of treatment and they don’t have to put up with it.  The next generation are the first “free agent” employees in Japanese history. There are already 1.6 job offers open for those seeking work.  In the case of youth, they are in serious, serious short supply.  This situation is not going to change or improve.  This means that anyone imagining that “tough love” is how to coach and develop people is in for a rude shock, as young people will simply quit and walk out the door to the competitor. What sort of coach do we need to become?  We have to be an excellent listener.  How hard can that be?  Not very hard you might be thinking, except we are all becoming poorer listeners in this advanced high tech age.  We are all super busy, so we are rushing around doing many things and we are short circuiting every interaction to fit it all in.  What this means is we are so busy thinking about what we need to do, we are not really listening to the staff members.  We don’t ignore them because that is too confrontational and unprofessional.  What we do though is to pretend to listen.  We look like we are concentrating on what they are saying, but in fact we are tuning them out, because our own thoughts are too dominant. You may not be guilty of this sin as a listener, but are you a selective listener instead?  This is very common with salespeople, who are listening for verbal cues from the buyer so they can make a comment or offer a suggestion.  They are not really fully concentrating on what the buyer is saying and are only focusing on the pieces that excite them about a possible sale. Coaches can become guilty of the same thing.  They are listening to part of what they are being told and are racing ahead with their own thoughts anticipating where the conversation will go.  This is a guaranteed method to miss key cues and signals from the staff member.  A better form of listening is attentive listening.  This means shutting out all the distractions and giving your 100% full concentration to what they are saying.  You are “in the zone” so to speak.  This is immediately felt by your listener, who appreciates the fact you are giving them your full and undivided attention. The highest form of listening is empathetic listening.  It sounds a bit esoteric, but it is listening for what is being said and what is not being said.  It means studying the words that are being chosen and what is not being revealed fully. It is gauging the body language to check this against the words coming out of the staff member’s mouth.  It means really feeling whatever the staff member is feeling and relating to them at that level. This and attentive listening are so powerful today, because everyone else is doing such a poor job of listening.  We will immediately stand out if we operate in this way. Often the issue is the staff member won’t open up to us with their issues.  There may be some trust requirement not quite built yet, sufficient to tell us their thoughts.  They may be guarded.  It is very difficult to deliver effective coaching if you don’t know the full scale of the problem facing them.  We need to be asking them open questions.  An open question is one to which you can’t answer with just a “yes” or “no”.  You need to state your opinion.  We can also ask hypothetical questions to get them dealing with scenarios they may not have considered as yet.  This is particularly useful when dealing with projects and anticipating problems which may arise once the project is underway.  We can ask exploratory questions to dig a bit deeper into the background, the current situation and why they think what they do.  We might ask them some comparable questions,  “If this happens, is it better to do A or what about B?”.  This gets people engaged and talking.  Sometimes a closed question, where the answer is a yes or no is handy to get clarity around a subject. Bosses tend to be very interested in what they have to say.  But when we are coaching we have to suspend that desire and get the staff member to do 80% of the talking.  That means asking questions, getting more information and in particular listening in a way that builds trust.  If I feel you are only giving me fake listening, then I won’t open up to you and share what is really going on.  The honesty of the listening invites honesty in reply.  Here are some considerations: which level of listening are you applying – pretend, selective, attentive or empathetic? Also, do you feel you have earned sufficient trust from your staff, where they can tell you honestly what are their issues?  To coach the team is no easy matter because most of us confuse coaching with giving orders.  Take a moment and reflect on how you have been as a coach for your team?

323: What Sort Of Coach Are You

Do You Have To Be A Saint When Leading In Japan?   Leadership can be broken up into two main activities.  One is making sure that the processes of the operation are all delivering what they should, when they should and where they should.  This is relatively straightforward, because usually all the processes are known and the people doing them have done them before and know what to do.  There are clear measurements around quantity, quality, and timeliness, so we can keep track of how we are doing.    The other aspect of leadership is building our people.  This means constantly skilling up to meet the changing demands of business, to make sure they are highly engaged and producing both effectively and efficiently. We need innovation in business to move forward and the people reporting to us are usually great sources of innovative ideas - if we are able to get them to care.   How we make the operation run smoothly is a choice.  We can be a tyrant and brutalise our people, using fear, retribution, punishment and potential banishment to oblivion, as tools to get conformity to our will. This can even be physical.  I saw a snippet on Japanese television recently of a Korean company, K-Technology’s CEO Mr. Yang Jin Ho, beating his male ex-staff member by slapping him across the face, making him kneel on the floor and then belting him on the top of his head. Mr. Yang recorded the beating as a souvenir, which has now gotten out and gone viral on social media.  This is extreme and when you see the video, it seems incredible that this could be happening in this day and age.  Yet there are still versions of this floating around in Leadership Land, where the attacks may be more verbal, rather than physical.   In this type of environment where the fear factor is the main leadership card being played, you can guess that the “building the people” part has gone completely missing from any consideration.  The same for getting innovative ideas from the troops.  Everyone will have their head down, trying to be as small a target as possible and just doing their job and no more.   Now we may not be a tyrant or a demon like Mr. Yang, in the workplace, but we could be clinical, cold, outcome driven, extremely “business like” in the sense of no warmth for and no interest in our people.  We may be highly efficient, fully focused on getting the results and the people are just there to make sure that happens.  We are not there to mollycoddle them.  We are not there to be their friend.  If we want a friend, we will get a dog.    Everyone is an adult and they know what they need to do to make the numbers.  If they want to get ahead, they should take full responsibility for developing themselves and that has nothing to do with the boss.  We pay them, so we expect results type of philosophy. Is this bad?  Do we have to be a saint, to be indulging our people, rather than rigorously holding them accountable?   Yes, we have to be a saint or as close as we can get to it.  There are 1.64 jobs for every candidate looking for a position in Japan and it will only get worse from a boss’s difficulty of hiring perspective. Recruiting people is becoming more expensive in terms of the costs of finding a replacement and the disruption of someone leaving.  There are lots of hidden opportunity costs we must pay, when there is a break in the work production process.  Keeping our people becomes only more important, so the people and communication skills of bosses are paramount in a way they have not been in the past.  Hard skills aren’t enough and are not an excuse anymore for not doing what is needed in the 21stCentury workplace.   We need to take a greater interest in them as people.  This may be hard when you yourself are extremely independent, self-reliant, driven, mentally tough and need no positive feedback or support from anyone. You tend to see the world the way you are, as opposed to how your people are and how they see the world.  This gap can be pretty big.  If you want to keep your people, then you need to change.  If you can’t be bothered to change in this market, then you will see recruiters lifting your people out of your organization at a rate of knots.    Communication and people skills are the two areas usually requiring the most reengineering.  Is this easy?  No!  But understanding the “build people” role makes the difference.  Your role is defined, it is part of what a modern leader needs to do, so you can’t just squib it.  Disengaged people do no contribute anything to the innovation process.  They don’t care about the company, so they don’t care about making it more productive, through their creativity contributions.  This usually means there is a lot of untapped potential inside organisations waiting to be released.  Our job is to create a greater sense of engagement and identification with the company’s competitive advantages through innovation.   There is no shortcut here either.  Each person has their own agenda, motivation, desires, dreams, goals and the better the boss understands that, the easier it is to know how to align the firm’s agenda with the individuals.  It is not manipulation, but getting a good overlap between what the individual wants and what the company wants.  When we get the staff member’s WHY and the company’s WHY to line up, then the leading bit gets a lot easier.   How would we know all of this?  We need to want to talk to our team members, to want to help them, to want to be saint like. This is the starting point.  Put their interests first and work from there. If you can’t do that, no problem, you won’t be around for long, so it will all become a theoretical exercise anyway. Your replacement will pick up the torch and carry the organisation forward in your stead.  It will be out with the old and in with the new.  Which one do you choose?   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen &amp; sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Do You Have To Be A Saint When Leading In Japan? Leadership can be broken up into two main activities.  One is making sure that the processes of the operation are all delivering what they should, when they should and where they should.  This is relatively straightforward, because usually all the processes are known and the people doing them have done them before and know what to do.  There are clear measurements around quantity, quality, and timeliness, so we can keep track of how we are doing.  The other aspect of leadership is building our people.  This means constantly skilling up to meet the changing demands of business, to make sure they are highly engaged and producing both effectively and efficiently. We need innovation in business to move forward and the people reporting to us are usually great sources of innovative ideas - if we are able to get them to care. How we make the operation run smoothly is a choice.  We can be a tyrant and brutalise our people, using fear, retribution, punishment and potential banishment to oblivion, as tools to get conformity to our will. This can even be physical.  I saw a snippet on Japanese television recently of a Korean company, K-Technology’s CEO Mr. Yang Jin Ho, beating his male ex-staff member by slapping him across the face, making him kneel on the floor and then belting him on the top of his head. Mr. Yang recorded the beating as a souvenir, which has now gotten out and gone viral on social media.  This is extreme and when you see the video, it seems incredible that this could be happening in this day and age.  Yet there are still versions of this floating around in Leadership Land, where the attacks may be more verbal, rather than physical. In this type of environment where the fear factor is the main leadership card being played, you can guess that the “building the people” part has gone completely missing from any consideration.  The same for getting innovative ideas from the troops.  Everyone will have their head down, trying to be as small a target as possible and just doing their job and no more. Now we may not be a tyrant or a demon like Mr. Yang, in the workplace, but we could be clinical, cold, outcome driven, extremely “business like” in the sense of no warmth for and no interest in our people.  We may be highly efficient, fully focused on getting the results and the people are just there to make sure that happens.  We are not there to mollycoddle them.  We are not there to be their friend.  If we want a friend, we will get a dog.  Everyone is an adult and they know what they need to do to make the numbers.  If they want to get ahead, they should take full responsibility for developing themselves and that has nothing to do with the boss.  We pay them, so we expect results type of philosophy. Is this bad?  Do we have to be a saint, to be indulging our people, rather than rigorously holding them accountable? Yes, we have to be a saint or as close as we can get to it.  There are 1.64 jobs for every candidate looking for a position in Japan and it will only get worse from a boss’s difficulty of hiring perspective. Recruiting people is becoming more expensive in terms of the costs of finding a replacement and the disruption of someone leaving.  There are lots of hidden opportunity costs we must pay, when there is a break in the work production process.  Keeping our people becomes only more important, so the people and communication skills of bosses are paramount in a way they have not been in the past.  Hard skills aren’t enough and are not an excuse anymore for not doing what is needed in the 21stCentury workplace. We need to take a greater interest in them as people.  This may be hard when you yourself are extremely independent, self-reliant, driven, mentally tough and need no positive feedback or support from anyone. You tend to see the world the way you are, as opposed to how your people are and how they see the world.  This gap can be pretty big.  If you want to keep your people, then you need to change.  If you can’t be bothered to change in this market, then you will see recruiters lifting your people out of your organization at a rate of knots.  Communication and people skills are the two areas usually requiring the most reengineering.  Is this easy?  No!  But understanding the “build people” role makes the difference.  Your role is defined, it is part of what a modern leader needs to do, so you can’t just squib it.  Disengaged people do no contribute anything to the innovation process.  They don’t care about the company, so they don’t care about making it more productive, through their creativity contributions.  This usually means there is a lot of untapped potential inside organisations waiting to be released.  Our job is to create a greater sense of engagement and identification with the company’s competitive advantages through innovation. There is no shortcut here either.  Each person has their own agenda, motivation, desires, dreams, goals and the better the boss understands that, the easier it is to know how to align the firm’s agenda with the individuals.  It is not manipulation, but getting a good overlap between what the individual wants and what the company wants.  When we get the staff member’s WHY and the company’s WHY to line up, then the leading bit gets a lot easier. How would we know all of this?  We need to want to talk to our team members, to want to help them, to want to be saint like. This is the starting point.  Put their interests first and work from there. If you can’t do that, no problem, you won’t be around for long, so it will all become a theoretical exercise anyway. Your replacement will pick up the torch and carry the organisation forward in your stead.  It will be out with the old and in with the new.  Which one do you choose? Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com If you enjoy these articles, then head over to <a href="http://www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com</a> and check out our whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules. About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan. A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer. Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen &amp; sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

280: Do You Have To Be A Saint When Leading In Japan?

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 change shows up as the temporary illusion that it was. I have found that I have to get the staff taking ownership of the process. Things like give them more responsibility, empower them more, show them how they can benefit from the direction I want to go in so they feel that by driving the change, they personally will benefit from it as well as the company.   To encourage innovation and risk taking in a traditionally risk-adverse culture, I try to publicly acknowledge the risk first and stand behind the risk-takers so they feel more empowered to continue. We also try to make sure we capture when people are taking risks so we can talk about it in their evaluation. With engagement surveys in Japan, we need to explain what the scores mean to try and avoid that Japanese unspoken conservatism loyalty score of 3/5, so that people feel empowered to rank as they really want to. Having confidence in your intuition as a leader and being open about is very helpful. You can say `I understand that logically but it isn`t sitting right, so let`s discuss further`. It is helpful not only to avoid making decisions that you felt in your gut was not the right decision at the time anyway, but also to show your staff that you are a person who does not have all the answers and that is okay. Do not assume you know why something is happening. Connect personally with people. Be respectful of Japan. 

341: Want To Be A Great Leader - Then Be Yourself Masa Namiki <ul> <li>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.</li> <li>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.</li> <li>Change is also not effective if it is leader-driven because once the leader shifts their attention elsewhere, the change shows up as the temporary illusion that it was. I have found that I have to get the staff taking ownership of the process. Things like give them more responsibility, empower them more, show them how they can benefit from the direction I want to go in so they feel that by driving the change, they personally will benefit from it as well as the company.  </li> <li>To encourage innovation and risk taking in a traditionally risk-adverse culture, I try to publicly acknowledge the risk first and stand behind the risk-takers so they feel more empowered to continue. We also try to make sure we capture when people are taking risks so we can talk about it in their evaluation.</li> <li>With engagement surveys in Japan, we need to explain what the scores mean to try and avoid that Japanese unspoken conservatism loyalty score of 3/5, so that people feel empowered to rank as they really want to.</li> <li>Having confidence in your intuition as a leader and being open about is very helpful. You can say `I understand that logically but it isn`t sitting right, so let`s discuss further`. It is helpful not only to avoid making decisions that you felt in your gut was not the right decision at the time anyway, but also to show your staff that you are a person who does not have all the answers and that is okay.</li> <li>Do not assume you know why something is happening. Connect personally with people. Be respectful of Japan.</li> </ul>

341: Want To Be A Great Leader - Then Be Yourself

Harry Hill

330: Harry Hill- From Zero to $700 Million Today we have an interview with Harry Hill the ex-CEO of Shop Japan.  He went from being an English teacher in Gifu, to the founder of firms that grew into a $700 million business.  He has his own leadership mantra, using the acronym VICES.   V - Vision I - Integrity  C - Competency E - Efficiency S - Sustained Success   He also mentioned that although VICES can sound a bit negative, as an acronym, but it also reminds him that power can be a vice, pride can be a vice, inflated self-importance can be a vice and that you are always just a step away from crashing failure and oblivion in business. When I asked Harry for three pieces of advice for new leaders in Japan he nominated these points: 1. Trust and Check 2. Listen rather than want to be heard 3.  Identify who are the biggest obstacles and immediately and publically remove them

330: Harry Hill- From Zero to $700 Million Today we have an interview with Harry Hill the ex-CEO of Shop Japan.  He went from being an English teacher in Gifu, to the founder of firms that grew into a $700 million business.  He has his own leadership mantra, using the acronym VICES.   V - Vision I - Integrity  C - Competency E - Efficiency S - Sustained Success He also mentioned that although VICES can sound a bit negative, as an acronym, but it also reminds him that power can be a vice, pride can be a vice, inflated self-importance can be a vice and that you are always just a step away from crashing failure and oblivion in business. When I asked Harry for three pieces of advice for new leaders in Japan he nominated these points: 1. Trust and Check 2. Listen rather than want to be heard 3.  Identify who are the biggest obstacles and immediately and publically remove them

330: Harry Hill- From Zero to $700 Million

High Performer Coaching   Coaching high performers is tricky.  They have talent, ability and are already highly motivated.  They usually have a pretty healthy ego as well and have probably been mentally trying out your chair, to see how it fits them.  Interestingly enough, this is the group the boss pays the least attention to.  The under performer gets all the time, because the leader is trying to fix something that is broken.  The issue here is even if you get a 100% lift, it hardly registers, because it is coming from so far down at the bottom.  The high performers however are where the big results reside, but they are thought not to need any coaching.  Ask yourself, “How much time do I invest every week coaching my top performers?”.   If we look however into the world of sports all the top performers get tonnes of coaching.  The elite level of performance demands it and demands an elite coach.  Why aren’t we applying the same logic to business?  The first problem is we have mentally ruled them out from “needing” coaching, because they are usually highly self sufficient and self contained. This is good but top level athletes are the same and yet they get taken care of by their coaches to take them to the maximum of performance.  We should be looking at how we can take out high performers in business to their maximum level of performance too.   Here is a coaching model for high performers.    Listen, observe, evaluate  If we think about it, a high performer challenges us to come up with interventions that will raise their performance even further.  A low performer’s situation is easy, but not so with the best of the best.  We have to be an intuitive observer and make lightening fast assessments about actions and behaviors that are inconsistent with or not moving this person closer to achieving the organization’s goals. Stretching a top performer will raise the performance level of the entire group.  We have to coach them directly in their experience, competence and confidence levels.    Identify An Opportunity  We must choose our battles wisely when dealing with talented people.  We don’t dwell on negatives, instead we look for quickly identifying the critical factor, that specific behavior, that must change before anything else can change.  When we see an opportunity to coach we must trust our judgment and instincts.    Cushion  A cushion is a verbal or non-verbal message that softens the environment and creates more receptivity to the coaching.  When you have established trust with the person, something as simple as using their name while smiling, in a soft tone of voice works well.  It is always good to start with praise.  Don’t be general with the praise though.  “You are doing a great job” is in fact pretty lousy praise. We need to be referring to something specific.  Their jobs have multiple facets and so which particular part of their job are we referring to?  What precisely did they do, that was good? When we make the intervention, we do it very softly.  We could ask, “May I make a suggestion?”; “How about this angle…”;“What would happen if…”.  Or try a statement such as, “Try this…” or  Let’s test this…”.    Provide Context, Action, Benefit  As soon as we specify an action we want them to take, we run into trouble.  They are smart individuals, who have analysed situations, found the best path forward and risen to the top.  As soon as they hear our suggestion they go into critic mode. They start thinking about why that won’t work, why that is wrong, etc.  We need to start by explaining the why, but deliver that in the form of the background to our thinking, producing the context for them, that got us to this way of thinking in the first place.   The best way to explain the context is in the form of a story.  This should be chock full of people, places, situations they know, so they can mentally go into the story.  The context itself has their minds racing toward a conclusion or a solution. It will probably be the same one we have reached, based on everyone’s shared knowledge of the background.    At this point we bring forward our recommendation for them and then bridge straight into the benefits to them of taking that course of action.  Then we shut up and let them tell us what they think.  We don’t finish their sentences, cut them off, contradict them. We hear them out in full.  This may be killing you, but please persevere. Feeling that you are being fully listened to, is an important relationship builder.    Reinforce  Now we go into detective mode, looking for clues of them doing well with the new suggestion.  Reinforced behavior becomes repeated behavior.  It could be as simple as a big smile and an enthusiastic, “Excellent” , followed by a pin point summary of just what was in fact excellent.  A strong strength recognition response will often be just the encouragement the person needs to keep moving forward.  It might be a lunch or a dinner.  These things are about the boss giving their most valuable resource – their time.   High performers are not used to being coached.  They however have latent and still untapped potential that the leader can help unleash.  Ego and pride are barriers and makes the methodology chosen critical to success.  Try these five steps to high performer coaching to get the best results with the least amount of friction.

High Performer Coaching Coaching high performers is tricky.  They have talent, ability and are already highly motivated.  They usually have a pretty healthy ego as well and have probably been mentally trying out your chair, to see how it fits them.  Interestingly enough, this is the group the boss pays the least attention to.  The under performer gets all the time, because the leader is trying to fix something that is broken.  The issue here is even if you get a 100% lift, it hardly registers, because it is coming from so far down at the bottom.  The high performers however are where the big results reside, but they are thought not to need any coaching.  Ask yourself, “How much time do I invest every week coaching my top performers?”. If we look however into the world of sports all the top performers get tonnes of coaching.  The elite level of performance demands it and demands an elite coach.  Why aren’t we applying the same logic to business?  The first problem is we have mentally ruled them out from “needing” coaching, because they are usually highly self sufficient and self contained. This is good but top level athletes are the same and yet they get taken care of by their coaches to take them to the maximum of performance.  We should be looking at how we can take out high performers in business to their maximum level of performance too. Here is a coaching model for high performers. <ol> <li>Listen, observe, evaluate</li> </ol> If we think about it, a high performer challenges us to come up with interventions that will raise their performance even further.  A low performer’s situation is easy, but not so with the best of the best.  We have to be an intuitive observer and make lightening fast assessments about actions and behaviors that are inconsistent with or not moving this person closer to achieving the organization’s goals. Stretching a top performer will raise the performance level of the entire group.  We have to coach them directly in their experience, competence and confidence levels. <ol> <li>Identify An Opportunity</li> </ol> We must choose our battles wisely when dealing with talented people.  We don’t dwell on negatives, instead we look for quickly identifying the critical factor, that specific behavior, that must change before anything else can change.  When we see an opportunity to coach we must trust our judgment and instincts. <ol> <li>Cushion</li> </ol> A cushion is a verbal or non-verbal message that softens the environment and creates more receptivity to the coaching.  When you have established trust with the person, something as simple as using their name while smiling, in a soft tone of voice works well.  It is always good to start with praise.  Don’t be general with the praise though.  “You are doing a great job” is in fact pretty lousy praise. We need to be referring to something specific.  Their jobs have multiple facets and so which particular part of their job are we referring to?  What precisely did they do, that was good? When we make the intervention, we do it very softly.  We could ask, “May I make a suggestion?”; “How about this angle…”;“What would happen if…”.  Or try a statement such as, “Try this…” or  Let’s test this…”. <ol> <li>Provide Context, Action, Benefit</li> </ol> As soon as we specify an action we want them to take, we run into trouble.  They are smart individuals, who have analysed situations, found the best path forward and risen to the top.  As soon as they hear our suggestion they go into critic mode. They start thinking about why that won’t work, why that is wrong, etc.  We need to start by explaining the why, but deliver that in the form of the background to our thinking, producing the context for them, that got us to this way of thinking in the first place. The best way to explain the context is in the form of a story.  This should be chock full of people, places, situations they know, so they can mentally go into the story.  The context itself has their minds racing toward a conclusion or a solution. It will probably be the same one we have reached, based on everyone’s shared knowledge of the background.  At this point we bring forward our recommendation for them and then bridge straight into the benefits to them of taking that course of action.  Then we shut up and let them tell us what they think.  We don’t finish their sentences, cut them off, contradict them. We hear them out in full.  This may be killing you, but please persevere. Feeling that you are being fully listened to, is an important relationship builder. <ol> <li>Reinforce</li> </ol> Now we go into detective mode, looking for clues of them doing well with the new suggestion.  Reinforced behavior becomes repeated behavior.  It could be as simple as a big smile and an enthusiastic, “Excellent” , followed by a pin point summary of just what was in fact excellent.  A strong strength recognition response will often be just the encouragement the person needs to keep moving forward.  It might be a lunch or a dinner.  These things are about the boss giving their most valuable resource – their time. High performers are not used to being coached.  They however have latent and still untapped potential that the leader can help unleash.  Ego and pride are barriers and makes the methodology chosen critical to success.  Try these five steps to high performer coaching to get the best results with the least amount of friction.

295: High Performer Coaching

How To Snuggle Up To Employees   We often hear about the need for bosses to do more to engage with their teams. The boss looks at their schedule and then just checks out of that idea right then and there because it seems impossible. The employees for their part, want to get more praise and recognition from the boss, to feel valuable and valued. Bosses are often Drive type personalities who are extremely outcome and task orientated. People are there to produce, to get the numbers, to complete projects and to do it with a minimum of boss maintenance needed to be invested.   The snag in all of this though is employees don’t want that. They want the boss to be more interested in them, their career and their family. The feeling of being valued by the boss has been found to be an important trigger to create strong engagement in staff. Driver bosses rarely pull that trigger. They believe you need to “harden up baby”, do it yourself “like I did”. They wonder why we need to mollycoddle this lot.   In fact they don’t know how to snuggle up to staff and get to know them, because they never experienced that from their own bosses and they are not built that way. They grew up independent and self-reliant. They are driven to achieve and have a take no prisoners approach to business. They are survival of the fittest advocates. Consequently, they are not much for small talk. They are permanently time pressed, so everything has to be driving toward an outcome or it is a waste of their valuable time.   How do you snuggle up to employees anyway? Bosses need to engage with their staff by using the “innerview” to deepen their understanding of who the person is who works for them, what are their motivations and interests. The skeptics may be thinking “brilliant”. Now they can interrogate their staff, find and start pressing their hot buttons, to get more production out of them having found some keys to staff motivation. This is not what we are talking about. Staff can spot this very quickly. They won’t be interested in being manipulated by their bosses for higher productivity gains.   The effort is to get to know the team better, so that as the boss you can help them to succeed in their work by aligning their goals, interests and motivations with those of the organization. The classic win/win.   Getting to know staff starts with asking basic factual questions. Where did they grow up, where did they go to school, what did they major in. Where have they worked in the past, what are their hobbies, how many in their family etc.   To go deeper we need to ask causative questions. The “why” of their choices. Why did they pick that field of study, why that school, why this company, why that hobby, etc.   Then we get to values-based questions. Getting to know how they tick. If you had your life over again would you do things differently and if so , what would you do? What were some turning points in your life? What have been some of the work and non-work related things you have done that have made you feel proud? If you were giving advice to a person entering the workforce what would that be?   These questions have to be asked in a relaxed manner, not spewed out like machine gun fire. This is getting to know someone better in order to better be able to appreciate them as a person. It is not a drill in shaking them down for private information, which can be used later to exploit them.   Conversations like this, done correctly, invite massive mutual understanding. The end result is better communication and shared values. A uniting of mutual interests toward achieving goals together. So all of you driver bosses out there, this is how to get cuddly with the team. First sort out your objective and make sure it is reflecting the real interests of the staff.   Drop that manipulation thing. Then make the time available to have a deep one on one conversation with another human being who also exists on this planet just like you. Believe me, good things will flow from this.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen &amp; sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

How To Snuggle Up To Employees We often hear about the need for bosses to do more to engage with their teams. The boss looks at their schedule and then just checks out of that idea right then and there because it seems impossible. The employees for their part, want to get more praise and recognition from the boss, to feel valuable and valued. Bosses are often Drive type personalities who are extremely outcome and task orientated. People are there to produce, to get the numbers, to complete projects and to do it with a minimum of boss maintenance needed to be invested. The snag in all of this though is employees don’t want that. They want the boss to be more interested in them, their career and their family. The feeling of being valued by the boss has been found to be an important trigger to create strong engagement in staff. Driver bosses rarely pull that trigger. They believe you need to “harden up baby”, do it yourself “like I did”. They wonder why we need to mollycoddle this lot. In fact they don’t know how to snuggle up to staff and get to know them, because they never experienced that from their own bosses and they are not built that way. They grew up independent and self-reliant. They are driven to achieve and have a take no prisoners approach to business. They are survival of the fittest advocates. Consequently, they are not much for small talk. They are permanently time pressed, so everything has to be driving toward an outcome or it is a waste of their valuable time. How do you snuggle up to employees anyway? Bosses need to engage with their staff by using the “innerview” to deepen their understanding of who the person is who works for them, what are their motivations and interests. The skeptics may be thinking “brilliant”. Now they can interrogate their staff, find and start pressing their hot buttons, to get more production out of them having found some keys to staff motivation. This is not what we are talking about. Staff can spot this very quickly. They won’t be interested in being manipulated by their bosses for higher productivity gains. The effort is to get to know the team better, so that as the boss you can help them to succeed in their work by aligning their goals, interests and motivations with those of the organization. The classic win/win. Getting to know staff starts with asking basic factual questions. Where did they grow up, where did they go to school, what did they major in. Where have they worked in the past, what are their hobbies, how many in their family etc. To go deeper we need to ask causative questions. The “why” of their choices. Why did they pick that field of study, why that school, why this company, why that hobby, etc. Then we get to values-based questions. Getting to know how they tick. If you had your life over again would you do things differently and if so , what would you do? What were some turning points in your life? What have been some of the work and non-work related things you have done that have made you feel proud? If you were giving advice to a person entering the workforce what would that be? These questions have to be asked in a relaxed manner, not spewed out like machine gun fire. This is getting to know someone better in order to better be able to appreciate them as a person. It is not a drill in shaking them down for private information, which can be used later to exploit them. Conversations like this, done correctly, invite massive mutual understanding. The end result is better communication and shared values. A uniting of mutual interests toward achieving goals together. So all of you driver bosses out there, this is how to get cuddly with the team. First sort out your objective and make sure it is reflecting the real interests of the staff.   Drop that manipulation thing. Then make the time available to have a deep one on one conversation with another human being who also exists on this planet just like you. Believe me, good things will flow from this. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at <a href="mailto:greg.story@dalecarnegie.com">greg.story@dalecarnegie.com</a> If you enjoy these articles, then head over to <a href="http://japan.dalecarnegie.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.japan.dalecarnegie.com</a> and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules. About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan. A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer. Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen &amp; sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

227: How To Snuggle Up To Employees

Go Ahead, Motivate Me  “Motivate me” must be one of the saddest requests a leader can receive. The request may not be so bluntly articulated, but the underlying assumption that the boss is there to motivate the staff seems to linger. “If only I had a better boss, I would be better”. “If only this company got its act together, I could get mine together”. “If only these other staff weren’t so hopeless, I would do better here – these people are holding me back”. The search for salvation located in the responsibility of others is a big fail. Many religions offer salvation, but they all seem to require something from us to deserve that salvation. The world of mammon is no different.   Motivation, loyalty, accountability, effort, responsibility, engagement – probably every boss is expecting these from their staff. They are all outcomes from inputs. Inputs from both the boss side and the staff side. We know what level of staff motivation we want as leaders, but how do we achieve it?   Some favoured leader methodologies are yelling, threatening, instilling fear of loss, shaming and humiliating. Steve Jobs ticked the box on quite a few of these in his early days as a leader. He has become a halo encrusted, saint like figure nowadays because he took Apple away from the brink of self immolation and gave it a second life through his leadership. He was however a flawed leader who, at various times, resorted to these methods. His later success does not validate these bully boy tactics and favourites. “It was okay for Jobs, so it is acceptable for me to cascade the tough love down to my team”. Maybe not!   You and I are not Steve Jobs, so let’s not get carried away with the parallel logic extension. He had many other fine attributes driving his success and remember he was successful in his field, not ours. We also need to look at the opportunity cost of what he could have achieved, had he been a better people leader. Getting massive compliance will not get you enough creative innovation. It is difficult to be fearless about coming up with new ideas and possibilities, if the boss scares you to death.   Jobs could have done more, much, much more, if he had played to his people’s strengths rather than abusing them about their weaknesses. He was able to get brilliance from the brilliant, which is probably not all that hard because they are brilliant already. The trick is getting brilliance out of the average person. That requires a lot more effort and skill. This is also where most of us live, because brilliant people are expensive and usually we can’t afford too many of them.   By contrast, Craig Bellamy is a Rugby League coach in Australia leading the Melbourne Storm team. He is famous for taking 2nd and 3rd level athletes and turning them into 1st class talent. He didn’t have the financial capacity to pay for a team full of stars, so he took people with potential and developed them into stars. This is a better model for us because very few of us can afford to employ a team of stars, but we can create stars.   Another challenge for strong leaders is they often work off the assumption that what made them successful is the model for everyone else to follow. Oh if it were only that easy! This is why you hear so much whining when bosses get together. They are dissatisfied with the staff because they can’t operate at the level they require. We forget sometimes that we too had to learn things when we were at their age and stage, that we now know and take for granted as common sense.   I hope this isn’t new information but, unfortunately, few people are ever going to be like you. You realise this as you go though life, when trying to deal with various others, but mysteriously, we tend to forget this fact when at work. There is a reason for those differences. Personality styles are often broken out into four boxes and by definition we tend to suit one box over the others. Hence three quarters of the population are automatically not on our wave-length. Hmm!   So how can we motivate the people who are not like us – probably the majority of staff. By the way, if your staff are all the same personality style as you, because that is how you have stacked the recruiting system, settle back for disaster ahead. Your flagrant cult of your personality type and lack of diversity will bubble up so much group think, you will assure yourselves you are correct all the way along, as you speed lemming-like, straight off the cliff.   Let’s assume that is not the case and you have a typically diverse work group with people with various preferred personality styles. Do yourself a big favour and start communicating with the team, as they prefer. This is beyond the Golden Rule, on toward the Platinum Rule of “treating everyone, as they wish to be treated”. That means knowing what is self-motivating for each person and counter-intuitively, aligning that with the organisation’s goals, rather than the other way around. Think about what you have to do to achieve that powerful outcome.   Here is a hint. Communication skills, one of the most important soft skills, are a key to success here. What we say is important (technical expert content), but how we say it (expert communicator delivery) is more important. Many professionals are in complete denial about this. They firmly believe that their big brains and abundant knowledge will be sufficient. Not true!   We like to do business with people we like and trust. We might trust your professional skill, but if we don’t like you, we will only deal with you if we have no alternative. That would be a pretty rare case in these highly competitive times in crowded professional fields.   In Japan’s case, dentists and lawyers are a good examples. There are currently too many of both for the size of market demand, so the competition is fierce. In this situation, being able to communicate well with the client is critical. If they don’t feel you are on their wave length, they just head off to another practioner.   This will be the same for how Middle Management in Japan communicates with the younger generation. If the young don’t like it, they will leave. Given the constant demographic nightmare of fewer and fewer young University graduates, then they have many alternatives to working for you.     Be clear - we can’t motivate anyone but ourselves. However, as the leader, we can create an ecosystem where the team are encouraged to motivate themselves. Mirroring their preferred communication style when speaking (which is based on their personality style) leads to better understanding. Talking in terms of the other person’s interests, rather than our own, is more likely to be motivating for them.   The trick is you have to spend time with your team to know what their individual interests are. We loop back to the soft skills of good communication. The boss’s barked order generates docile compliance. The alignment of staff self-motivation with the direction of the organisation’s strategy, coupled with the right communications skills, get’s our people going the extra mile. That is a good goal - Platinum Rule turbo charged self-motivation.   Staff should motivate themselves and bosses should craft environments where staff motivation can be encouraged to flourish. This is a better distribution of responsibilities and has more opportunity for sustained success.     Action Steps    Build on people’s strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses Remember you aren’t Steve Jobs and so don’t mimic his faults Your success model only works for you, so don’t expect it of others If you only hire people just like you prepare for disaster, you need diversity Use the Platinum Rule – treat everyone the way they want to be treated How you say it is more important than what you have to say Create the environment for self-motivation – that is your job as the leader Mirror the communication style of each of your people for the best communication outcomes

Go Ahead, Motivate Me  “Motivate me” must be one of the saddest requests a leader can receive. The request may not be so bluntly articulated, but the underlying assumption that the boss is there to motivate the staff seems to linger. “If only I had a better boss, I would be better”. “If only this company got its act together, I could get mine together”. “If only these other staff weren’t so hopeless, I would do better here – these people are holding me back”. The search for salvation located in the responsibility of others is a big fail. Many religions offer salvation, but they all seem to require something from us to deserve that salvation. The world of mammon is no different. Motivation, loyalty, accountability, effort, responsibility, engagement – probably every boss is expecting these from their staff. They are all outcomes from inputs. Inputs from both the boss side and the staff side. We know what level of staff motivation we want as leaders, but how do we achieve it? Some favoured leader methodologies are yelling, threatening, instilling fear of loss, shaming and humiliating. Steve Jobs ticked the box on quite a few of these in his early days as a leader. He has become a halo encrusted, saint like figure nowadays because he took Apple away from the brink of self immolation and gave it a second life through his leadership. He was however a flawed leader who, at various times, resorted to these methods. His later success does not validate these bully boy tactics and favourites. “It was okay for Jobs, so it is acceptable for me to cascade the tough love down to my team”. Maybe not! You and I are not Steve Jobs, so let’s not get carried away with the parallel logic extension. He had many other fine attributes driving his success and remember he was successful in his field, not ours. We also need to look at the opportunity cost of what he could have achieved, had he been a better people leader. Getting massive compliance will not get you enough creative innovation. It is difficult to be fearless about coming up with new ideas and possibilities, if the boss scares you to death. Jobs could have done more, much, much more, if he had played to his people’s strengths rather than abusing them about their weaknesses. He was able to get brilliance from the brilliant, which is probably not all that hard because they are brilliant already. The trick is getting brilliance out of the average person. That requires a lot more effort and skill. This is also where most of us live, because brilliant people are expensive and usually we can’t afford too many of them. By contrast, Craig Bellamy is a Rugby League coach in Australia leading the Melbourne Storm team. He is famous for taking 2nd and 3rd level athletes and turning them into 1st class talent. He didn’t have the financial capacity to pay for a team full of stars, so he took people with potential and developed them into stars. This is a better model for us because very few of us can afford to employ a team of stars, but we can create stars. Another challenge for strong leaders is they often work off the assumption that what made them successful is the model for everyone else to follow. Oh if it were only that easy! This is why you hear so much whining when bosses get together. They are dissatisfied with the staff because they can’t operate at the level they require. We forget sometimes that we too had to learn things when we were at their age and stage, that we now know and take for granted as common sense. I hope this isn’t new information but, unfortunately, few people are ever going to be like you. You realise this as you go though life, when trying to deal with various others, but mysteriously, we tend to forget this fact when at work. There is a reason for those differences. Personality styles are often broken out into four boxes and by definition we tend to suit one box over the others. Hence three quarters of the population are automatically not on our wave-length. Hmm! So how can we motivate the people who are not like us – probably the majority of staff. By the way, if your staff are all the same personality style as you, because that is how you have stacked the recruiting system, settle back for disaster ahead. Your flagrant cult of your personality type and lack of diversity will bubble up so much group think, you will assure yourselves you are correct all the way along, as you speed lemming-like, straight off the cliff. Let’s assume that is not the case and you have a typically diverse work group with people with various preferred personality styles. Do yourself a big favour and start communicating with the team, as they prefer. This is beyond the Golden Rule, on toward the Platinum Rule of “treating everyone, as they wish to be treated”. That means knowing what is self-motivating for each person and counter-intuitively, aligning that with the organisation’s goals, rather than the other way around. Think about what you have to do to achieve that powerful outcome. Here is a hint. Communication skills, one of the most important soft skills, are a key to success here. What we say is important (technical expert content), but how we say it (expert communicator delivery) is more important. Many professionals are in complete denial about this. They firmly believe that their big brains and abundant knowledge will be sufficient. Not true! We like to do business with people we like and trust. We might trust your professional skill, but if we don’t like you, we will only deal with you if we have no alternative. That would be a pretty rare case in these highly competitive times in crowded professional fields. In Japan’s case, dentists and lawyers are a good examples. There are currently too many of both for the size of market demand, so the competition is fierce. In this situation, being able to communicate well with the client is critical. If they don’t feel you are on their wave length, they just head off to another practioner. This will be the same for how Middle Management in Japan communicates with the younger generation. If the young don’t like it, they will leave. Given the constant demographic nightmare of fewer and fewer young University graduates, then they have many alternatives to working for you.   Be clear - we can’t motivate anyone but ourselves. However, as the leader, we can create an ecosystem where the team are encouraged to motivate themselves. Mirroring their preferred communication style when speaking (which is based on their personality style) leads to better understanding. Talking in terms of the other person’s interests, rather than our own, is more likely to be motivating for them. The trick is you have to spend time with your team to know what their individual interests are. We loop back to the soft skills of good communication. The boss’s barked order generates docile compliance. The alignment of staff self-motivation with the direction of the organisation’s strategy, coupled with the right communications skills, get’s our people going the extra mile. That is a good goal - Platinum Rule turbo charged self-motivation. Staff should motivate themselves and bosses should craft environments where staff motivation can be encouraged to flourish. This is a better distribution of responsibilities and has more opportunity for sustained success. Action Steps <ol> <li>Build on people’s strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses</li> <li>Remember you aren’t Steve Jobs and so don’t mimic his faults</li> <li>Your success model only works for you, so don’t expect it of others</li> <li>If you only hire people just like you prepare for disaster, you need diversity</li> <li>Use the Platinum Rule – treat everyone the way they want to be treated</li> <li>How you say it is more important than what you have to say</li> <li>Create the environment for self-motivation – that is your job as the leader</li> <li>Mirror the communication style of each of your people for the best communication outcomes</li></ol>

124: Go Ahead, Motivate Me

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 to my Japanese team members. Often I am the battering ram, to walk up to groups standing around in a semi-closed circle and break in. I then introduce my staff member to everyone and away we go. I just keep repeating this all evening and we get to meet a lot of new people and some potential clients.   At English speaking events there are two varieties again, those who are Japanese and those who are foreigners.  The Japanese always get there early and they will go straight to the tables and sit down, uninterested or unable to meet anyone.  I don't let that little detail stop me.  I walk straight up to them and introduce myself, "May, I meet you? My name is Greg Story" as I extend my business card to them.  They are usually a bit taken aback, because they thought they were safe from having to meet anyone new or speak in English, but after starting the conversation they warm up.   If you go to networking in pairs or groups, my rule is don't sit on the same table.  How are you going to meet anyone if you sit together.  This happened the other day.  I was at a networking event and two representatives from a foreign embassy, who are involved in furthering commercial relations with Japan, were all poised to sit down together.  I was in that business for twelve years for Australia, so I suggested that was plan was not possibly the best use of their opportunity and that they should “work the room”.  I don’t think they quite managed that bit, but they at least sat separately and met many more people   My Dale Carnegie Training Japan rule is we divide the room up. I will take this half, you take the other half and we will get back together at the end and exchange notes on who we met at the event.  This sounds simplistic, but so many times I meet people sitting together who are from the same company.  Why would you do that?  I also start with the people sitting down at other tables and leave my own table until last. I walk around meeting everyone at the other tables and then finally at my own table, because I will have a chance to engage with them over lunch.    The organisers sometimes provide a list of who has signed up to attend the event and this is very handy. If they haven't done that, it is always a good practice to get there early and check the name badges.  This allows you to put a face to the name of those people you have already met and to identify some people you may want to meet. It is also a good practice to ask the organisers to introduce you to people you want to get to know or at least point out who is who, so that you can go and introduce yourself.   I position myself right near the door, so I can meet people as they come in. I recommend you always have a couple of key questions which will help you to know if this is a potential client.  If they are not a potential client, then move on because time is tight and time is money. I see some people getting trapped and they manage to spend all the time speaking with just the one person.  I do this parting very politely and say, "thank you, I am going to meet a few more people today" and move on.  I am there to find clients and this is not a social activity for me whose main purpose is to chat with new people over lunch. I do that too, but that is not why I am there.  I want to build my contact base and find buyers.  That is the point of networking.  To know and to be known.   In our ancient Western fairytales, the wicked witch turned the beautiful princess into a frog and she can only be released from the spell, if the frog is kissed by the handsome prince. That is all the potential client networking guidance you will ever need right there.  You have to kiss a lot of frogs, before you find the beautiful princess. You don’t know which of these people at the networking event is going to be the next client for you, so start kissing as many frogs as possible, from start to finish, if you want to build your business in Japan.

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 to my Japanese team members. Often I am the battering ram, to walk up to groups standing around in a semi-closed circle and break in. I then introduce my staff member to everyone and away we go. I just keep repeating this all evening and we get to meet a lot of new people and some potential clients. At English speaking events there are two varieties again, those who are Japanese and those who are foreigners.  The Japanese always get there early and they will go straight to the tables and sit down, uninterested or unable to meet anyone.  I don't let that little detail stop me.  I walk straight up to them and introduce myself, "May, I meet you? My name is Greg Story" as I extend my business card to them.  They are usually a bit taken aback, because they thought they were safe from having to meet anyone new or speak in English, but after starting the conversation they warm up. If you go to networking in pairs or groups, my rule is don't sit on the same table.  How are you going to meet anyone if you sit together.  This happened the other day.  I was at a networking event and two representatives from a foreign embassy, who are involved in furthering commercial relations with Japan, were all poised to sit down together.  I was in that business for twelve years for Australia, so I suggested that was plan was not possibly the best use of their opportunity and that they should “work the room”.  I don’t think they quite managed that bit, but they at least sat separately and met many more people My Dale Carnegie Training Japan rule is we divide the room up. I will take this half, you take the other half and we will get back together at the end and exchange notes on who we met at the event.  This sounds simplistic, but so many times I meet people sitting together who are from the same company.  Why would you do that?  I also start with the people sitting down at other tables and leave my own table until last. I walk around meeting everyone at the other tables and then finally at my own table, because I will have a chance to engage with them over lunch.  The organisers sometimes provide a list of who has signed up to attend the event and this is very handy. If they haven't done that, it is always a good practice to get there early and check the name badges.  This allows you to put a face to the name of those people you have already met and to identify some people you may want to meet. It is also a good practice to ask the organisers to introduce you to people you want to get to know or at least point out who is who, so that you can go and introduce yourself. I position myself right near the door, so I can meet people as they come in. I recommend you always have a couple of key questions which will help you to know if this is a potential client.  If they are not a potential client, then move on because time is tight and time is money. I see some people getting trapped and they manage to spend all the time speaking with just the one person.  I do this parting very politely and say, "thank you, I am going to meet a few more people today" and move on.  I am there to find clients and this is not a social activity for me whose main purpose is to chat with new people over lunch. I do that too, but that is not why I am there.  I want to build my contact base and find buyers.  That is the point of networking.  To know and to be known. In our ancient Western fairytales, the wicked witch turned the beautiful princess into a frog and she can only be released from the spell, if the frog is kissed by the handsome prince. That is all the potential client networking guidance you will ever need right there.  You have to kiss a lot of frogs, before you find the beautiful princess. You don’t know which of these people at the networking event is going to be the next client for you, so start kissing as many frogs as possible, from start to finish, if you want to build your business in Japan.

312: How To Use Networking To Increase Your Revenues 

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 drive through their vision, mission and values for the business.  They are relentless about using these to drive structural changes to impact individual thinking.  They align systems around these messages to make them come alive for the team.   Then they leave for another post and their replacement begins to unravel all the good that was done and drive the firm down.  Within surprisingly short order, the firm is headed south and the office politicians, hangers on, sycophants and assorted ne’er-do-wells take over under the new regime and the whole company goes to hell in a basket.  We have probably all seen this either up close or from afar. It is real.   As the leader how do we take the organisation forward?  What is our job?  It sounds like a stupid question to be asking a leader, but it isn’t.  We tend to get drowned in a lot of stuff and find we are living permanently in Quadrant One – Urgent and Important.  This means constantly fighting fires, living in the moment, becoming a crisis solving junkie.  We are nomads, moving constantly from meeting to meeting, sprinkling pixie dust around wherever we go.  We lose sight of our real role because we are too busy working in our business, instead of on our business.   We have three jobs as leader and we should never lose sight of them.  We set the direction for the firm, we get the right people on the right bus and in the right seats and we grow those peoples’ abilities.  Sounds simple, but we screw this up.  We think because we have the vision, mission values installed on various walls throughout the firm such that everyone knows where we are going.  If you ask people to repeat the content from memory, I will guarantee that process will be character building, as you discover they will get two of the five values and nothing else.  If you cannot remember it I don’t how you can live it?   The leader may get sick of saying these things over and over, but that is the job.  Maintain a relentless drumbeat on these things, so that the team will get it and keep on getting it.   Have the individual work teams brainstorm how to get these lofty words into daily rituals, so that we are all living them.  When they do it they will own it.  When they own it, these items will become the basis for decisions and actions being taken.  Unless we can manufacture the ownership then these lofty words will be lofty and irrelevant.   When there are 1.6 jobs for everyone looking for a job in Japan, the choice of the right people becomes a challenge.  A guy I know here has taken over the running of an American firm and he is out there in the social media telling everyone he is looking for A Players for his business and they should be contacting him.  Sounds reasonable except we are all looking for A Players, they are in short supply and now becoming very expensive.  We are all involved in a bidding war for talent and these young candidates have no compunction about accepting our offer, arranging to start on a certain day and then dumping us for a prettier face, joining another crew instead.  This is Japan!  Who could imagine such a thing would become so standard.   So recruit and retain become key leader skills in 2020.  Today, we need to inject ourselves into the recruit process and not leave this entirely to others.  We need to work on retaining good people by giving them opportunities to grow and that means work assignments, projects, coaching, training and mentoring.  Yes, I know you are already busy.  But look at what is keeping you busy and ask yourself how that content aligns with the priorities that are confronting us all as leaders today?  Time to realign our thinking, time usage and priorities to match the demands this new year is ushering in.

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 drive through their vision, mission and values for the business.  They are relentless about using these to drive structural changes to impact individual thinking.  They align systems around these messages to make them come alive for the team. Then they leave for another post and their replacement begins to unravel all the good that was done and drive the firm down.  Within surprisingly short order, the firm is headed south and the office politicians, hangers on, sycophants and assorted ne’er-do-wells take over under the new regime and the whole company goes to hell in a basket.  We have probably all seen this either up close or from afar. It is real. As the leader how do we take the organisation forward?  What is our job?  It sounds like a stupid question to be asking a leader, but it isn’t.  We tend to get drowned in a lot of stuff and find we are living permanently in Quadrant One – Urgent and Important.  This means constantly fighting fires, living in the moment, becoming a crisis solving junkie.  We are nomads, moving constantly from meeting to meeting, sprinkling pixie dust around wherever we go.  We lose sight of our real role because we are too busy working in our business, instead of on our business. We have three jobs as leader and we should never lose sight of them.  We set the direction for the firm, we get the right people on the right bus and in the right seats and we grow those peoples’ abilities.  Sounds simple, but we screw this up.  We think because we have the vision, mission values installed on various walls throughout the firm such that everyone knows where we are going.  If you ask people to repeat the content from memory, I will guarantee that process will be character building, as you discover they will get two of the five values and nothing else.  If you cannot remember it I don’t how you can live it?   The leader may get sick of saying these things over and over, but that is the job.  Maintain a relentless drumbeat on these things, so that the team will get it and keep on getting it. Have the individual work teams brainstorm how to get these lofty words into daily rituals, so that we are all living them.  When they do it they will own it.  When they own it, these items will become the basis for decisions and actions being taken.  Unless we can manufacture the ownership then these lofty words will be lofty and irrelevant. When there are 1.6 jobs for everyone looking for a job in Japan, the choice of the right people becomes a challenge.  A guy I know here has taken over the running of an American firm and he is out there in the social media telling everyone he is looking for A Players for his business and they should be contacting him.  Sounds reasonable except we are all looking for A Players, they are in short supply and now becoming very expensive.  We are all involved in a bidding war for talent and these young candidates have no compunction about accepting our offer, arranging to start on a certain day and then dumping us for a prettier face, joining another crew instead.  This is Japan!  Who could imagine such a thing would become so standard. So recruit and retain become key leader skills in 2020.  Today, we need to inject ourselves into the recruit process and not leave this entirely to others.  We need to work on retaining good people by giving them opportunities to grow and that means work assignments, projects, coaching, training and mentoring.  Yes, I know you are already busy.  But look at what is keeping you busy and ask yourself how that content aligns with the priorities that are confronting us all as leaders today?  Time to realign our thinking, time usage and priorities to match the demands this new year is ushering in.

342: The 2020 Leader

Praise or Flattery: Doing Business In Japan   Japan is awash with praise but it is praise more on the flattery side of the equation.  When you get here and you speak a few words of Japanese they will quickly tell you how fluent in Japanese you are.  You use chopsticks at the restaurant and you get praised for mastering this tricky set of implements.  This is all flattery, so don’t believe a word of it.  Japan has been a high density living environment for thousands of years, so flattery is grease to smooth the wheels.  They have learnt that the way to increase harmony is to smooth out all the rough edges, so this is where praise and flattery come in.   It happens in our countries too.  I am fascinated by American culture.  Winston Churchill noted the US and the UK were two countries separated by a common language.  Australia and America look similar but we too are quite different culturally.  I was reminded of this recently when an American businessman I had just met for the first time at a networking event introduced me to another American businessmen by saying, “Come meet my good friend Dr. Greg Story”.  No Australian would ever dream of doing that, because we are far too cynical, but this is how they grease the wheels in America.   The difference with praise and flattery in Japan is that they have institutionalised it.  When you get praised in Japan, (a) don’t believe a word of it and (b) just politely accept the praise.  Don’t say, “no, no, no” when they say something complimentary about you.  Just politely say “thank you very much for saying that” and move on, both sides happy with the fiction of the flattery.    When I first arrived here on April 1st1979, I couldn’t speak any Japanese.  After a few months of studying Japanese, I could barely give the cab driver instructions on where I wanted to go.  The drivers reaction though was “Mr. Customer, your Japanese is so excellent”.  Four years later, after completing a Masters degree at Jochi University, when I was heading home and climbed into a cab, I got the exact same reaction “Oh Mr. Customer, your Japanese is so excellent”.  So if you receive praise here don’t believe a word of it, they are just being nice.   Interestingly though, because there is so much flattery going on here you can cut through with some praise of your own back to them.  They all know it is the flattery format so usually nothing really resonates. Everyone politely joins in the game of flattery and no one takes what is said at face value.  You can have what you say taken at face value however, if you know how to deliver the praise so it is believable.  You can actually get cut through and gain differentiation with the other person.   Be it the buyer, your team or anyone you meet in Japan, if you want to recognize something they did, then be very specific about it.  Don’t make general comments like “very good” or “good job” or ”good comment”.  All of this is too vague and just sits in the flattery basket to be mentally disappeared immediately.  Instead tell them something they did that was good, but then isolate out the thing that was good.   So with the case of staff, it might go like this: “Your comment in the meeting Suzuki san was really excellent.  When you said that we should go together to visit our buyers, that was really insightful.  I am sure the next level down never get visited and the chance for us to meet them and say thank you, is a great chance to build the relationship and increase future sales volumes.  Thank you for bringing that possibility up at the meeting”.    In this example, we have drawn out what was good, so that the praise is related to something specific which they did, which has value. When they are a staff member of your firm, tell them how what they did helps the firm’s big picture and encourage them to keep doing that and thank them once more.  If we just say “good job” they cannot relate to that comment, because they are very busy doing many tasks and just exactly which one is it you are referring to?  We need to tell them.    For example, “Suzuki san, thank you for that great comment in the meeting, that was great.  Your insight is very valuable. We are going to take that and change what we are currently doing to provide a better service for the client, as a result of your comment. This will help us win greater market share, thanks to you.  We really appreciate that input and please keep those insights coming, we really value you.”.  This will not be seen by the staff member as simple flattery that can be disposed of and forgotten immediately.  This style of giving praise will resonate and in a country drowning in fake flattery, you will stand out in the crowd.

Praise or Flattery: Doing Business In Japan Japan is awash with praise but it is praise more on the flattery side of the equation.  When you get here and you speak a few words of Japanese they will quickly tell you how fluent in Japanese you are.  You use chopsticks at the restaurant and you get praised for mastering this tricky set of implements.  This is all flattery, so don’t believe a word of it.  Japan has been a high density living environment for thousands of years, so flattery is grease to smooth the wheels.  They have learnt that the way to increase harmony is to smooth out all the rough edges, so this is where praise and flattery come in. It happens in our countries too.  I am fascinated by American culture.  Winston Churchill noted the US and the UK were two countries separated by a common language.  Australia and America look similar but we too are quite different culturally.  I was reminded of this recently when an American businessman I had just met for the first time at a networking event introduced me to another American businessmen by saying, “Come meet my good friend Dr. Greg Story”.  No Australian would ever dream of doing that, because we are far too cynical, but this is how they grease the wheels in America. The difference with praise and flattery in Japan is that they have institutionalised it.  When you get praised in Japan, (a) don’t believe a word of it and (b) just politely accept the praise.  Don’t say, “no, no, no” when they say something complimentary about you.  Just politely say “thank you very much for saying that” and move on, both sides happy with the fiction of the flattery.  When I first arrived here on April 1st1979, I couldn’t speak any Japanese.  After a few months of studying Japanese, I could barely give the cab driver instructions on where I wanted to go.  The drivers reaction though was “Mr. Customer, your Japanese is so excellent”.  Four years later, after completing a Masters degree at Jochi University, when I was heading home and climbed into a cab, I got the exact same reaction “Oh Mr. Customer, your Japanese is so excellent”.  So if you receive praise here don’t believe a word of it, they are just being nice. Interestingly though, because there is so much flattery going on here you can cut through with some praise of your own back to them.  They all know it is the flattery format so usually nothing really resonates. Everyone politely joins in the game of flattery and no one takes what is said at face value.  You can have what you say taken at face value however, if you know how to deliver the praise so it is believable.  You can actually get cut through and gain differentiation with the other person. Be it the buyer, your team or anyone you meet in Japan, if you want to recognize something they did, then be very specific about it.  Don’t make general comments like “very good” or “good job” or ”good comment”.  All of this is too vague and just sits in the flattery basket to be mentally disappeared immediately.  Instead tell them something they did that was good, but then isolate out the thing that was good. So with the case of staff, it might go like this: “Your comment in the meeting Suzuki san was really excellent.  When you said that we should go together to visit our buyers, that was really insightful.  I am sure the next level down never get visited and the chance for us to meet them and say thank you, is a great chance to build the relationship and increase future sales volumes.  Thank you for bringing that possibility up at the meeting”.  In this example, we have drawn out what was good, so that the praise is related to something specific which they did, which has value. When they are a staff member of your firm, tell them how what they did helps the firm’s big picture and encourage them to keep doing that and thank them once more.  If we just say “good job” they cannot relate to that comment, because they are very busy doing many tasks and just exactly which one is it you are referring to?  We need to tell them.  For example, “Suzuki san, thank you for that great comment in the meeting, that was great.  Your insight is very valuable. We are going to take that and change what we are currently doing to provide a better service for the client, as a result of your comment. This will help us win greater market share, thanks to you.  We really appreciate that input and please keep those insights coming, we really value you.”.  This will not be seen by the staff member as simple flattery that can be disposed of and forgotten immediately.  This style of giving praise will resonate and in a country drowning in fake flattery, you will stand out in the crowd.

260: Praise Or Flattery When Doing Business In Japan

The Five Drivers Of A Positive Workplace   As the leader you set the culture and tone of the form.  In Japan, up until a few years ago, you could get away with whatever you liked as the leader.  You could create a hellhole to work in and everyone caught up in the vortex had to put up with it.  There was shame attached to changing companies and mid-career hires were given the cold shoulder by the HR hiring teams.  The end of the Bubble economy in the late eighties, the IT industry meltdown at the turn of the century, the Lehman Shock in 2008 and the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in 2011 shaken things up here over the last forty years.  In particular, basic demographics of a declining population have moved the locus of power to the employment candidate away from the hiring firm.  Having a positive workplace becomes even more important to attracting and retaining good staff.   As leaders we need to work on our skills in five areas.   Self-Confidence This world of rapid change is throwing up new risks, daunting challenges and fierce competition.  Change is no longer just constant, it is moving at hyper speed. How do we keep up and how do we gain the confidence to have the audacity to lead others in such a complex construct?  The first step is to take charge of our attitude and determine that we will take the steps needed to make ourselves more confident.  This will mean emerging from our comfort zone and putting ourselves into tough situations where there is no road map and no guarantee of success.  Only by doing that ourselves can we have the ability to lead others to do the same thing.  “Do as I say, not as I do” won’t cut it anymore.  Despite how we may personally feel at any one time, we have to be the beacon, the guide, the strong stream of positive light in the organisation, pollinating everyone with our rampant optimism.   People Skills Leaders often become leaders because of their high IQ, despite their desperate EQ skills.  In today’s business world, people skills are an essential ingredient for gaining influence and persuasion with others.  Every person needs a defined approach and the leader must know just what that is.  The Golden Rule is severely flawed.  We shouldn’t treat people the way we want to be treated.  This is a mistake, because it assumes that everyone is like us.  We need to treat people the way they want to be treated and we must spend time with them, to know exactly what that actually is.  Busy leaders however can miss this because they are not spending the time and so are not able to function at a high EQ level with their teams or teach it to their subordinates in middle management.   Communication Shouting out commands is the quick and dirty way of leadership.  Very time efficient, and maybe even rewarding to the leader themselves, but ultimately not very effective.  We need to be asking questions rather than telling people what, and sometimes even how, to do it.  The megaphone has to be replaced by the earphone.  We have to amplify our listening skills.  Individually, we cannot possibly have all the answers today, as the world is moving so quickly and business is so much more complex.  We need to be able to tap into all of the ideas of our team and that requires changing our skill set from commanding to becoming a sponge.   Leadership Leadership is about creating the environment that allows our people to motivate themselves to succeed.  We have to set the vision, manage the processes and build the people. We can inspire them through our advanced communication and persuasion power, but ultimately they have to do it.  Our job is to help them do that.  Leaders used to be locked away on the executive floor where quiet reigned, the carpets were plush and the secretaries fulsome.  Today they are often working in open spaces with no set desk, just like everyone else.   This requires a lot of flexibility and openness to being available to the team, rather than being closeted away.  We have to lead from the front today and role model what we want to see in others.  Our daily work visibility has never been higher in business.   Worry and Stress Gloomy, depressed bosses kill enthusiasm.  The ability to face trouble with a constructive attitude will determine how successful we are in building the team spirit.  Tension, stress, worry - all kill our productivity, so we need good methodologies in place to deal with them.  Dale Carnegie’s book “How To Stop Worrying And Start Living” is a treasure trove of the means to reduce stress and get ourselves back into peak productivity.  Read it and you will become fully capable of reducing your stress and being much happier.  If you want a happy team, then you need to be happy yourself.     The world of work challenges us as leaders to constantly re-evaluate what we are doing.  There is no pause button, as it all happens in real time and at a fast clip.   The competition for talent is real and people are more mobile in japan these days and they will leave to find a happier work environment.  Develop these skills and this will be yours and you will have a greater choice of which talented people you want to hire.  The alternative is be like everyone else and be on the wrong end a beating, as you hustle and bustle about trying to hire and retain staff.  It is a zero sum game of winners and losers, so don’t play that game.

The Five Drivers Of A Positive Workplace As the leader you set the culture and tone of the form.  In Japan, up until a few years ago, you could get away with whatever you liked as the leader.  You could create a hellhole to work in and everyone caught up in the vortex had to put up with it.  There was shame attached to changing companies and mid-career hires were given the cold shoulder by the HR hiring teams.  The end of the Bubble economy in the late eighties, the IT industry meltdown at the turn of the century, the Lehman Shock in 2008 and the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in 2011 shaken things up here over the last forty years.  In particular, basic demographics of a declining population have moved the locus of power to the employment candidate away from the hiring firm.  Having a positive workplace becomes even more important to attracting and retaining good staff. As leaders we need to work on our skills in five areas. Self-Confidence This world of rapid change is throwing up new risks, daunting challenges and fierce competition.  Change is no longer just constant, it is moving at hyper speed. How do we keep up and how do we gain the confidence to have the audacity to lead others in such a complex construct?  The first step is to take charge of our attitude and determine that we will take the steps needed to make ourselves more confident.  This will mean emerging from our comfort zone and putting ourselves into tough situations where there is no road map and no guarantee of success.  Only by doing that ourselves can we have the ability to lead others to do the same thing.  “Do as I say, not as I do” won’t cut it anymore.  Despite how we may personally feel at any one time, we have to be the beacon, the guide, the strong stream of positive light in the organisation, pollinating everyone with our rampant optimism. People Skills Leaders often become leaders because of their high IQ, despite their desperate EQ skills.  In today’s business world, people skills are an essential ingredient for gaining influence and persuasion with others.  Every person needs a defined approach and the leader must know just what that is.  The Golden Rule is severely flawed.  We shouldn’t treat people the way we want to be treated.  This is a mistake, because it assumes that everyone is like us.  We need to treat people the way they want to be treated and we must spend time with them, to know exactly what that actually is.  Busy leaders however can miss this because they are not spending the time and so are not able to function at a high EQ level with their teams or teach it to their subordinates in middle management. Communication Shouting out commands is the quick and dirty way of leadership.  Very time efficient, and maybe even rewarding to the leader themselves, but ultimately not very effective.  We need to be asking questions rather than telling people what, and sometimes even how, to do it.  The megaphone has to be replaced by the earphone.  We have to amplify our listening skills.  Individually, we cannot possibly have all the answers today, as the world is moving so quickly and business is so much more complex.  We need to be able to tap into all of the ideas of our team and that requires changing our skill set from commanding to becoming a sponge. Leadership Leadership is about creating the environment that allows our people to motivate themselves to succeed.  We have to set the vision, manage the processes and build the people. We can inspire them through our advanced communication and persuasion power, but ultimately they have to do it.  Our job is to help them do that.  Leaders used to be locked away on the executive floor where quiet reigned, the carpets were plush and the secretaries fulsome.  Today they are often working in open spaces with no set desk, just like everyone else.   This requires a lot of flexibility and openness to being available to the team, rather than being closeted away.  We have to lead from the front today and role model what we want to see in others.  Our daily work visibility has never been higher in business. Worry and Stress Gloomy, depressed bosses kill enthusiasm.  The ability to face trouble with a constructive attitude will determine how successful we are in building the team spirit.  Tension, stress, worry - all kill our productivity, so we need good methodologies in place to deal with them.  Dale Carnegie’s book “How To Stop Worrying And Start Living” is a treasure trove of the means to reduce stress and get ourselves back into peak productivity.  Read it and you will become fully capable of reducing your stress and being much happier.  If you want a happy team, then you need to be happy yourself. The world of work challenges us as leaders to constantly re-evaluate what we are doing.  There is no pause button, as it all happens in real time and at a fast clip.   The competition for talent is real and people are more mobile in japan these days and they will leave to find a happier work environment.  Develop these skills and this will be yours and you will have a greater choice of which talented people you want to hire.  The alternative is be like everyone else and be on the wrong end a beating, as you hustle and bustle about trying to hire and retain staff.  It is a zero sum game of winners and losers, so don’t play that game.

328: The Five Drivers Of A Positive Workplace

Coaching People Out Of Downward, Negative Spirals   You are resilient, sturdy, capable, independent, hardy, self-motivated, constantly pushing and challenging the organization to go forward.  You don’t need anything in terms of social recognition or internal worth validation from others.  You are the leader and you get the job done.  Bully for you. The issues arise with those working for you, who are not like you.  They may be younger, less experienced, less educated, less confident and less convinced they can change the world through working at your firm.   Leading a bunch of clones is easy, because everyone gets it and they will file into line on command. We never get this situation though, unless we are in the elite military units perhaps, where a fearsome pruning process has been applied to whittle the punters down to the right group of super high achievers.  What we get is what the person or people before us hired and which the company can afford.  We may be able to hire a few of our own selections while we are in the job, but with job promotions, and job hopping on our part, we may not be there long enough to rely on that fix.   We have to lead the team, as they are, with their many inconsistencies, diverse motivations and abilities.  Often we are trying to push the organization forward, yet we have to rely on our team to do the hard yards, to get the shoulder firmly up against the wheel rim and pushing with all their might.  Are they up for it?  Do they believe this is the right wheel to be pushing?  Are they convinced they can actually do it?   In Japan, we are leading a group of people who are often firmly ensconced in their comfort zones. In old Japan, families were grouped together in a system modeled on how the Chinese emperors ran their country. Broken into units of 100 families, if there was any crime or rebellion, the immediate family would be punished severely, but so would the remaining other families in the 100.  The pressure to conform, to be part of the group, to not challenge the existing order was complete.   You might be thinking, “yeah, yeah man, that was hundreds of years ago”.  True, except that if you have had your children in the Japanese school system here, you will immediately know that the pressure to be the same, to not stand out, to go with the group, to go along to get along, is still the tried and true social normalization method in play.  So we receive staff as adults who have been socialized to not make mistakes, to not be the “nail that sticks out” because it gets hammered back down. Here we are their leader: the iconoclast, the innovator, the fearless challenger of established norms wondering why we are not getting anywhere with the changes needed.   We need to be coaching people on whether their beliefs about this change are true.  Staff reach straight back into their tried and true play book, that says the best way to avoid a mistake is to do nothing, do nothing new and never do anything risky.  They are negative on change, fearful, scared.  We need to have a conversation around the drivers of their belief that this particular change is bad.  They may have never had that introspection moment, because a fish is the last thing to discover water.  We are the same.  We are surrounded by common sense, accepted dogma, established truths, so we never really challenge our views, we just look for ways to cement them.  In Japan, even more so.     Next, we have to get them to mentally rephrase their beliefs and challenge whether those negative beliefs are universal and necessarily applicable in this case.  This is an inside out process. Yelling orders and berating people doesn’t affect belief change. It just creates solid discontent, which then races like a fire throughout the group, who all fear their turn for being berated is coming.  We need them all to come to see it is worth trying. Barking orders is easier than coaching people to change, because that takes a lot more time and effort.  We often take the easy path and then wonder why we are failing.   The key point is to have them own the design and execution pieces, rather than you firing out specific game play orders.  You have probably done this before or are very comfortable with change.  You instinctively know what needs to be done, what, how, when, who, where etc.  Great, but shut up about it and let the team work it out themselves.  You can gently guide through questions and suggestions, but keep the direct orders in your back pocket.  If you can restrain your ego and or impatience, you will find they will come up with a good plan and then they will have the ownership necessary to deliver on the plan.  Let’s focus on the outcomes and be flexible on the means to achieve the goals.     Are you actually flexible by the way?  Often the crash through or crash types are inflexible, convinced of their immortality, their perfection and that their right is might. Good luck with that in Japan!

Coaching People Out Of Downward, Negative Spirals You are resilient, sturdy, capable, independent, hardy, self-motivated, constantly pushing and challenging the organization to go forward.  You don’t need anything in terms of social recognition or internal worth validation from others.  You are the leader and you get the job done.  Bully for you. The issues arise with those working for you, who are not like you.  They may be younger, less experienced, less educated, less confident and less convinced they can change the world through working at your firm. Leading a bunch of clones is easy, because everyone gets it and they will file into line on command. We never get this situation though, unless we are in the elite military units perhaps, where a fearsome pruning process has been applied to whittle the punters down to the right group of super high achievers.  What we get is what the person or people before us hired and which the company can afford.  We may be able to hire a few of our own selections while we are in the job, but with job promotions, and job hopping on our part, we may not be there long enough to rely on that fix. We have to lead the team, as they are, with their many inconsistencies, diverse motivations and abilities.  Often we are trying to push the organization forward, yet we have to rely on our team to do the hard yards, to get the shoulder firmly up against the wheel rim and pushing with all their might.  Are they up for it?  Do they believe this is the right wheel to be pushing?  Are they convinced they can actually do it? In Japan, we are leading a group of people who are often firmly ensconced in their comfort zones. In old Japan, families were grouped together in a system modeled on how the Chinese emperors ran their country. Broken into units of 100 families, if there was any crime or rebellion, the immediate family would be punished severely, but so would the remaining other families in the 100.  The pressure to conform, to be part of the group, to not challenge the existing order was complete. You might be thinking, “yeah, yeah man, that was hundreds of years ago”.  True, except that if you have had your children in the Japanese school system here, you will immediately know that the pressure to be the same, to not stand out, to go with the group, to go along to get along, is still the tried and true social normalization method in play.  So we receive staff as adults who have been socialized to not make mistakes, to not be the “nail that sticks out” because it gets hammered back down. Here we are their leader: the iconoclast, the innovator, the fearless challenger of established norms wondering why we are not getting anywhere with the changes needed. We need to be coaching people on whether their beliefs about this change are true.  Staff reach straight back into their tried and true play book, that says the best way to avoid a mistake is to do nothing, do nothing new and never do anything risky.  They are negative on change, fearful, scared.  We need to have a conversation around the drivers of their belief that this particular change is bad.  They may have never had that introspection moment, because a fish is the last thing to discover water.  We are the same.  We are surrounded by common sense, accepted dogma, established truths, so we never really challenge our views, we just look for ways to cement them.  In Japan, even more so.   Next, we have to get them to mentally rephrase their beliefs and challenge whether those negative beliefs are universal and necessarily applicable in this case.  This is an inside out process. Yelling orders and berating people doesn’t affect belief change. It just creates solid discontent, which then races like a fire throughout the group, who all fear their turn for being berated is coming.  We need them all to come to see it is worth trying. Barking orders is easier than coaching people to change, because that takes a lot more time and effort.  We often take the easy path and then wonder why we are failing. The key point is to have them own the design and execution pieces, rather than you firing out specific game play orders.  You have probably done this before or are very comfortable with change.  You instinctively know what needs to be done, what, how, when, who, where etc.  Great, but shut up about it and let the team work it out themselves.  You can gently guide through questions and suggestions, but keep the direct orders in your back pocket.  If you can restrain your ego and or impatience, you will find they will come up with a good plan and then they will have the ownership necessary to deliver on the plan.  Let’s focus on the outcomes and be flexible on the means to achieve the goals.   Are you actually flexible by the way?  Often the crash through or crash types are inflexible, convinced of their immortality, their perfection and that their right is might. Good luck with that in Japan!

270: Coaching People Out Of Downward, Negative Spirals

Dale Carnegie Training Japan: http://japan.dalecarnegie.com/ According to recent research by Dale Carnegie Training Japan, there are three critical drivers for engagement, namely, your relationship with your immediate supervisor, your belief in senior management’s direction for the organisation and your sense of pride in working there. An emotional trigger also creates engagement—the feeling of trust. What is meant by trust? It can be defined as confidence in the fact that you can rely on a certain person or thing. The presence of too little trust or too much trust can be dangerous, however. A healthy level of trust comes from making good decisions and exercising good judgment, using a balance of head and heart, facts and instinct. Working in a healthy trust environment versus one full of distrust brings many benefits: greater job satisfaction, employees who are more engaged, improved productivity, reduced stress, more innovation, better customer interaction, and high staff retention rates. Trust, respect and credibility are tightly interconnected. If you don’t TRUST me, you will not view me as credible, nor will you respect me. If you don’t RESPECT me, you will not view me as credible or trustworthy. If you don’t find me CREDIBLE, you will not trust or respect me. What are the usual signs of distrust? Here are six warning beacons: Low morale and lack of motivation or initiative High absenteeism, tardiness and staff turnover Guarded communication or an active gossip/rumour mill spreading often false information An undercurrent of fear and worry among staff Cynical or suspicious behaviour Defensive or aggressive behaviour and communication It can be tricky discerning levels of distrust in Japan. As a boss, you will certainly be the last to know if there is a sense of distrust in the office. It pays to have informal talks outside business hours with various staff, so they can tell you what is really happening. The boozy bar-side chat is standard operating procedure among older generation Japanese, so they can tell the boss he is an idiot and later save everyone’s face by blaming the demon drink. If trust is lost, how can it be restored? First of all, you must be aware of an important cycle related to the deterioration and rebuilding of trust. First, an event or events trigger a breakdown in trust between people. Second, feelings of disappointment, anger, resentment and fear come to the surface. In response, we feel the need to emotionally disengage from the issue, to pull back, take a "time out" to reflect on the situation. We then discuss and communicate our thoughts and feelings about the situation with the other person. This part is tricky in Japan, because people don’t easily tell you what is wrong. remember once spending a full hour of total, unbroken silence with a company employee, waiting for the answer to my question asking about her concern. After what felt like an eternity, the woman finally spoke up, only to say, "I can’t tell you!" After discussing your thoughts, be generous in spirit and give the person in whom trust has been lost a second chance. It is to be hoped this will lead to a positive outcome, and that the person will redeem themself. Finally, with time and more positive interactions, trust can be re-established. Once trust has been compromised, it is not all a lost cause. We can be proactive and take five steps to boost and restore trust. Put your ego aside and allow yourself to be seen as vulnerable. Reveal yourself as a human being, not just an authority figure. Honestly review your perceptions and take full responsibility for your part in breaking the trust. Examine your assumptions and be honest with yourself. Reflect on what role you had in the situation. Meet privately with the person and disclose your perceptions and concerns. Ask for their perspective, keep an open mind, truly listen and put yourself in their shoes. Shut up and let them do most of the talking. Find out what the offended person needs from you to repair the broken trust, and share what you need from them. Listen and check for understanding. Meet on a regular basis to assess progress. Be vigilant about upholding your end of the deal. Actions will speak volumes. The way in which we communicate can either reinforce our positive efforts or derail them. In ascending order of importance, consider the following factors as ones that influence communication. Appearance Facial expressions can be misinterpreted. Never forget, employees are expert "boss watchers", always scanning leaders’ faces for their moods. Japanese bosses have a genetic disadvantage here, because their serious, concentrating faces and their angry faces can look the same in many cases! Make sure you are aware of your own facial expressions. Behaviour A person’s demeanour, attitude and character all communicate positive or negative feelings. Constantly check what your attitude is conveying. Maybe your body language is screaming at someone, even though you haven’t said a word. What you say The words we choose, the facts we give, the stories we tell, the knowledge we access—they all play a big role in engaging a person. How you say it Most importantly, a speaker’s tone, pitch, speed, strength and tempo when talking all send messages to listeners. We need to carefully align these aspects with our intended message. In addition to this advice, I recommend Dale Carnegie’s book, How To Win Friends and Influence People. It is a timeless classic on how to improve your daily interactions. Read it for the first time or, if it has been a while, read it again. It could change your life. It certainly changed mine! Related article by Dr. Greg Story:"How To Build Trust, Credibilty And Respect" 

Dale Carnegie Training Japan: <a href="http://japan.dalecarnegie.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://japan.dalecarnegie.com/</a> According to recent research by Dale Carnegie Training Japan, there are three critical drivers for engagement, namely, your relationship with your immediate supervisor, your belief in senior management’s direction for the organisation and your sense of pride in working there. An emotional trigger also creates engagement—the feeling of trust. What is meant by trust? It can be defined as confidence in the fact that you can rely on a certain person or thing. The presence of too little trust or too much trust can be dangerous, however. A healthy level of trust comes from making good decisions and exercising good judgment, using a balance of head and heart, facts and instinct. Working in a healthy trust environment versus one full of distrust brings many benefits: greater job satisfaction, employees who are more engaged, improved productivity, reduced stress, more innovation, better customer interaction, and high staff retention rates. Trust, respect and credibility are tightly interconnected. If you don’t TRUST me, you will not view me as credible, nor will you respect me. If you don’t RESPECT me, you will not view me as credible or trustworthy. If you don’t find me CREDIBLE, you will not trust or respect me. What are the usual signs of distrust? Here are six warning beacons: Low morale and lack of motivation or initiative High absenteeism, tardiness and staff turnover Guarded communication or an active gossip/rumour mill spreading often false information An undercurrent of fear and worry among staff Cynical or suspicious behaviour Defensive or aggressive behaviour and communication It can be tricky discerning levels of distrust in Japan. As a boss, you will certainly be the last to know if there is a sense of distrust in the office. It pays to have informal talks outside business hours with various staff, so they can tell you what is really happening. The boozy bar-side chat is standard operating procedure among older generation Japanese, so they can tell the boss he is an idiot and later save everyone’s face by blaming the demon drink. If trust is lost, how can it be restored? First of all, you must be aware of an important cycle related to the deterioration and rebuilding of trust. First, an event or events trigger a breakdown in trust between people. Second, feelings of disappointment, anger, resentment and fear come to the surface. In response, we feel the need to emotionally disengage from the issue, to pull back, take a "time out" to reflect on the situation. We then discuss and communicate our thoughts and feelings about the situation with the other person. This part is tricky in Japan, because people don’t easily tell you what is wrong. remember once spending a full hour of total, unbroken silence with a company employee, waiting for the answer to my question asking about her concern. After what felt like an eternity, the woman finally spoke up, only to say, "I can’t tell you!" After discussing your thoughts, be generous in spirit and give the person in whom trust has been lost a second chance. It is to be hoped this will lead to a positive outcome, and that the person will redeem themself. Finally, with time and more positive interactions, trust can be re-established. Once trust has been compromised, it is not all a lost cause. We can be proactive and take five steps to boost and restore trust. Put your ego aside and allow yourself to be seen as vulnerable. Reveal yourself as a human being, not just an authority figure. Honestly review your perceptions and take full responsibility for your part in breaking the trust. Examine your assumptions and be honest with yourself. Reflect on what role you had in the situation. Meet privately with the person and disclose your perceptions and concerns. Ask for their perspective, keep an open mind, truly listen and put yourself in their shoes. Shut up and let them do most of the talking. Find out what the offended person needs from you to repair the broken trust, and share what you need from them. Listen and check for understanding. Meet on a regular basis to assess progress. Be vigilant about upholding your end of the deal. Actions will speak volumes. The way in which we communicate can either reinforce our positive efforts or derail them. In ascending order of importance, consider the following factors as ones that influence communication. Appearance Facial expressions can be misinterpreted. Never forget, employees are expert "boss watchers", always scanning leaders’ faces for their moods. Japanese bosses have a genetic disadvantage here, because their serious, concentrating faces and their angry faces can look the same in many cases! Make sure you are aware of your own facial expressions. Behaviour A person’s demeanour, attitude and character all communicate positive or negative feelings. Constantly check what your attitude is conveying. Maybe your body language is screaming at someone, even though you haven’t said a word. What you say The words we choose, the facts we give, the stories we tell, the knowledge we access—they all play a big role in engaging a person. How you say it Most importantly, a speaker’s tone, pitch, speed, strength and tempo when talking all send messages to listeners. We need to carefully align these aspects with our intended message. In addition to this advice, I recommend Dale Carnegie’s book, How To Win Friends and Influence People. It is a timeless classic on how to improve your daily interactions. Read it for the first time or, if it has been a while, read it again. It could change your life. It certainly changed mine! Related article by Dr. Greg Story:<a href="http://japan.dalecarnegie.com/bccj_acumen_dec2013/?pg=5&amp;F_All=y" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"How To Build Trust, Credibilty And Respect"</a>

21: How To Build Trust, Credibility And Respect

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 done on time, on budget, without error and with maximum efficiency.  The leader does all of that, plus they invoke passion around the WHY, set the direction for the team and build the people.  We can be very busy with the process and forget about building the people.     If we have no one to do our job, then we have nowhere to move to up IN the hierarchy.  The big bosses will keep us where we are because they can’t replace us.  Don’t worry about creating people who can take your job.  We want that because if you become known as a builder of champions, then the organisation will give you more scope to build other champions, at a higher level in the organisation.    Don’t forget to work on your job as well as in your job.If you have ever cut down a big tree or cut up fallen branches with an axe, you notice it doesn’t take much for the axe blade to become dull and for the cutting to become more a bludgeoning, rather than cutting exercise.  It is the same with our way of working.  Being constantly busy in the business is just cutting and slowly seeping into bludgeoning.  We need to sharpen the axe to keep the blade keen and we need to spend time in Quadrant Two of time management – “Not Urgent But Important”.  That means time for studying about leading, spending thinking time about the business, planning and strategizing.  In 2020, schedule appointments with yourself and protect the integrity of those slots, in the same way you would protect that time if it was for a client.     Delegate your work to your subordinates. This is a double whammy exercise because it builds capability in your future leader bench and gives you Quadrant Two time. When people are being considered for promotion, those higher in the food chain want to know they will have a safe pairs of hands at the wheel.  They are looking for people with experience at that level, except how do you get that required experience, if you are busily working away at the level below?  The answer is delegation.  By delegating tasks to your successor group, they can speak about their experiences of doing their bosses job, when they are being interviewed for the post.  When you sell it like this, your subordinates will welcome the chance, instead of being sullen and resentful about having to do the boss’s job.     Keep harping on about the WHY, long after you are sick of hearing about it.We tell people why we are doing what we are doing and that is that, or so we think.  People just don’t get it, believe it, follow it, absorb it, integrate it or develop upon it from just one hearing.  As the leader you need to build a culture where the WHY is front and center of the decisions being taken, the strategies being formed and the execution piece of how we do the business.  You will get sick of hearing about it, but keep making reference to it.  You need to drive it into people’s work habits and the fabric of their thinking about their tasks.  One telling won’t cut it.    The new year is a fresh chance for some fresh thinking.  Break free of the mental bonds we have enveloped ourselves in over the last few years.  Let’s spend some time determining just what we want and how we are going to get there.  Bring your “A” Game to 2020 and life as a leader will get a lot better.

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. <ol> <li>Understand the difference between being a leader and a manager.A manager makes sure all of the processes are working correctly.  Things get done on time, on budget, without error and with maximum efficiency.  The leader does all of that, plus they invoke passion around the WHY, set the direction for the team and build the people.  We can be very busy with the process and forget about building the people. </li> </ol> If we have no one to do our job, then we have nowhere to move to up IN the hierarchy.  The big bosses will keep us where we are because they can’t replace us.  Don’t worry about creating people who can take your job.  We want that because if you become known as a builder of champions, then the organisation will give you more scope to build other champions, at a higher level in the organisation. <ol> <li>Don’t forget to work on your job as well as in your job.If you have ever cut down a big tree or cut up fallen branches with an axe, you notice it doesn’t take much for the axe blade to become dull and for the cutting to become more a bludgeoning, rather than cutting exercise.  It is the same with our way of working.  Being constantly busy in the business is just cutting and slowly seeping into bludgeoning.  We need to sharpen the axe to keep the blade keen and we need to spend time in Quadrant Two of time management – “Not Urgent But Important”.  That means time for studying about leading, spending thinking time about the business, planning and strategizing.  In 2020, schedule appointments with yourself and protect the integrity of those slots, in the same way you would protect that time if it was for a client.</li> </ol> <ol> <li>Delegate your work to your subordinates. This is a double whammy exercise because it builds capability in your future leader bench and gives you Quadrant Two time. When people are being considered for promotion, those higher in the food chain want to know they will have a safe pairs of hands at the wheel.  They are looking for people with experience at that level, except how do you get that required experience, if you are busily working away at the level below?  The answer is delegation.  By delegating tasks to your successor group, they can speak about their experiences of doing their bosses job, when they are being interviewed for the post.  When you sell it like this, your subordinates will welcome the chance, instead of being sullen and resentful about having to do the boss’s job.</li> </ol> <ol> <li>Keep harping on about the WHY, long after you are sick of hearing about it.We tell people why we are doing what we are doing and that is that, or so we think.  People just don’t get it, believe it, follow it, absorb it, integrate it or develop upon it from just one hearing.  As the leader you need to build a culture where the WHY is front and center of the decisions being taken, the strategies being formed and the execution piece of how we do the business.  You will get sick of hearing about it, but keep making reference to it.  You need to drive it into people’s work habits and the fabric of their thinking about their tasks.  One telling won’t cut it.</li> </ol> The new year is a fresh chance for some fresh thinking.  Break free of the mental bonds we have enveloped ourselves in over the last few years.  Let’s spend some time determining just what we want and how we are going to get there.  Bring your “A” Game to 2020 and life as a leader will get a lot better.

338: Leading An Intentional Leader Life In 2020

Getting Staff Engagement When Doing Business In Japan   According to our global research, there are three critical issues that determine the level of engagement and one key trigger point to getting engagement.  This research was duplicated here and japan and showed the same trends. The relationship between the staff member and their supervisor or boss is an obvious make or break point for getting high levels of engagement. What is your relationship with the team?    Often we are promoted on the basis of our ability, our smarts and then we find we are leading people who are not like us.  We think that being smart is enough but actually our EQ or Emotional Quotient is much more important than our IQ when it comes to leading and engaging the team. When we start a new business there is so much pressure and we are so time poor, we often forget about the impact we have on the people around us.  We forget to thank them, to encourage them, to coach them.   As the old saying goes, we don't leave companies, we leave bosses.  Now in many cases they don't actually leave, they stay put but they are not fully engaged.  They are there to collect their pay and do the minimum possible to stay out of trouble.    The second key point is the level of trust on the part of the troops with the direction for the company being taken by senior management.  The degree to which the people at the bottom believe the people at the top, know what they are doing has a strong influence on engagement.  This sounds simple but often the internal communication mechanism from those at the top, to those at the bottom are not working well.    When people don't know the WHY it is hard for them to sign on for the journey.  We may think we have fully explained the vision and mission and the troops get it.  This is rarely the case.  We have to keep hammering those key messages over and over again because people do not get it from one telling.  Middle Management should be reinforcing the key messages from the top but often they are not doing that.    They are soaking up all the information but they are not passing it on.  The people at the bottom do not have a clear idea of the rationale for decisions or direction changes, because no one has sufficiently explained it to them. The other aspect was pride in the company.  When you work for a brand name or a big powerful company, it is easier to feel pride in what you are doing.  But for small medium enterprises, we have to work hard to create that pride.   Battles between internal silos is a factor of modern corporate life.  This is directing energy and focus away from the rivals out there in the market.  The silo leaders complain about other parts of the organisation and this doesn't help to build a strong sense of engagement within the organisation.  This is a weakness in the leadership because they don’t know how to engage the team from a holistic point of view.  I had a case of a client where their key opponent in the market had been disorganised and wasn't much of a rival, but they were changing, they were improving, they were on the way to becoming a strong rival. This is perfect.  You can unite the team against those rivals, galvanise people’s energy and attention. Have the offsite, the dinners, the after work drinks - anything that will help bond people on the inside against the enemy on the outside.   The trigger point to engagement was feeling valued.  Everyone is working away in their role but do they understand where they fit into the big picture.  Where their little job makes a difference, where they make a difference.  For a lot of admin jobs it is hard to feel anything you are doing means anything.  We have to have those conversations where we reassure everyone that what they are doing is important and that they are important.  One of the issues is we forget to tell them because we think either they know already or they don't need to know.  They should be able to work it out for themselves.   Well they can't and they need to have their importance, their value to the organisation constantly reinforced thru the communication skills of the leader.  In a time poor world we can find ourselves moving from one meeting to another and shooting out orders in the interval.  This is not going to engage anyone and where is the feeling valued part? You might think you are doing  this but you may be fooling yourself.  You can do a quick self audit and confirm how much of your time is spent communicating to the troops that they are valued in this organisation.

Getting Staff Engagement When Doing Business In Japan According to our global research, there are three critical issues that determine the level of engagement and one key trigger point to getting engagement.  This research was duplicated here and japan and showed the same trends. The relationship between the staff member and their supervisor or boss is an obvious make or break point for getting high levels of engagement. What is your relationship with the team?  Often we are promoted on the basis of our ability, our smarts and then we find we are leading people who are not like us.  We think that being smart is enough but actually our EQ or Emotional Quotient is much more important than our IQ when it comes to leading and engaging the team. When we start a new business there is so much pressure and we are so time poor, we often forget about the impact we have on the people around us.  We forget to thank them, to encourage them, to coach them. As the old saying goes, we don't leave companies, we leave bosses.  Now in many cases they don't actually leave, they stay put but they are not fully engaged.  They are there to collect their pay and do the minimum possible to stay out of trouble.  The second key point is the level of trust on the part of the troops with the direction for the company being taken by senior management.  The degree to which the people at the bottom believe the people at the top, know what they are doing has a strong influence on engagement.  This sounds simple but often the internal communication mechanism from those at the top, to those at the bottom are not working well.  When people don't know the WHY it is hard for them to sign on for the journey.  We may think we have fully explained the vision and mission and the troops get it.  This is rarely the case.  We have to keep hammering those key messages over and over again because people do not get it from one telling.  Middle Management should be reinforcing the key messages from the top but often they are not doing that.  They are soaking up all the information but they are not passing it on.  The people at the bottom do not have a clear idea of the rationale for decisions or direction changes, because no one has sufficiently explained it to them. The other aspect was pride in the company.  When you work for a brand name or a big powerful company, it is easier to feel pride in what you are doing.  But for small medium enterprises, we have to work hard to create that pride. Battles between internal silos is a factor of modern corporate life.  This is directing energy and focus away from the rivals out there in the market.  The silo leaders complain about other parts of the organisation and this doesn't help to build a strong sense of engagement within the organisation.  This is a weakness in the leadership because they don’t know how to engage the team from a holistic point of view.  I had a case of a client where their key opponent in the market had been disorganised and wasn't much of a rival, but they were changing, they were improving, they were on the way to becoming a strong rival. This is perfect.  You can unite the team against those rivals, galvanise people’s energy and attention. Have the offsite, the dinners, the after work drinks - anything that will help bond people on the inside against the enemy on the outside. The trigger point to engagement was feeling valued.  Everyone is working away in their role but do they understand where they fit into the big picture.  Where their little job makes a difference, where they make a difference.  For a lot of admin jobs it is hard to feel anything you are doing means anything.  We have to have those conversations where we reassure everyone that what they are doing is important and that they are important.  One of the issues is we forget to tell them because we think either they know already or they don't need to know.  They should be able to work it out for themselves. Well they can't and they need to have their importance, their value to the organisation constantly reinforced thru the communication skills of the leader.  In a time poor world we can find ourselves moving from one meeting to another and shooting out orders in the interval.  This is not going to engage anyone and where is the feeling valued part? You might think you are doing  this but you may be fooling yourself.  You can do a quick self audit and confirm how much of your time is spent communicating to the troops that they are valued in this organisation.

256: Getting Staff Engagement When Doing Business In Japan

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 her what happens when you directly criticise people.  They either puff up their chests like a barnyard rooster and fight or they slink off with their tail between their legs, like a beaten dog, giving up entirely.  Maybe in the good old days of a high unemployment rates and young graduates hitting the workforce like machines, you could get away with this type of leadership.    We have 1.6 jobs for everyone looking, unemployment is at all time lows and the numbers of young people in the 15-34 age bracket has halved over the last twenty years. We are running out of demographic margin to find enough people for our companies.  In addition to that, we have to be really clever about the retain part, because it is going to take ages and cost a bomb to replace people who up and leave.  So idiot managers yelling at people isn’t going to work anymore.   Those who make mistakes or are underperforming generally know this and either try to justify their position or just see a collapse in confidence.  Given we can’t just fire people willy-nilly, we need to be in the restore people business.  If we criticize, they throw up defensive positions and these people don’t take accountability or responsibility.   We need to see the person as a whole – they do some things well and other things not so well.  It is typical for the boss however to become a fault finder, rather than a good finder.  The boss is always in fix mode, so when something is broken they fix it and their biggest fear is something is broken, but they don’t know about it.  They are constantly scanning for bad performance.   We should see what the person is doing well and recognize that.  Praise the things they are competent it.  For the things they are not doing well, we can refer to these indirectly.  Why not directly?  Why not tell it like it is baby and get it all out on the table?  If we want the person to accept responsibility and fix it, we need their cooperation.  So praise first, then we might call attention to their mistakes indirectly.  We might ask them how they think we could fix this issue.  For example, maybe they are not meeting their sales targets.  Telling them they are not selling enough is not new information for them, they already know what.  We can ask though, “The team will miss their target for this quarter.  What can you do to help the team make the target?”.  They have missed their target, they know it and now they are being invited to talk about what they can do in their area of responsibility, to get the numbers back up.  It is the same message as, “hey stupid, you missed your target, what are you going to do about it?”, but without the resistance which arises to looking at alternatives and solutions.  We get on the forward momentum train and look to what can be done.  We want them to own the solution, because they are more likely to execute on those ideas.   We might talk about our own mistakes before we draw attention to them.  This provides an entirely different context to the discussion. The boss has admitted that they are not perfect and that they understand that things go wrong, but intimate it is possible to recover from mistakes.  We let them save face and we tell them we are sure they can fix the problem. We are giving them support in that we believe they can recover from this and we will help them.  For those people who collapse into depression and lose their self belief, this is important to rebuild them and send them back out there in the firing line to make it work the next time.   Yelling at people may make the boss feel good, but it is not helping the business.  We cannot operate as if demographic exigencies don’t exist. We need to keep people and make them productive and that requires a different skill set as a leader.  The EQ or Emotional Quotient is certainly the key. Bosses who lack this understanding will pay a weighty price of lack of staff. In fact they will be losing staff continuously and the business will see competitors thriving as they wither in the vine.

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 her what happens when you directly criticise people.  They either puff up their chests like a barnyard rooster and fight or they slink off with their tail between their legs, like a beaten dog, giving up entirely.  Maybe in the good old days of a high unemployment rates and young graduates hitting the workforce like machines, you could get away with this type of leadership.  We have 1.6 jobs for everyone looking, unemployment is at all time lows and the numbers of young people in the 15-34 age bracket has halved over the last twenty years. We are running out of demographic margin to find enough people for our companies.  In addition to that, we have to be really clever about the retain part, because it is going to take ages and cost a bomb to replace people who up and leave.  So idiot managers yelling at people isn’t going to work anymore. Those who make mistakes or are underperforming generally know this and either try to justify their position or just see a collapse in confidence.  Given we can’t just fire people willy-nilly, we need to be in the restore people business.  If we criticize, they throw up defensive positions and these people don’t take accountability or responsibility. We need to see the person as a whole – they do some things well and other things not so well.  It is typical for the boss however to become a fault finder, rather than a good finder.  The boss is always in fix mode, so when something is broken they fix it and their biggest fear is something is broken, but they don’t know about it.  They are constantly scanning for bad performance. We should see what the person is doing well and recognize that.  Praise the things they are competent it.  For the things they are not doing well, we can refer to these indirectly.  Why not directly?  Why not tell it like it is baby and get it all out on the table?  If we want the person to accept responsibility and fix it, we need their cooperation.  So praise first, then we might call attention to their mistakes indirectly.  We might ask them how they think we could fix this issue.  For example, maybe they are not meeting their sales targets.  Telling them they are not selling enough is not new information for them, they already know what.  We can ask though, “The team will miss their target for this quarter.  What can you do to help the team make the target?”.  They have missed their target, they know it and now they are being invited to talk about what they can do in their area of responsibility, to get the numbers back up.  It is the same message as, “hey stupid, you missed your target, what are you going to do about it?”, but without the resistance which arises to looking at alternatives and solutions.  We get on the forward momentum train and look to what can be done.  We want them to own the solution, because they are more likely to execute on those ideas. We might talk about our own mistakes before we draw attention to them.  This provides an entirely different context to the discussion. The boss has admitted that they are not perfect and that they understand that things go wrong, but intimate it is possible to recover from mistakes.  We let them save face and we tell them we are sure they can fix the problem. We are giving them support in that we believe they can recover from this and we will help them.  For those people who collapse into depression and lose their self belief, this is important to rebuild them and send them back out there in the firing line to make it work the next time. Yelling at people may make the boss feel good, but it is not helping the business.  We cannot operate as if demographic exigencies don’t exist. We need to keep people and make them productive and that requires a different skill set as a leader.  The EQ or Emotional Quotient is certainly the key. Bosses who lack this understanding will pay a weighty price of lack of staff. In fact they will be losing staff continuously and the business will see competitors thriving as they wither in the vine.

300: You Have To Chastise People, Right?

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 plans are not just country-based, they are global. While it may not be a fantastic analogy, chopping the tree down from the top takes a long time. If you wedge things in the tree all the way up, the tree will fall the way you want it to fall. The unwillingness to change in Japan is strong. We have long had an innovations/idea box and you can put your name on it or not, but we would offer prizes and that encouraged people to put their names on it. But then we received feedback that the idea then became the responsibility of the person who suggested it, and yet often it was not even about their own division. So we created a business development department that reported directly to the CEO, and they can then tackle any strategic ideas that need to be implemented cross-functionally. It was a great tool to get ideas out of heads and onto paper and then to receive quick feedback on that idea by a specialist department who was responsible for it. Employee meetings are held quarterly and they are mandatory to the extent I myself would walk the floor to see who was not in attendance. There would be various presentations but it was designed as a forum for communicating what needed to be communicated. I used to have a pizza lunch every 3 weeks with the newcomers where they would have to answer 5 questions and I would have to answer the same 5 questions honestly. It helped build trust and exposure. My door was always open. I would meet with anyone and everyone. Sharing personal stuff really helps brighten engagement. I do it because it is just me and how I am but especially in Japan, I realized it was seen as a really big deal. My view is you do not need to be a rock or some kind of impenetrable individual. You are a human, you have a family, you have a dog, you have issues, so its okay to relate to people and have them relate to you. You should not stop a weekend activity you have been enjoying for decades just because you are the CEO or whatever. I think it is important to be careful what you wish for because changing things that are inherent to a culture, even if they sometimes cause frustration, would fundamentally change the country. Manage the business with the environment you have. Use it to your advantage. Do not be brainwashed by some of the things you have been told about Japan either by foreigners who are new to the country or who have been there a long time. There are as many challenges in Japan as they are in any other countries. Focus on the good and where there are growth opportunities. Yes, it can be a flat market in general but pick your battles and look for areas you can innovate in. You need to think and you need to ask for help. Consultants can often give you insights into the market from a bigger picture and help you develop those plans, as well as point out where you can hit to grow your business, grow your career and grow your family. So be open-minded, draw your own conclusions and enjoy the ride. 

Paul Hardisty <ul> <li>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.</li> <li>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.</li> <li>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 plans are not just country-based, they are global.</li> <li>While it may not be a fantastic analogy, chopping the tree down from the top takes a long time. If you wedge things in the tree all the way up, the tree will fall the way you want it to fall.</li> <li>The unwillingness to change in Japan is strong. We have long had an innovations/idea box and you can put your name on it or not, but we would offer prizes and that encouraged people to put their names on it. But then we received feedback that the idea then became the responsibility of the person who suggested it, and yet often it was not even about their own division. So we created a business development department that reported directly to the CEO, and they can then tackle any strategic ideas that need to be implemented cross-functionally. It was a great tool to get ideas out of heads and onto paper and then to receive quick feedback on that idea by a specialist department who was responsible for it.</li> <li>Employee meetings are held quarterly and they are mandatory to the extent I myself would walk the floor to see who was not in attendance. There would be various presentations but it was designed as a forum for communicating what needed to be communicated.</li> <li>I used to have a pizza lunch every 3 weeks with the newcomers where they would have to answer 5 questions and I would have to answer the same 5 questions honestly. It helped build trust and exposure. My door was always open. I would meet with anyone and everyone.</li> <li>Sharing personal stuff really helps brighten engagement. I do it because it is just me and how I am but especially in Japan, I realized it was seen as a really big deal. My view is you do not need to be a rock or some kind of impenetrable individual. You are a human, you have a family, you have a dog, you have issues, so its okay to relate to people and have them relate to you. You should not stop a weekend activity you have been enjoying for decades just because you are the CEO or whatever.</li> <li>I think it is important to be careful what you wish for because changing things that are inherent to a culture, even if they sometimes cause frustration, would fundamentally change the country. Manage the business with the environment you have. Use it to your advantage.</li> <li>Do not be brainwashed by some of the things you have been told about Japan either by foreigners who are new to the country or who have been there a long time. There are as many challenges in Japan as they are in any other countries. Focus on the good and where there are growth opportunities. Yes, it can be a flat market in general but pick your battles and look for areas you can innovate in. You need to think and you need to ask for help. Consultants can often give you insights into the market from a bigger picture and help you develop those plans, as well as point out where you can hit to grow your business, grow your career and grow your family. So be open-minded, draw your own conclusions and enjoy the ride.</li> </ul>

343: Be An Authentic, Vulnerable Leader To Draw People To You

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