The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Today's podcast was recorded at a live session in Nagoya for the American Chamber Chubu Branch.     Whether we realise it or not we are all in sales.  Remarkably, the vast majority of people in sales are untrained and certainly very few understand the importance of asking questions.   Even amongst those who get it and do try to understand the client's needs, probably very few understand that they need to vary the language they are using, depending on who they are talking to.   In this podcast, we explore these issues and explain how we need to ask good questions and also how to vary the way we ask them, to ensure we are having the maximum impact possible with our clients.

Japan Is A Marathon Not A Sprint   There are specific work rhythms for Japan.  Spring is hopeless because of kafunsho (allergies) killing our concentration.  May is no good because of gogatusbyo (May miasma). Everyone is adjusting to the start of the new financial year in April and many are struggling with their new environments and situations.    Also, after the Golden Week break, people are exhausted from the crowded travel and from all the family activities which take place during that time. Summer is also bad because the heat makes us feel drowsy (natsubate).    Of course we also have tsuyubyo or summer sickness thanks to the endless rain, high humidity and associated joint pain. The Obon season is no better because you have to travel back to your hometown to worship at the ancestor’s grave and the roads are clogged and the railways packed.  Recently, we have added a new one - akibate or Autumn drowsiness - to our woes.  Those long dark days of winter are seriously depressing and the bitter cold seeps i

Hey Boss, Your Nightmare Begins Now!   Here is a collection of indicators that should send a shiver down the spine of all employers in Japan.  The average job securement rate of graduating University students in April 2015 was 97%.  Also keep in mind that this is already a relatively small pool of higher education talent, from which we want to recruit.  In 2013, figures showed that only 50% of High School Graduates went to University compared to an OECD average of 62%. There is no major change in the offing though, because currently 99% of High school graduates found a job upon graduation.    Official numbers also tell us that over the last 20 years, the number of 15 to 24 year olds has halved.  From another angle, the number of Japanese turning 20 was 2.76 million in 1976 and in 2015 it is 1.26 million.  So youth recruitment demand is likely to outstrip supply, forever!   They are just not making enough future workers here.  The required birthrate for stopping population decline is 2.1 but currently Japan is

Hussle Hassle   Is speed expensive?  Pushing ourselves is getting crazier.  Constant hussling can lead to large and small errors of judgment.  We get so caught up in living 24/7 lifestyles that we start missing big pieces of the success puzzle.  People are the key to most businesses, but look at how we treat them.  We push past them to get into the subway car or we block the train exit corridor, because we are transfixed by a tiny screen.  We cut drivers off in traffic to get a 10 second edge.  We try to barge into elevators before the inhabitants have all moved out.  We hit the panic button on a piece of work and make everyone jump through hoops to make sure the deadline is met.  We either end the sentence for the person we are speaking with or we cut them off and lunge in with our own preferred words and ideas.   Doing more, faster with less, we are constantly hustling to gain time.  The process becomes addictive.  The unrelenting daily email tsunami pushes us to gain extra time - all the time.  You would n

Chinese Tourist Tsunami Stress   You know you have adjusted to Japan when you get totally annoyed by visiting Chinese tourist’s behavior.  This is the latest incarnation of the 1950s “Ugly American” and the bubble era “Ugly Japanese” phenomenon.  Remember all of those provincial Japanese tourists roaming the planet in the late 1980s? The nouveau riche Chinese are now spreading around the globe, busily devouring the sights, sounds and tastes of different worlds.  The OECD calculated there were 157 million middle class Chinese in 2009.  They expect this number will grow to over 1 billion in 15 years time.  Multiply the numbers of Chinese tourists visiting Japan by at least a factor of six and we will “live in interesting times”.    Shop entry points are favourite gathering spots for multitudes of wheeled luggage bearing continental tourists, especially when it is raining.  On nicer days, sprawling out on the sidewalk in front of gorgeous Ginza boutiques seems natural when you are so tired from all that vigorou

Leadership Soft Power   Harvard Professor Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power” to describe how nations can achieve their aims through persuasion and the ability to attract.  Our world bristles with nukes.  Testosterone fueled fighter pilots duel at supersonic speeds over rocky outcrop flashpoints.  Drones have 007 licenses to kill and volatile dictators strut, posture and provoke. Hmm…having a soft power alternative to World War Three sounds attractive.    Closer to home, can soft power in our businesses achieve persuasion and attract cooperation?  There are plenty of testosterone fueled dogfights going on in the C-suites amongst colleagues and between Divisions.  Corporate leaders strut and posture, while middle managers whip the troops to do more, faster with less.  Power, status, authority, rules, regulations, contracts etc., keep people in line, but none of this engages them.  Time for some fresh thinking!   Here are four soft power plays that persuade and attract the team to outperform the competitio

Why Your Boss is Difficult   Are you the engagement survey assassin carving up your boss or are you the victim having to explain to senior management why your team’s scores are so dismal?  Naturally, the very top bosses rarely ever get surveyed, so they can be totally bolshie about your low scores.  Research informs us that Japan is a bastion of bad feelings and unhappiness, leading the world in low scores.  Even taking out the “Japan bias” of conservative scoring, the results here are still pretty miserable.  We also know from the research that the biggest factor in lack of team engagement with the ideals, direction and aspirations of the organization is the lousy relationship staff have with their boss.    Good communication skills are often in short supply with bosses and this leads to unhappiness.  It is not that bosses can’t talk, in fact often they talk and talk and talk.  It is the way they speak and the thinking behind the words that are inflaming their subordinates.  Bosses can be limited by their o

Modern Sports Coaching For Business Leaders   The classic half-time locker room Churchillian oratory from the coach, whipping the team into a frenzy for the coming onslaught is now gathering dust in Hollywood’s archives.  Today’s most successful coaches are masters of human psychology, combining insight with superb communication skills.  What about leaders in business?  Conferences, off-sites, retreats are supplying substantial income for sports coaches, as they induct business folk into the mysteries of motivation.  Everyone heads back to work feeling fired up, but they often fail to adopt what they have been told, because they were not clear on how to do it.    I originally came to Japan in 1979 to study karate, have competed internationally and have been a national coach for Australia representing my country.  In my experience, the Japanese model of sports leadership is antiquated, excelling in only one area - “gaman” (perseverance).  The Japanese really know how to gaman.  They do love technology, so lot

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys   This Polish proverb made me smile.  A handy phrase for whenever the needle on the “ridiculous meter” is hitting red and overloading.  While it serves as a great smarty-pants one-liner, it actually invites some reflection on the difficulty of getting people and teams to work together.  Another great zinger is the “not invented here” attitude of disinterest, when you are trying to introduce change into organisations.  Reflecting on working in small project teams, big divisions, across divisions, and ultimately across industry sectors, this “not my circus” disclaimer pops up all the time.  It is funny, but painful.   Japan throws up a number of challenges around getting cooperation or innovation when it is not that person’s “circus”, not their direct responsibility.  The social ramifications of failing or making a mistake in Japan are such that people have become geniuses at micro-defining their roles and responsibilities.    A hoary old tradition of “tough love” Japanese bosses

 Market Yourself In One Minute   Meeting new business contacts, expanding personal networks, promoting a reliable, trustworthy “Brand You” are the basics of business.  By the way, even if our job title doesn’t explicitly mention “sales and marketing” we are all in sales and marketing.  In modern commerce, even professionals in non-traditional sales roles like accountants, lawyers, dentists, engineers, architects, analysts, consultants all need to pitch their expertise to get new clients.  We try to influence a decision – buy my widget, fund this project, open a new market or even where shall we go for lunch, are all sales and marketing efforts to get others to follow our ideas.   First impressions are so critical.  When I ask my participants during sales training, how long does it take to form an impression of someone, the range of answers is usually between 2 and 5 seconds.  Think about that - we are so quick to judgment, we are shockers!  An opinion is formed immediately and it takes quite a bit of effort t

Mad Terrorists and Middle Managers   “They are looking for a place where they are highly valued, feel they are needed, and are praised for being useful to others”.  Professor of Social Psychology at Rissho University in Tokyo, Kimiaki Nishida was quoted in the local media commenting on why young people join terrorist groups like Aum Shinrikyo or the Islamic State.  I was struck by the similarities to the problems confronting Middle Managers in Japan dealing with Millennials.    Japan is facing a crisis with succession planning.   This is driven by a demographic pivot where the number of young people entering the workforce will decline faster than demand for their services. The social and political debate about immigration to curb this demographic spiral downwards hasn’t even begun yet.  Anti-Korean groups paraded through areas in Tokyo and Osaka, populated with a high concentration of Koreans, promulgating hate-speech and screaming for these Koreans, mostly second, third and fourth generation locals to leave

How To Command Unruly, Alcohol Fueled Crowds   The Master of Ceremony (MC) goes to the microphone to get the programme underway but the audience are simply oblivious, caught up in their own riveting conversations.  The situation is much worse at receptions where alcohol is already flowing and the people down the back are generating a roar, a positive din, that drowns out the speakers.  Apart from bona fide members of Imperial Families, everyone is fair game in the “let’s ignore the speaker” stakes.  Cabinet Ministers, eminent speakers, famous personalities all struggle to get the attention of the crowd.  When it is our turn, what can we humble beings do about this?   Here are some ideas that will shut down the noisy rabble and provide a proper platform for the speaker to be heard.    Make sure to turn off the background music well before you are ready to start.  Surprisingly, this is often forgotten by the organisers.  Speakers should not try to compete with irritating white noise in the background, so check

How Do You Make People Feel?   We are all pretty average on recalling events, people’s names, locations, sequences, etc., but we are geniuses on remembering feelings.  We are especially good on how people made us feel.  Stop, recall, reflect - how do you make others feel?  Are you a master of the snappy remark, a character assassin brilliantly wielding the sharp put down, a notorious one-upper, a sarcastic sadist?  Or are you a builder of friendships, confidences, trust, regard, cooperation, fans and followers?   Business is deemed to be logical – cool, balanced, unswerving on the road to greater efficiencies.  Ironically, we are such emotional beings trying to be detached, but we are usually not very good at it though.  Dale Carnegie noted, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic , but creatures of emotion”.  We forget this advice at our peril.  Ever find yourself still chewing over some ancient injustice?  The precise details may grow dim in the mists of time but the

Self Sourcing Confidence  Are you confident?  If the answer is “no”, then how can you become more confident?  If the answer is “yes”, does that extend to areas where you lack existing expertise and experience?  Generally speaking, we are all confident while operating within our Comfort Zone. The tried and true activities are reinforced over and over.  The only problem with this construct is we are limiting ourselves to what we already know and can do.  The growth areas are always located outside our Comfort Zone, but venturing forth is a scary prospect.  How do we either gain confidence in the first place or how do we extend the scope of our confidence? The work environment has a huge impact on how we grow our confidence.  If we work with or for people who are supportive, we can try, fail and grow.  If our boss or teammates deride us for making mistakes, we learn to avoid doing anything new.  If we offer up an idea or suggestion and are met with rebuke, derision, sarcasm or mock, we learn very quickly to neve

Business Five Step Storytelling     Best intentions, higher callings, righteousness – all good stuff but without good communication, our efforts fail.  Instinctively, we all know storytelling is a great communication tool, but the word itself is a problem.  We associate it with bedtime stories and therefore the idea sounds a bit childish.  In the modern era, Hollywood talks about the arc of the story or in politics, the media punishes the lack of narrative.  Actually, this is storytelling just dressed up in more formal attire.   The other problem with storytelling is that we are not very good at it.  It seems too simple, so we gravitate to more complex solutions – frameworks, theories, models, four box quadrants, pyramids, Venn diagrams – anything to appear more convoluted and pseudo-intelligent.  If we present something complex, we must be smart.  On the other hand, anyone can tell a story.  Ah…but can they?    How many really good business stories have you heard lately?  Have you been captured by the speak

Hard Impact Soft Skills     Dale Carnegie Training conducted a global survey to examine what are the key people issues organisations are facing.  The research identified three common macro trend areas: Leadership Development, Succession Planning and Employee Engagement.  The results proved to be consistent across organisations, regardless of size, geography or industry.   Leadership Development ideas have been overtaken by the democratisation of innovation through the internet.  Leaders no longer have a clear monopoly on information, so where to locate their authority to lead?  Dealing with a blended workforce, consisting of four generations, is a new challenge for leaders.   The concept of “only leaders lead” is being challenged by new business demands, where all must lead, regardless of status or operational level within the organisation.  Consequently, there is more demand for staff  to develop personal leadership skills, set and manage goals, control emotions, increase productivity and improve internal an

Mysterious Millennials   Japan is entering a scary world of work.  The tried and true assimilation methods of the past, for injecting youth talent into firms, are starting to falter.  Every generation feels a gap with its successor, but the size of the impending chasm in Japan is generating fresh challenges.    The bankruptcy of Yamaichi Securities in 1997 put loyal staff on the street.  This was a postwar watershed in the company-staff contract.  Shocking at the time, it was followed by something much worse - the Lehman Shock starting in 2008.  The expected compact of lifetime employment security, in return for total devotion, was now revealed to be a mirage.    Millennials, defined as those becoming adults around 2000, are the first generation to collide with two major trends: being fired when your company “right sizes” and a youth population decline.  The end of the old order has created skepticism among young people about the relevancy of their parent’s experiences to their own employment reality.  The

Interview with Mr. Yuichiro Ishihara, Director of Training for Dale Carnegie Training Japan

A Wet or Dry Sayonara?   In most Western economies, a colleague’s farewell is no big deal, just a part of the tapestry of business.  If there is some turnover and the recently departed are being replaced, then that is considered the natural order and life moves on.  Darwin explained it all a long time ago.  Managers applying a typical Western business approach to departures in Japan however, may skip the need to communicate with those left behind.  Underestimating the emotional component of colleague separations here is a big mistake.   Most Western enterprises are “Dry” rather than “Wet” ecosystems.  Dry meaning logical, ordered, efficient, unemotional, competitive and oriented around the survival of the fittest.  Wet on the other hand is more emotional, nuanced, interdependent, harmonious, inefficient and more forgiving of human frailties.  After living here for nearly thirty years, carefully observing the differences with my native Australia, I would proffer the unremarkable conclusion that Japan much pref

BE, DO, GET   As professionals how do we grow in our business careers?  Academic studies usually form the platform to which we add: on the job experience; books, articles, blogs and websites; mentors showing us the short cuts; cleverer colleagues providing insights and continuing professional development through training.  One of the issues with the training component is the effectiveness of what is being offered.  The classic brand name University residencies for executives are limited to the chosen few.  What about the majority of our teams – how can we get liftoff across the whole organisation?   In-house training, either delivered internally or externally and attendance at publically offered training, as well as on-line training, are the main provenance of corporate skill building.  On-line training is relatively inexpensive, easily accessible and in most cases rather passive in its approach.  The completion rates for this format are also extremely low, at around 10%, for self-directed learning.   Classro