The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

There is a lot of focus on conscious and unconscious biases at the moment given the  amount of attention being directed at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  In Japan’s case, for  the most part, this is a discussion  about gender and to some extent age.  The leader however faces other challenges, apart from addressing these topical subjects.  We are all witnessing major changes in the workforce driven by Covid.  Many companies have staff continually working from home or are executing a dual shift approach where half the crew take turns attending on specific days.  Leading a remote team is not how we leaders were trained, so there is a lot of gritting of teeth going on.   Leaders are smart enough not to be voicing their preferences for everyone back in the office, under the careful gaze of the supervisors.  The hesitancy is fairly simple – staff retention.  If you are forcing people to work in the office, they may just quit and go to your competitor, who has a more flexible leadership approach and doesn’t deman

When things are humming along beautifully, leading is a snap.  We can even indulge ourselves in some tangential activities because we have been able to remove our nose from the grindstone.  We join a committee in a Chamber of Commerce or a non-profit. We have a spring in our step and effuse confidence and certainty.  Our energy is electric and we infect everyone with our bonhomie.  When the plan has been set and then things don’t go accordingly, we feel we are under assault from waves of challenge after challenge.  We have to be brutal thespians wringing out the maximum leverage possible to mask our despair.  Our team take their direction from us and if we go into a hole of depression, then they will be leaping into that same hole, like lemmings following the leader into oblivion.   We ride the razor edge of concern about the lack of results and the need to maintain our optimism that this ship will right itself and not go down.  If we were emotionally stable all of the time, this may be doable, but we are cre

Being fair to everyone in the team is one of the most basic elements of leadership.  It builds leader trust, predictability and reliability.  But are we actually always being fair?  Sometimes our own team members try to draw us off the fairness straight and narrow path.  There are those who want to play politics.  No matter how large or small the organisation politics will raise its ugly head at some point.  Obviously the bigger the company the more opportunity for political infighting.  In my observation, those not kept sufficiently busy have the band width to politic inside the firm.  Busy people, working hard and super focused on results don’t go for that option, because they are razor intent on producing results.  I like those sort of people and I hate corporate politicians.    As the boss, we are often oblivious to the underground politics going on inside our companies.  We are like those busy people focused on results just mentioned, so we are working toward results and can miss what is going on around

Some company polices toward remote work are let a hundred flowers bloom, a thousand schools contend.  Others are saying get back in the office right now or leave.  This issue is certainly contentious and there seems to be a preference for Japanese leaders to have their staff under their direct gaze.  What is driving that desire?  Is it that the bosses can’t manage a remote workforce?  Is it that they don’t trust people to do their work under their own accountability?   Is it because they have seen a drop off in productivity?  Or is it because Japan doesn't like too much change and clings to the known, over the unknown?   There are certainly big bucks tied up in real estate costs, especially here in Tokyo.  I can easily imagine companies looking at that expense in their P&L and thinking we could really hack into that cost and use the money somewhere else more productively.  For the first time ever, my landlord didn’t increase my rent at lease agreement renewal time.  They must be really hurting to agree to

I have talked before about the loneliness of the leader.  This is often felt most strongly when facing difficulties.  The entrepreneur, in particular, owns the company, has all of the responsibility on their shoulders and feels the weight of that burden.  I am reminded of the ship’s captains in the age of sail.  They bore the responsibility for the safe delivery of the cargo and passengers to the destination, dealing with bad weather and even worse pirates.  The modern firm captain has the responsibility for the livelihoods of their staff and families.  If we get it wrong we can bankrupt the company or see us taken over by an entity who fires everyone and strips the firm of the goodies.   We face many tribulations of late, especially a global pandemic, the scale of which we haven’t seen since the Spanish Flu in 1918.  I certainly wasn’t around then, so have zero experience or insight into how to deal with the disruptions.  In other words, no smart answers for the challenges being thrown at us.  The years of C

In Part One we looked at Dr. Emily Anhalt research with 100 leaders and 100 psychologists.  She identified seven factors which measure how “fit” we are in this sphere of mental health and we covered the first three: Learn your emotional triggers and biases, understand the emotions of others and find comfort in discomfort.  Today we will continue with the last four points.   Foster a safe space of connection “Psychological safety” as a term has popped up over the last couple of years.  We all need a space where we feel we can be ourselves, where we can relax and let our guard down.  This could be within the family and circle of close friends.  Here is the rub.  Often as leaders we are too busy working to really develop family relationships and deep friendships.    Divorce rates are at about 50% in the West. A lot of this is due to the time being devoted to the work being disproportionate to the time being devoted to those closest to us.  We are constantly sacrificing family and friends for work projects.  I

Dr. Emily Anhalt is an American psychologist who has created a gym for mental health, based on research she did with 100 leaders and 100 psychologists who were treating leaders.  She identified seven factors which measure how “fit” we are in this sphere of mental health.  Does any modern leader believe things are going to ease off and leading will become less stressful and more relaxed?  I certainly don’t.  The problem is many of us grew up in the era of harden up, “soldier on” with strife and troubles, suck it up, grit your teeth and bear it.  That era’s level of technology, speed of business, global matrix connectivity was far removed from the complexity we all face today.  We need to be as fit mentally, as we all strive to become physically.  Let’s take a look at the good Doctor’s suggestions.   Learn your emotional triggers and biases This is familiar territory for me because I teach a course called Disagree Agreeably and this is where we look for what we call “Hot Buttons” or triggers that get the temp

We are all exposed to leadership lessons throughout our lives, yet for most of the time we are unaware of them.  When we were children, we didn’t think about what it meant to be a leader. Adults were all seen as leaders and they seemed to be unassailable authority figures whom we had to obey. In sports, maybe we were selected as the captain of the team or maybe we weren’t, but either way we didn’t think too much about what it meant to be a successful leader. At University we might have taken on a leadership role in one of the varsity clubs, but we weren’t necessarily thinking about the intricacies of leadership.  We just went with what we had at that point.  The exception though were those students who had decided they wanted a life in politics and so they were very keen to exert their leadership muscles to pad out their resume for future requirements.   When we hit the workforce, we entered a hierarchical world of different pay levels and designated leadership positions.  As new entrants, we may have been gi

Covid driving us all to work from home has been good for the commuter.  For Tokyo, many people typically face three hours a day in lost commuting time, standing around in packed train carriages, waiting to get to their office or getting back home.  That three hours is now being spent sleeping, playing with the kids, enjoying hobbies or working.  One of the major dilemmas is what happens after Covid has gone or is contained?  Every public opinion survey you read, says that the troops like working from home and are in no hurry to pack that morning sardine can and truck down to the office.  What does that mean for leaders?   Will there be many days in a year when everyone is back in the office?  Will the office have been sized down to save rent money on the basis that people won’t require desks because they have their home desk instead. If there are only going to be a few days in the year for the whole team to gather, then what happens with their relationships with each other and with the boss?  Some issues are

Leadership encompasses many required skills and mind sets and it is always interesting to dissect the topic from fresh angles to shed some light on areas where we could be making a bigger effort.  Japan has hordes of managers, but no so many leaders.  The managers here are great at getting the operational side of things humming like a finely tuned engine.  They are brilliant on eliminating errors and avoiding defects.  Deadlines get met, things work well and the wheels of commerce turn as they were designed to do.  Leaders do all of these things, plus some important additions.  They build the people and they set the direction for the enterprise.   There are many levels of leadership and so many levels of strategy too.  The CEO nestled high on the Executive Floor works with the Division Heads and collaboratively they set the overall strategy for the organisation.  At each level below, the leaders should set their strategies to fit under the overall umbrella determined by the big bosses.  Except in Japan mostly

All guns blazing the new leader hits the ground running.  They are the new broom, sweeping all the detritus away from the old regime’s reign of terror.  “Embrace me as your saviour”, they say.  Well dressed, even natty, their hair is nice, they look the money.  They are the type of front man the organisation needs and a pleasing contrast to the previous incumbent.  Good looking, articulate, “hail fellow well met” and you think this is looking good.  They take on a much higher profile in the media, because they can carry it off and they can sustain the credibility needed for the public profile they are building.  They say all the right things and they have the right rhetoric for the zeitgeist.  Things are looking good, until they are not.   Covid does terrible things to companies.  It removes portions of the workforce from the front line, so the work isn’t getting done.  It causes the markets to change and the revenues to drop and drop quickly.  The way the leader responds says a lot about who they really are.

Covid-19 cases are skyrocketing every day.  Just when you thought we might be getting somewhere, the latest BA5 variant is spreading like wildfire.  For many businesses this will make no difference, but for many industries like mine, we are watching those numbers like hawks, praying they go down.  Why?  Because our buyers are making decisions not to buy, because of the danger factor of getting the virus.  If buyers reduce or stop buying, the next thing you have to worry about are cash flow prblems.  Can you make the rent and the salary bill every month?  These types of problems are like amoebas – they just keep multiplying.   Any hint of trouble in the business breeds fear in the staff.  Are we going to be okay?  Is this company going down?  Should I be the first rat to jump ship?  If you are not open with the numbers, then you run the risk of supposition, rumours and imaginations in overdrive.  You don’t tell them how bad it is, but they know things are bad and they presume they are actually a lot worse than

Over the last six months we have been getting a steady stream of enquiry for leadership training.  Covid induced working from home situations has revealed the gaps in the leadership abilities of people who are managers.  The two roles are actually different, but usually companies conflate them, to expect their managers to also be leading.  Did they give them any training to make this leap?  No. Yet they complain about their leaders are only managers and are not doing a good enough job.  There have also been cases where people have been elevated into supervisory roles or leadership roles from the ranks. Not only no training, there has been little or no OJT, the On the Job Training, which has been the core of all corporate training in Japan since the start of the post war period.  Onboarding and on the job training have been impacted by Covid because people are working from home.   Managers are focused on processes.  There are various interlocking processes within modern work which require one piece of work to

Things Leaders Should Be Doing   There are tons of things leaders should be doing, so it becomes a bit of a blizzard white out mentally, because we are overwhelmed by the volume.  It is a good thing to isolate out some key ideas and just remind ourselves of their importance.  Here we go.   Focus attention chiefly on results to be achieved rather than things to be done. Everything that is happening should lead to the desired results.  Sounds obvious except when we analyse our diary and look at what we are spending our time on, often we are shocked that so few items are actually directly propelling results.   Plan and organise effectively to achieve these desired results, then coordinate the efforts of everybody concerned with these results to do their best to achieve them. How good are our plans?  Do they need to be updated because the market has changed or circumstances have run over the top of us? Are we still organised properly to achieve the results we have set for ourselves?  Is the balance between in

The P&L, the Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Projections, revenues, profit, the list goes on regarding where we leaders place our attention.  There is nothing like a pandemic to have you focused on the numbers in the business.  It is easy to get caught up in the dynamics of survival and forget some of the subtleties needed to lead an organisation.  These usually revolve around our people and how we treat them and how we think about them.  Like a juggler keeping 5 balls in mid-air rotation or the artist who can keep many, many plates spinning at the same time, we have to be agile and be capable of concentrating on more than one thing at a time.    Here are four things we need to be aware of while we struggle through the day to day.   It is essential to influence others to cooperate toward achieving desired results: the leader only has value in relation to an organisation and the people who constitute it.  Basically, we know this, but often in straited times, our force of will, determination, grit and guts drive

In Part One we covered principles 1-7 and we continue looking at some fundamentals we all know but may have forgotten or may have neglected.   Truly respecting others is the bedrock of motivation. This idea of respecting staff by the boss makes sense except when we realise that 80% of the team, by definition, are either average or low performers. Maybe the boss is frustrated with some performance levels and maybe they are digging the hole deeper for themselves by applying the wrong motivation formula and not communicating to their 80% cohort that they are valued and respected too.   People work for money, but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards. Frederick Herzberg’s research on motivation said that salary was only a “hygiene factor”. In other words, people expect to get paid fairly for their work, so money isn’t everything. Of course, major money does speak loudly to certain people, though most people are not getting paid the astronomic packages we see in the finance industry for example.

We pick up ideas on leadership from multiple sources – books, training, articles, blogs, guidance from mentors and personal observation.  What we usually fail to do is compile them or collect them in one place.  This sporadic approach is also completed over a long time span, so we forget more than we retain.  Here are sixteen principles of leadership which we all know, but which we will benefit from by reminding us of what we have forgotten and by collecting them in one place.   The first step toward success is identifying our own leadership strengths. This is not what we do though is it?  We usually focus on what we are doing poorly.  That is looking into the past. By concentrating on our strengths, we can build on those and keep growing, rather than beating ourselves up about being less than perfect.   Communication is built on trusting relationships. But what builds trust in relationships?  Being fair with staff, vendors and clients is an integral part of this.  Recently we had a case where there was so

Japan was decimated by the Pacific War and really struggled until they had the lucky break called the Korean War.  Suddenly the war required a lot of supplies and more importantly Japan was no longer seen as a pariah, but as a bulwark against communism. America began to pour money into the country to bolster its economic defences and keep it capitalist.  By 1960 things had improved to the point where Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda could make the doubling of the economy a realistic target.  The engine room of this turn around was the hard work of the Japanese people but it came at costs.  Fathers weren’t around because they were working all of the time and so the mothers had to take care of the kids in their absence.    Things have improved a lot since then.  Schools no longer operate on Saturdays and the same for most firms.  Fathers are more able to spend time with their children and more mothers are working too these days.  Karoshi – death from overwork is still a thing in Japan and “black companies” who explo

Internal meetings are held for worthy purposes such as reporting, planning and innovating.  Not everyone views these meetings the same way though and this is where we can face problems when we run meetings in Japan.   Let’s examine 8 sets of typical meeting issues we will be familiar with:   Expressions of desire. The range here runs from one group, who express their desires as a wish, all the way to the other end of the scale, where actual demands are being made.  We may prefer that those who are wishing for outcomes were more assertive and just come out and ask for what they want.  On the other hand, we may feel confronted by aggressive team members who start making demands on us during the meeting.    Winning at all costs or cooperating. Hard driving people get things done, they brook no interference and apply their energy, guile to bulldoze their way through the barriers.  They have tunnel vision, only see their interests and are oblivious to their impact on those around them.  Those at the opposite en

We have been toiling away long and hard, being accountable, going the extra mile, starting early and finishing late to get the numbers and hammering those KPIs.  Then we get promoted to become responsible for others as the team leader.  Usually, we get no formal leadership training for the new role and are left to work it out by ourselves.  How do we keep moving up the ladder of success?  There are a number of things we have to study, in order for this new role to become the catalyst we need to deliver our career aspirations.   Stop Doing and Start Leading This sounds easier than it is, because we are often player/managers and have our own clients or parts of the business we need to take care of.  The danger is we find getting productivity from others who are less smart, motivated, skillful and determined is so difficult, we concentrate on what we can control.  That means we keep doing our tasks, because we are very good at them and we wind up being a key result producer within the team.  The organisation h