The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In Japan, we are in a zero sum game, death struggle for talent.  Actually, we are in the same struggle for even the modesty talented.  We had better get used to a lowering of standards going forward, as we struggle to get people, any people. They aren’t making Japanese in the numbers we are used to and each year the media reports how the number of new babies has declined to a new record low.  The 15 to 34 year old population in Japan has halved over the last twenty years and it will just keep going down.  We are going to face a “free agent” youth population who will be in high demand.  We talk about recruit, retain and advance people.  The recruit part will just get tougher and the retain part is on us as leaders to get it right.  If we can offer the right environment, then people will stay with us.  The problems arise when we have un-reconstructed middle managers who are asleep.  They are like Rip Van Wrinkle or Urashima Taro in the Japanese context.  They are not awake to these new changes and are still tre