Recently, I had a good conversation with my long time business friends. One of them is a director of design at a prestegious interiors design firm in Japan, and we talked about the change of attitude toward work by college recurites.
They leave, she said. She meaned notable percentage of their fresh out of college recruites. Her company hires employees younge people fresh out of famous colleges and universities. But obviously, there has been big increase in a gap between the type of people a large company needs, and new recruites. After they start to work, some of them say within a year that they are not happy with the job, with their range of responsibilities. It used to be that after one joined a company, one grid his/her teeth and stayed, because that was what everyone (seemed like, anyway) did. But by doing that, one learned basic business manners, picked up on tacit knowledge at work, and just like a ballet dancer doing boring bar exercise and bit by bit learns the move and expands into real dance, one learned real work. Now, before learning the basics of business, new employees leave.
Probably, out of fraction of percentage of people who leave a company like that will learn on their own and succeed anyway. Some will find out that staying put and learning the basics are neccessary in their second or third jobs. Some will drift. But thats nothing new. There has always been people who drifted.
It seems like matter of perspective. When we compare how work situations were in Japan 500 years ago, 100 years ago, 20 years ago, difinitely, things changed. Some of the companies will realize that they need to educate the new recruites differently and succeed. Those hanging onto the old (how old?) ways or not able to change might not fare so well.
I personally know maybe a dozen young Japanese people who quit relatively shortly (1 year to several years) after they joined big and prestegious companies. They are learning marvelously well. We all learn one way or other.
When I worked on a workplace change project for a non-Japanese company in India last year, I thought my days were numbered working on Japanese company projects. Now it appears as my days are numbered for working on major Japanese company projects.
There's this thing about Japanese companies obsessed with search for case studies, and it applies for those for workplace change. If someone else is doing it, and it is working, they reason, it must work for them too. What is largely ignored is that someone else's success is dependant on that company's maturity level, human network and trust level, and most of all on their perception of value. Maybe the case study might have one or two similarity with the company who is searching for a good case study that is applicable to itself, but each case is different, and it is meaningless to proceed with change based on just on one or two similarities.
Maybe we can think in term of comparison of tree's production of fruites. Peach, chestnuts (fruites? not sure), Persimmon. They say it takes 3 years before peach or chestnuts trees produce fruites. It takes persimmon tree 8 years. The tree barks have rather similar colors. The tree height not too drastically different, especially between chestnuts and peach. So do they yield fruites at the same time of the year? No. What types of parasites like these trees? How do we know for sure what works for one tree will work for another?
What I am finding is that when people work for a large company, they adapt to the organizational behavior, which is do not take action unless it can be reasoned, regardless of reasonableness of the reasons. Jung's "Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower" provoked these thoughts.
I had always worked with the temperamental conviction that at bottom there are no insoluble problems, and experience justified me in so far as I have often seen patients simply outgrow a problem that had destroyed others. This "outgrowing," as I formerly called it, proved on further investigation to be a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patience's horizon, and through this boradening of his outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency.
I agree with general concept that organizational behavior is what makes organization. It is often good that too rapid change do not happen. However, I need to change, to grow. Jung says that seemingly insoluble problem works itself out with time. Why, so easy. I just have to outgrow this problem of needing to change and grow by moving onto something else that would give me joy. Not working on a major Japanese company's project, for instance.
Without face-to-face encounters with a passionate integrator, a project will not succeed. I am a passionate spokesman for accomodating the workplace environment to fit the way people work, and also for taking calculated risk in changing the workplace environment to stimulate the change in people's behavior. When a company hires me for a short period of time to leverage their workplace to transform the ways people work, I have relative success when I have a counterpart within the company in vicinity where frequent face-to-face encounter is possible with the people who needs to change. Without such counterpart, The opposite is inevitable. I am currently working on two projects that I am the only local passionate believer in the workplace project. Unless I am positioned in the way that I become part of the local staff, these projects are bound to fail.
Or are there any other way that will produce successful change within these companies?
Workplace consulting in India was easy for me. We communicated. People were willing to openly discuss their point of view, as well as willing to listen to other people's perspective.
In Japan, it is different. Many people working for foreign companies who can not speak the headquarter's language, with the case of my projects, English, generally wants to say as little as possible, yet many wants to do things their own way.
A lot of them are embarreced about their limited capacity of English, and do not want to make a fool out of themselves in front of someone else.
But for what price! Because they don't speak out, the HQ people or visiting managers think that Japan local staff agrees with what they say, but in reality it isn't so, and problem never ceaces to come up later.
How do we resolve this problem, the very heart of communication problem between Japan office and the HQ?
It was just until a few months ago, I was lonely for friendship with women. When I went to visit Europe last June and met my colleagues, it was such wonderful discovery that my counterparts were mostly women! Then I came back to Japan, I felt so keenly that I was missing such closeness with women friends.
Then, something happened. In work, I have started working closely with more women then ever. Currently, two out of three projects I am now working on have women as my direct contacts for clients. The informal network of community of practice in strategic workplace consulting are made up of all women, 4 of us spread out over the globe. My previous training session was the same way. Only one out of six participants being a man, all of us from different parts of the world.
Wyuki commented when we were looking at my training session photos, wow, mostly women! Then we wondered, where are all the men? Is it the work that we do is better suited for women's capability, temperament?
I am not saying no men around my work. In Japan, my best friend is a man, my day to day local contacts are mostly men. It may be something heppening just by chance. Or finally, what Tom Peter has been saying caught up? That half of the population is woman, and woman is at work outside of home that makes be best use of her talents, capabilities?
Somewhat able to surface and take occasional breath now. Still many good things on my table, but they are all happening simultaneously, various immediate multinational companies' projects. So amazing. I thought I was happily bonding with my Japanese comrades over the past 2 years, but seen from another perspective, I was in vigorous training to learn all about Japanese workplace culture and practices, which is the kind of knowledge and experience multinational companies headquarters desperately wants to have in Japan. And through it all, I am learning to be sensitive to cultural differences between any different cultures.
As I rode my bicycle along the bank of Tsurumi River , once again feeling so amazed that seasons change, and each season has its own plants that knows to grow and bloom at exact same season in a year. The cosmos is in full bloom now, its bright flowers and delicate stems and leaves. I feel so free and gleeful when I see the host of Japanese pampas grass flowing in the wind. Fading deep greens, various shades of earthy yellow and brown. I am wearing long sleeves and full length pants. Just a couple of months ago, it was so hot, the river reflecting the colors of summer sky and tall bright green grass and summer flowers, the view so very different from today.
In the last entry, I've written about the tide of change in Japan. It merged with what I read today by Soichiro Honda from his autobiography, which said that what goes up, will come down. Everything changes, and in terms of economical situation, high price means the price is preparing to come donw, and low price means the price is about to go up. Just like bamboo has nodes that breaks up tree trunk into parts and that's what make them strong in wind and in snow, a company will have nodes that is formed when a period of growth is stagnated. That node is the time a company takes to improve itself when the economy is down, time is tough. Without these nodes, a company will break when faced with strong wind, heavy snow. Honda says in his book, that tough time is what refines a company, forces it to become better at what it does. So the season changes. It is inevitable. Those of us who were fortunate to have experienced these changes know. And things never stays the same. As my young but wise friend Yuki is fond of saying, we descend the valley, climb the mountain. As we face many challenges, valleys become deeper, mountains higher. So it is in Japan, that we thought we were still descending the valley, that it was still deeper. Perhaps it continues to be so with some people, some company. But somehow, we seem to be on a climb again.
At least for me, I no longer feel fearful of not knowing how far we will go down. I feel so exhilerated everytime I hear Sakakida-san answering older Japanese middle managers sympathetic "Oh, it must be so tough for an independent architect like you to make the ends meet", with "No! This is the best time for young independent people, because we can win projects on competition! During bubble eras, companies had enough money to pay expensive fees for mediocre designs. Now, companies want good design, and they can't afford to pay the kind of money they used to. So they offer equal chances to everyone, asking less about the age and experience." How can you lose with such talent, such attitude?
Thanks to an introduction by Shimizu-san, I have attended a party that celebrated the start up of a shared studio office by small businesses of creative industry, such as architects, designers, producers tonight. Mori Buildings, known as a fabulously rich company and for recently launching the Roppongi Hills urban re-development is the sponsor for this shared studio office.
I have been knocking Mori Trust by accusiing them for talking much about changing Japan and not taking real action, but I take it back. They may have only started project such as this in exasperate attempt to do something with their older vacant office buildings, but the fact is, I believe it may indeed help change Japan.
There has been many attempts in the past to support fiercely talented designers, artists, creative people, but based on such past efforts that helped bring awareness, major enterprise such as Mori Building is offering space at convenient locations for these creative people to work and show and share their work.
I have been working with Snipe recently in attempt to change the workplace at a major company in Japan, and noticed that their design is not American, not European, not feeble attempt to copy, but something original, which may very well be called new generation Japanese. Their space perception and function fits the new work style among Japanese, which pays attention to inside details along with access to the outside. Sakakida-san of Snipe has been my coach on cool-ness, the new generation Japanese style. Through him, I have learned the cafes to work in, art spaces at unusual locations, attended party full of young, cool, talented people. Tonight's party was of another group, but equaly talented and cool. There is probably many such groups emerging throughout Tokyo, and some outside of Tokyo too.
The stage is set, with older generations with enough money to pour onto their sons and daughters to support them. Japanese may not be good at donating to causes, but they seem to be good at spending money on their kids. The old rich like Mori, and maybe Mitsubishi Trust to follow, willing to spare part of their resources to try for something new. And the people now in 20's who has been toughened up by sobering effect of long and steady decliine of economy, watching the grown ups struggle, doing anything but taking chances, are determined to do things different than their parents. These people grew up knowing how to travel, exposed to the best in the world arts and entertainment thanks to developed technologies, armed with their ambition to change the world. And through something new like blog, they are forming strong communities of practices rich with various resources. Above all, physically bringing these people together to form a community will surely help many projects to succeed.
Now new waves are being created with several successful energizing projects, and the tide is rising. The tide of change in Japan. The talented Japanese artists, designers and producers. See how they will shape the future of Japan.
Thoughts from interaction with Izabel
On Thursday afternoon, we had a workshop with people who were mainly involved in figuring out how to produce products. On that same day in the evening, I attended a party with people who were mainly involved in figuring out what products to create. How versus what. Two types of people have distinct air about them. Of course their interests do not merge much. But each need other to make an impact to the world.
In today's business cycle in Japan, if "what" people remained with their big company, they are spending 80% of their time in admin work to satisfy the organizational system. When the become independent, they probably spend 50% to 80% of their time practicing their craft. I see more and more of these "what" people leaving big companies.
What happens then is disconnect of communication between what people and how people. They aren't good at talking to each other to begin with, and when they are no longer bound as an organization, they simply stop talking.
What happens then?
Maybe there will be more companies like IDEO who has the ability to connect these two distinctly specialized kinds of people. A real value for a "consultant", "coordinator", "project manager".
Common cases in Tokyo
Focused thinking time:
Average commute time for people working in Tokyo area is a little over one hour, I think. My time on the commute train is 30 minutes. Nice time to have focused thinking is when the train is really crowded, but I would have enough room to open my book comfortably and read. I would read, think of something then write into the book.
Something about having lots of people around me, each thinking their own thoughts, but staying quite. Commute train in Tokyo is usally very quite for that many people to be riding it.
On the other hand, it's no good when several people are talking near by, since it gets distracting.
Focused conversation (meeting) time:
It might be during morning or evening commute time. It might be during transit time during the day. I would be riding the train with friends or colleagues on the train, and we usually have a very good conversation. A lot of time, its about (guess!) work.
It's got to do with people sitting or standing so close together. I wouldn't sit right next to someone, parts of bodies touching, anywhere else but during a ride in a mass transportation! When someone is so close to you physically, mental barrier seems to break down too.
I thought of my chance to conduct a seminar at an event has been given to someone else recently. The reason that has been explained to me was that "the audience expects white face". It surprised me, and I remembered what Colin Powell wrote in his autobiography: I am not going to let someone cripple me just because I was not given the entire field to play in. I was going to do my best in the area that's been given me. I will show them. It occured to me, right now, all I have to show are short list of solid workplace creation projects. If I had a long list of dazzling successes, published work, no one will even talk about the option of bringing in a "white face". Who is the hero? We all are. As long as we fulfilled our capacity, living the life given to us, in circumstances all so varied, with all we have.
The entry that I liked in Linked by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi:
But credit for the success of Christianity in fact goes to an orthodox and pius Jew who never met Jesus. While his Hebrew name was Saul, he is better known to us by his Roman name, Paul. Paul's life mission was to Crub Christianity. He traveled from community to community persecuting Christians because they put Jesus, condemned by the authorities as a blasphemer, on the same level as God. He used scourging, ban, and excommunication to uphold the traditions and to force the deviants to adhere to Jewish law. Nethertheless, according to historical accounts, this fierce persecutor of Christians underwent a sudden conversion in the year 34 and became the fiercest supporter of the new faith, making it possible for a small Jewish sect to become the dominant religion in the Western world for the next 2,000 years.
What I got out of this: people change. Sometime for better, sometime for worse. Big was always small somewhere in the past.
It's been about a year since the last time our FM Study group got together for a good discussion, and last night, we made up for one year blank. I think it is the chemistry our group has, especially when Oshima-san, Shimazaki-san and Yasuhara-san are all present.
We really got into hot mode when we delved into current trend among companies (not just Japan, globally, we think) in outsourcing the data center. We all felt the danger of outsourcing the storage of entire explicit knowledge to outside of organization, with the link left up to IT person who usually has no clue about the significance of company knowledge they have sole control over. The thread that link a company and its data center (knowledge galore!) is so fragile, should anything go wrong, (and you can bet it will! Remember Endeaver? Enron? Bearing Securities? Mizoho Bank?) its effect on a company can be fatal.
The redundunce of storage of such knowledge within a company is left up to individuals, and should anything happen to the data center, the knowledge will become hopelessly fragmented.
So few of us understand the brick and mortar of IT system, and when IT people tell us something has to be done in a certain way, we don't have the confidence to argue with them, like Shimazaki-san does. How do we overcome our relationship with IT people? Develop communication link, talk, I guess.
I could understand how it takes a genius to discover the obvious things happening around us. Discovery is for the humans to see the truth. Truth is all around us, all the time. How blind we are. It takes so much living, paying close attention to the nature of the matter to see the truth.
The truth about difference between cultures, and how each culture has different value system. I was reading about it, but it didn't have deep meaning to me, until I lived it in many ways, then with a single incidence, it clicked. It's like Archimedes discovering mass when he was taking a bath. Like Newton discovering gravity when he saw an apple fall.
My discovery isn't so grandeous, and it's something that has been discussed many times before, as in Tobe and Nonaka's Essence of Failure, and Yamagishi's From Safety Based Society to Trust Based Society.
It is about the basic difference between Japanese and western culture in:
1. Value placed on work process
2. Value placed on result of the work done
3. Value of accumulated knowledge, how it is used.
I spent my first 12 years of life in Japan, and with Japanese blood and bases learned, values of work process, values of result was that of Japan. Then with those bases, I lived and learned in USA for the next 18 years work process and result value the north American way. After coming back to Japan, I joined US national company, working closely with western nationals, in their system which stressed making each process explicit using lots of words. (Except in IT, which I couldn't figure out why.) Then when I joined my current company, I came in charge of Japanese accounts.
My English isn't the best, but my Japanese is worse. I thought in the beginning it was the language thing. I kept on trying to produce explicit evidence of progress in work process, using report as means. But no, unless there were big problems, Japanese were not interested in how I was proceeding with my work. They were satisfied with my daily communications, for me to just show up, be there. I was sincere, acted with respect, and made recommendations according to what seemed best for the clients. And when I showed up consistently, it created results. But I was never asked to produce materials that backed up how my results were created. So I got used to doing business that way, using very few written sentences, just lots of face-to-face communication. What mattered most was the mood we had together as we worked together. This lasted for four years.
Well, the four years ended with my current international project, north Americans, British, French, Asian all involved, but no Japanese. It took me two weeks or missing the points of direction that was given to me, not understanding very well what I was being asked to do. I was processing work in Japanese way with these non-Japanese.
After being asked to "add some meat on the proposal", "show me everything" for the 10th time, each time being asked to add some more, it hit me!! Right, they want me to be explicit about my work! These people want what they are doing to be clear, understandable process for anybody to see, not just us who do the work!! I was being amnesic. Forgotten about what western culture expects as part of the work, which is to make it all explicit so that anybody can take any part of the work process, re-create it.
I was thunderstruck. This is why the western world has been making progress at such speed, because the knowledge is not all lost when someone leaves, because at least there are bits and pieces in explicit writing that one can follow any time later.
Okay, there are various degrees of demanding explicitness in Western culture. Irish historical writing has nothing about Grace O'Malley, whereas British historian made a careful record when she visited Queen Elizabeth I. But compared to Japanese culture which is so engaged in the moment, taking so much things into consideration fearing much of total effect will be lost if one tried to logically describe each aspects, western culture is extremely explicit in recordings.
The Japanese lack of interest in making work explicit in writing is apparent from numbers of patents that are submitted by researchers. Representative of that situation is recent Nobel prize laureate Koichi Tanaka. Number of papers he has produced are very few compared to that of scientists and researchers in the west. Maybe we as Japanese will never change this cultural characteristic. Even scientists and researchers carry the artisan mentality.
Maybe this is why Japanese are and will continue to be the masters in technological incremental improvements. With incremental improvements, the team memory will carry on the progress, whereas with innovation, one person would have to accept living in explicit mode.
My little project do not need such worry, but having my full memory back in working explicitly, I think I will very much enjoy working on this project. And I think it has been a true blessing for me. See? I was able to express profound discovery, even though it is a discovery just for myself, in written words.
Thanks to Rudolf, I have been able to access some
very interesting blog sites. One of them was
Gloassdog, and not only is it a great read, it
offers some help in html writing to beginners like
me. I want to make my site more presentable,
so I have been working at it for the past four
hours, but wasn't successful in changing the
margin or colors. Ah, well, I'll get it right.
Soon, I hope!
Okay, that's one way of changing style. But I
am thinking something even more profound, like
changing the style of daily life.
Last year, I was go, go, go. Things happened
in positive ways, and they happened pretty
smooth and easy. Talking about work. I was
having so much fun, I hardly ever felt tired
working.
Then several months ago, I just felt tired,
tired, tired. I kept on looking for the reason
why I got into such rut. Is it my feeling bad
about my oldest son's current situation? Is it
menopause? Is it because the work is on plateau,
and I have become a junky to new! fun! exciting!
stuff?
I've been struggling with whatever I have been
going through, but I guess in my struggle,
progress was happening.
Because I am finally learning to work, do tedius
administrative type of work at the office. I am
learning to utilize daytime to work. (Okay, I'm
up real late again tonight. But this isn't work.)
I'm following through with the stuff I was doing
last year, which is vital in making real progress,
not just skimming the surface.
Maybe doing "work" hasn't changed, but my attitude
and daily schedule have.
Work during "work hours". Spend time on private
stuff during night time and weekends. How normal!
I'm so proud of myself for somehow stumbling into
this solution. And now I can see things from the
perspective of majority of office workers: how to
make the most out of daytime work hours. More
importantly, I have gained an insight into how
people change, and their workstyles are changing
at different speed. This is the heart of current
theme everywhere in creating workplace that is
effective.
I'm lucky. Where I work, although HR and admin
departments' official policy isn't with it like
maybe some other companies, but my boss gives us
long, long leash. And our workplace is flexible
that I can choose how I want to set up my work
area. We can do anything we want based on our
annual agreement on achieving the goals and
objectives. So last year, when not at clients'
place, I got a lot of work done at home after the
kids went to sleep. When at the office, I hung
out, mostly talking with colleagues. Now I changed
gear, I'll go into the office to do creation work,
not just to communicate and exchange information.
Mind you, this is so rare in Japan.
Ah, but you should have seen the rainbow I saw in
Yokohama Saturday evening! I almost didn't go out
cycling. Didn't feel up to it. But I had to,
because otherwise, I would have hated myself for just
continuing to lash out on my husband. And there
it was, a huge arch of rainbow, double rainbow in
fact, in eastern sky as the sun was setting. It
was the first time I have ever witnessed such
awsome phenomenan, appearance of rainbow from the
start to the end when it all faded away. It was
30 minutes of thrilling experience.
A quote from Pamela McCarthy's website:
"If you worry because you work hard, and your
rewards are few- remember- the mighty oak was
once a nut like you." Irish proverb
In business context, with average workers:
Brain storming the Japanese way: In order for one to have a
successful brain storming session with Japanese, setting time,
meeting in a formal conference room, to have a high ranking
superior attend will not be a good set up. If such set up is
used, it will take some coaxing of free exchange of ideas, and
it takes time. Presence of superior will restrict the session
since people are thoroughly trained for obedience by the
education system. If one was to round up a few people in
a moment's notice in an open area, one has better chance of
good brain storming session. Whichever the way, a good
facilitator who keeps the group focused is a must.
Brain storming the North American way: Easy to have a good
brain storming session, since most people are self initiating.
Not much encouragement is needed to get ideas flowing. Although
space factor do exist, wherever the session is conducted, workers
are less reserved than Japanese.
