Japanese Leaders Needed Now   Rising in a company in Japan requires talent, but this is often held hostage to time. Your age, longevity and seniority in the system are factors that often trump talent.  The usual internal talent development programme is based on OJT (On The Job Training).  This is fine if your boss is a great practitioner, communicator and coach.  Not many of those floating around Japan.   There is also a degree of humility (or is it fear of failure?) in Japan that surprises the gaishikei foreign multi-national company foreign bosses.   Inexplicably, they see potential rising stars decline promotions. When they ask why they are told because “they don't feel they are ready yet”.  As we move along the demographic trend line of a declining youth population, every company will need more people willing to step up to replace those retiring. The “I am not ready” mentality needs to shift some gears.   Looking at how people rise in organisations in Japan there are some interesting tweaks. The Personal Development Plan is often a perfunctory process, that is done to keep the HR paper chase happy, rather than a time for self-reflection.  Why don't staff and managers in particular see this process as a career booster?  If we are working on a different elongated “I am not ready” time schedule, then there is not much connection between the idea of planning a career and having a career.   This glacial evolution of the leader in Japan has a tremendous consistency.  Generations come up under the same basic regime and it seems like an endless loop.  The lack of role models for planning one's career means there isn't a well developed sense of how to influence your progression up the ranks.  Taking on more complex stretch roles are avoided for fear of failure.  Training isn't seen as a leverage point to boost one's capability and prepare for bigger accountability.     Patrons are the time-tested means of rising in the company.  Attach yourself to a powerful individual and in return for total loyalty, you will be swept ever upward. Your rise is timed to the patron’s rise and not in your control.   Gaishikei companies however work off a different model.  This is the usual routine of self-promotion, grabbing every chance to receive training and go for bigger assignments to prove one's capability to step up.  So how can we help Japanese staff become leaders? How can we have those who are leaders already keep working on themselves to prepare for their next bigger role?   Coaching for these leaders assists them to broaden their thinking and as a means to challenge them to take some risks.  The creation of an internal culture of failure, as a learning process, rather than a career killer is also important.  When we ask people to step out of their comfort zones, there is an implicit social compact that they are permitted to fail.  Doing something for the first time means we will be imperfect, but we will learn what works and what doesn't.     Often though, Japanese bosses brought up in the “no failure allowed” environment, don't understand or even agree with that compact.  They immediately verbally whack their subordinates. Whacking people for errors in an experimental phase of anything is a guaranteed formula for canceling their creativity ticket. Is such middle management helping the company to move forward? Not at all.   The lead up to training is also an important preparatory stage that is often missed in Japan.  The regular approach is for the boss to say " You have training on in two weeks, HR has the details". Japanese staff members receiving this type of briefing may wonder why they are being shipped off to training? Are they failing in their work and this is a form or correction?  Is this part of an HR plot to ease them out of the company by establishing their poor performance can't be improved, even after giving them training?   Trainers regularly encounter the “hostage” personality who is anti the training, regardless of the content or the quality.  They don't want to cooperate and assume the role of critic of whatever is being presented.  Trust me - they are a nightmare.     If there was a proper conversation about how they had been selected because of their excellent work to date and because the company was investing in their future development, they might see the training opportunity a bit differently.  If they had a coaching conversation with their boss that had them reflect on where they could do even better and to set some outcomes from the training, the motivation to participate would go right up and the outcomes would be much improved.   We need to work on the individuals and their bosses, if we want to build leadership bench strength. Culture, coaching, training and communication are all integral to getting the mix right. Those companies who work this out are going o do much better in retaining their staff and building leaders.   Action Steps   Create an environment that tolerates failure as part of the creative process Coach High potentials to change their mind set about achieving their full potential Don’t just provide training, provide the WHY of the training for them     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 [email protected]     About The Author   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Leaders Who Can’t Listen   Dynamic, powerful, driven, single-minded leaders get stuff done.  They are resourceful, disciplined, patient, highly demanding of themselves.  They are often poor listeners.  They are so focused on making things happen, getting decisions executed, pushing through, that conversations become monologues rather than dialogues.  They are so into their thing, that they want to talk about that and not much else.  Often they are the founder of the business or someone sent in to turn it around.   Crash through or crash is tattooed on the inside of their brain.  In Japan, if you are an entrepreneur, then you have additional hurdles to overcome.  The process of overcoming them sets up a style, a default operating procedure where you have to push like crazy to get anything done in this country.    The danger is the under done listening component of the skill base can be denying access to opportunities.  Vital information isn't being processed.  This is because the leader is only operating with a push out approach and no or very little drag in.  Rather than carefully listening to the client, the dynamic leader wants to tell the client about a whole range of exciting things coming up.  The powerful desire to drive through is not free. Missing clues, hints, subtle references has an opportunity cost.   Because these leaders are so result focused they have pretty low self-awareness.  They are oblivious to the signals. They just don't see their listener’s frustration with being assaulted with all of this energy, passion and commitment.   All good things, but usually good things for us but of relative interest to the listener who is also selfishly self absorbed.  They want their moment in the sun too, but they don't get it.   In sales we say "selling isn't telling" and leaders are salespeople.  They are selling a vision for the future, a direction, a corporate culture, a business plan, a set of values.  Just hammering people with the content by occupying all the air waves and trying to beat people into submission doesn't work.  Another sales quote, " a man convinced against his will, is of the same conviction still". And this is what happens.  Steamrolling over the top of the listener may make the leader feel bolshie and good, but the listener is not really sold.     What should leaders be doing?  Slowing down is against their dynamic natures, but a lot is revealed when they do this.  The listener is given more chances to comment.  When we are talking at someone we only know what we already know.  When the other person can contribute and make it a dialogue, we have the chance to learn new things or gain new perspectives.  We also build the relationship.  We are showing respect for the other person and they appreciate it.  They become a supporter because they have a sense of engagement with the issue, rather than feeling like a casual observer of something that has very little to do with them.   Asking questions is a simple but important way of engaging the other person. When they are feeling engaged they are more cooperative, more loyal, more resourceful.  And this is particularly the case with staff.     In Japan, trying to get things done requires Herculean strength and perseverance.  You have to push hard.  It can become a bad habit.  We also need to grow bigger ears and listen more.  That means we have to shut up and let the other person speak.  If we have been powering through work, driving everything, then the staff have been trained to not contribute.  They become very passive, just waiting around for the next feeding session from the rampant boss.   Asking questions has to become the new operating procedure rather than a one time daliance.  It has to be done consistently to demonstrate to the staff that they count and their opinions are valued.  They have to see this process repeated before they will have confidence to lodge an opinion.  The reaction to the opinion is also critical.  If we cut them off, criticise or dismiss what they say, they learn their opinion isn't important. Subsequently,they keep it to themselves after that.     There is a balance between being dynamic and being inclusive.  We can't do it all on our own.  We need clients, we need advice, we need insight.  We need to empower our staff not overpower them.  The power-right-on-through model can become the default if we are not careful. It usually happens without us even knowing it.  This is where our poor self awareness starts to hurt us.  Stop what you are doing and listen.  Are you really listening? Are you getting suggestions from your team or is it an idea free zone at your shop, with a muzak like monotone soundtrack? Just you!!!   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.   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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.        

Leaders Be Persuasive   A friend of mine was lamenting that he had not taken the time to complete our High Impact Presentations Course. He had had it in the back of his mind for some time, that he really ought to work on these key skills, but had never managed to lock it down and actually do it. Now he is facing a really, really big pitch and he knows his capacity isn’t where it needs to be. He is not fully confident he can be successful. Uh oh!   As the leader we represent the “face” of the company. People judge the whole thing on what they see us do. Usually, they don’t get to peek behind the scenes like we see famous entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk from Vaynermedia doing with his daily video blog called the “Daily Vee”. Our public persona is usually much more contained and controlled. Internal meetings are internal and we can be a bumbling, horrible communicator and only our long suffering staff are any the wiser.   Public forays do pop up in the most unexpected places though. It might be the school PTA meeting and you make a point or even a presentation and then people suddenly connect the dots. How did so and so become the top of their organisation, when they are so hopeless at representing the company? Our verbose, rambling, incoherent offerings are total personal brand killers. We in fact might be the least articulate person in the whole firm, but everyone watching us in action, now pegs the whole organisation at our level of incompetence. Sort of the “Peter Principle” in reverse.   The idea that we can be technically highly competent and therefore don’t have to be competent as a presenter is a complete fallacy. This is the age of media, especially now we have access to video for everything, be it YouTube, Instagram, Facebook Live, Snapchat etc. Everyone is their own media channel. We are all seeing a lot more people “presenting” than we have ever done in world history. Up until a few years ago, we only had live performances, television and video recording, but now we have everything on show inside the mobile device we are lugging around with us 24/7.   The game has been upped substantially but a lot of leaders are still hoping for a return to anonymity, where their public exposure is more controlled and a lot less frequent. You can choose to be a leader recluse, but if your rivals are really exploiting the social media scene like demons, then your brand begin to wither in the client and public perception.   The enemy of excellence is the good and that applies to representing your firm as well. I have another friend who is very photogenic, attractive, super confident and thinks he is a fantastic presenter. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is King. Because the vast majority of people never want to have to stand up and present to anyone ever and where those who do present are usually untrained and unprofessional, my friend’s skills are much better than average.   From my professional eye though, I can see a talent that has so much more potential to be polished and taken to the highest of heights. His ego is the problem here. My friend doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and is unaware of the greater potential available to him through expert coaching. He is happy to be above average, but not humble or self-aware enough to recognise that he has set a low bar against what is possible.   My friend who has the big pitch coming is lucky because I have offered to spend a couple of hours coaching him to make this opportunity a total winner. He has access to expert input before the pitch, because of our personal relationship. It is a bit of a wing and a prayer though for you to hope that one of your friends will be there to bail you out at the that last moment.   Rather, go and get the training now. You can do the High impact Course in two days. That is doable and the skill and confidence that comes with the right training far exceeds the time required. “Don’t leave home without it” was a great tagline from the past. Presenting is a core skill that every leader would be wise to master. That skill, once secured, means you can walk out the door everyday knowing you are going to be excellent every time, every audience, every location and every topic.   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 [email protected]   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 and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people:  

Accountability In Your Team     Holding our people accountable is one of the basics of being a leader. They flounder, deadlines pass unheeded, things get missed, work is not completed to a satisfactory standard.  Why is that?  People are not trying to fail in their jobs, but they do let the team down with their poor performance and lack of accountability.  What can we do about it?   As the leader we have to start with ourselves. The most crucial resource we have is our time and how we choose to use it.  If we are poor time managers then we apply unnecessary stress to our own lives and those of our colleagues.  We show up with unreasonable turn around times for work, because we were not properly organized.  We become very stressed and that spreads like an epidemic across the team. Our stress immediately impacts our mood control and our mood can lighten or darken the workplace within seconds.   We are time poor because we haven't done a good enough job on defining our priorities.  We are also rushing around because we are doing too much.  The reason we are so busy is because we are unable to delegate our work properly.  We tried it once, there were errors, problems, rework and we decided, "it is faster if I do it myself". This is false economy, because we can't do everything by ourselves.  We need to gain leverage from accessing the full power of the team.  Delegation is also an important driver of career development for our successors.  By giving them some of our tasks, we can start to groom them for higher things.   The reason why we think delegation doesn't work is because we have been doing it the wrong way.  Done correctly, it can help us to use our time for those tasks that only we can perform.  One of them is coaching our people.  Leaders imagine they are coaching their people, but in reality they are just handing out orders.  The accountability of the team is closely linked to the amount of time and energy we invest in coaching them.     We want higher outcomes, which means we either do something new or something old, but in a slightly new way.  That means change and people resist change.  They resist it because they don't want to step outside their Comfort Zones.  If we want them to step up we have to coach them, delegate to them and hold them accountable for the results.   When we have time, we are in a strong position to monitor progress and check on milestones. Unpleasant surprises are never greeted well by the organization’s hierarchy and we don't want to be the bearer of bad news because one of our team missed a deadline or a quality standard or compliance with a regulation.   Delegation is not dumping work on people.  It is taking the time to explain the Why, the What and the How.  It is having them take ownership and having them see this as a stepping stone to bigger things. In this way, the sense of ownership of the task and therefore the accountability is strong.  It means coaching them on the way through to completion of the task so that there are only pluses and no minuses.   So if we want accountability in our team we start with ourselves. If we have time control we can better lead and we can have the time to better communicate with our team.  We are able to walk our talk because we are in control and can deliver what we say we will do.  This is how people judge whether we are trustworthy or not. If we want people to deliver we have to deliver for them. That means giving them a chance to grow in their careers, supporting them through coaching and being consistent in our mood, behavior and interactions.  We are able to do this because we are not stressed through poor time control and trying to do too much by ourselves. We need to change. We need to create new, better habits and become better leaders.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

Boss Stimulation Is Needed   Our education moves through many transitions.  We do our basic academic education at school and university and then we hit the university of life.  Company education programs begin with very basic induction sessions.  We may be studying technical subjects for regulatory requirements or the firms specified areas for further study.  We might get some rudimentary soft skill education, although the majority of companies rely on OJT - On The Job training, particularly in Japan.     During the middle management years we might get some leadership training or in the case of large firms be despatched to some worthy academic institution for a week of executive training.  The instructors are academics, the case study method is a favorite as is group work.  Often the course colleagues are from around the globe.  The whole thing is fascinating and very cool.  The nature of the approach means we are usually focused on the middle to distant future.  Very macro and broad in nature.     It is hard to grab hold of something from one of these courses and start executing it on the first day back on the job.  These experiences happen infrequently in one's career, because of the cost in terms of money and time.  They are delivered in big doses and then separated by years or possibly it was a “one shot and your done” game.   What about on-going education?  The frequency is a key factor.  Those who drive and spend some considerable time in cars have access to a mobile university courtesy of MP3 recordings, podcasts or apps.  The same for those doing the daily commute on trains and buses.  There is such a wealth of knowledge available today, it is astounding.  Most of it is free.  These days, you can also go on to YouTube and learn just about anything.     TED talks are great for specific topics and there is now a self-paced study mega industry based around information products.  These are for a fee and are usually provided by practitioners, rather than academics.  The academic world itself is also putting out their offerings on-line for free, so we stand before a tsunami of knowledge heading our way.   However, are we spending our time fruitfully accessing this cornucopia of information, insight and wisdom?  Often we are not, because we are so busy working IN our businesses that we have little time and energy left over to work ON our businesses.  We are all creatures of habit and routine.  We have found a way through all the complexity of modern life by trying to minimize the scope of what we do.  The problem with this approach though is that we go into stasis.   Business keeps unfolding and evolving and we have to keep up.  In this age new developments can make you a buggy whip maker before you know it and you can be out of business.  Anyone in Japan remember iMode? World leader in it’s day and now gone. Blackberry? MySpace? By the way, did you see that press conference with the head of Nokia bemoaning “we didn’t do anything wrong”? That is one perspective that highlights the power of challenger technologies and systems.   The viewpoint of each successor generation is different.  Those who grew up with the telephone, differ from those who had the fax, and differ from those who wield a mouse.  Now we are walking around with massive computing and inter connectivity in our palms through our digital devices.  This means whatever you learnt even five years ago on that executive  course is probably redundant or soon will be.  If that was the final investment in you by the company what have you been doing to educate yourself?   As the boss you need to keep studying, keep pushing and keep up. Are you doing it though? Look at your timetable, how much is allocated to study in a week. Reading the newspaper doesn’t count by the way. I am talking about more specific efforts in your business area of specialty. If the boss isn’t growing then how can the business grow? Get on it!   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 [email protected]   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 and 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.        

Get Ready For Your Productivity Nosedive     Brace yourself for everything to take a big hit. Speed, attention to detail, output, results are about to fall off a cliff. No this has nothing to do with currency rates, trade regulations, tariffs, gunboat diplomacy or anything Donald Trump is about to do as President. This is here in Japan, right now and mainly relevant in the major cities. This is when JPY750billion is about to get taken out of domestic consumption, lowering the nation’s GDP by 0.6%.   Roughly one third of your team in Tokyo are going to become a lot less productive, as they battle with the demon pollen plague that hits every spring. Cherry blossom time has had the gloss taken off it substantially, since the cedar pollen levels have risen to such grandiose heights. Those pinky-white buds herald the onset of a living hell. It is hard to concentrate when you are crying and your eyes are so itchy you think you are going to go crazy. Just to offset these maladies, you can insert massive intermittent bouts of sneezing. The tissue box will get a hammering and those tissues will start attacking the fine membrane under the nose, so that it hurts like blazes.   For those really suffering, they won’t even make it to work, because going outside is a killer. This means less shopping, restaurants in the evening and beers after work. It means masks, goggles, eye and nose drops, doctor visits and keeping indoors as much as possible for months. The disruption to the workplace is real.   Tempers become shorter when people are irritated and in pain. They are less tolerant of others as they double down and focus on themselves and their woes. Cooperation is lessened somehow, as they are not so generous with their attention. They are less creative, because their brains are on fire trying to deal with a hostile intruder that is attacking their nasal passage microsites.   Anyone suffering from kafunsho or pollen allergy who has a detail oriented job is going to make more mistakes. Others will take longer for tasks and re-work frequencies will go up. Those in the creative industries are going to be less creative. Your rhythm is completely out of kilter and the concentration muscle has atrophied. Those in the sales army are struggling not to sneeze all over the client and to keep it all together during the sales call. Sales technique and customer focus are AWOL.   How do bosses deal with this modern pollen plague? They usually carry on as if everything is as per normal. They expect the targets to be achieved, the logistics to keep working perfectly and everything to carry on as if we were not under siege. On the other hand, during influenza outbreaks people disappear for a whole week, one by one, as they infect each other. The workplace looks like a ghost town. A few hardy types keep it together, until the troops rally and return. The outputs are directly affected.   This is accepted however as a serious health issue and bosses are understanding about the health ramifications, missed numbers and targets. The difference with kafunsho is that this is the death of a thousand lashes. You don’t get to take a week off and recover. You don’t recover at all, because the symptoms stick around for months. You have to turn up, but only a shadow of your former self is actually turning up. It is time to accept that the months from February to May, up until around Golden Week are going to be a disaster. This is a full quarter of a year we are talking about here – no small thing. Statistically kafunsho affects one in four Japanese, but the actual rate is much higher in the big cities, because of the toxic combination of pollen and pollution from cars. I said one in three and that is a guestimate, based on my observation of what is happening every year in Tokyo.   The cedar and cyprus pine trees are at their maturity peak now, which is why you see heavy clouds of deadly yellow pollen on television, being whipped up by the wind. News reports track the spread of the pollen from south to north and nominate days when levels are very high. This is not going away anytime soon and so we have to adjust our expectations during these high infection months. And it is an infection - the pollen gets into your eyes, nose and throat and creates severe inflammation and distress.   So bosses – be sympathetic with your team members who suffer. Adjust your production number estimates down during these months. Keep a sharp eye on accuracy levels for key parts of the business. If you are not a suffer, become a fellow traveller. Be caring for those members of the team who are doing it tough. Be fully genuine about it, because there is nothing more irritating than being patronised to, by someone who has no clue what you are going through. This is when the boss’s real commitment to the team is shown, on stage and for all to see. Get it right this year!   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.   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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Hey Donald Trump, Try “Winning Friends and Influencing People” Instead   Donald Trump’s phone call with Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s Prime Minister was major news. The tastier parts of that conversation were leaked from the American side, but the style and language reported seems to be in keeping with Donald Trump’s style, so they are probably true. Did he have to take such an aggressive approach with Malcolm? Could he have dealt with his concerns over bringing people into the US in a different way?   The issue here is Trump doesn’t want to honour the people swap agreement previously made between Obama and Turnbull. His choice to criticise Turnbull over the phone was a poor one. Dale Carnegie came up with 30 Human Relations Principles and Donald Trump would do much better, if he followed them. As Dale Carnegie noted, you get more cooperation with honey than vinegar.   Principle number one is “don’t criticise, condemn or complain”. The thinking behind this principle is to take into account human psychology. When Trump criticises Turnbull, he generates ill will and destroys the relationship. The trust is broken, the willingness to cooperate is diminished. You may get compliance in this case, because the US is much bigger than Australia, but the hearts and minds are lost. The willingness to go the extra mile gets nullified.   This is the same in companies when the boss criticises staff for under performance. When on the receiving end, they become defensive and start justifying what they did or didn't do. They go around telling everyone the criticism is unfair and unwarranted. Their loyalty erodes quickly. Their sense of engagement with the organisation is rapidly reduced. If you are not engaged, why would you care less about being innovative for the sake of the business?   There are many others ways to get the result you want.   Trump could have used principle number 30, “make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest” and principle number 25, “ask questions instead of giving direct orders”. He could have used principle number 28, “give the person a fine reputation to live up to”.   Trump could have said, “Look Malcolm, I know you are a smart guy. You didn’t get a million from Daddy to start in business like I did and yet you have become very wealthy and successful, all off your own hard efforts. I need your smarts. I have a problem here. I have just announced we are not going to take any people from Iran and Iraq and five other countries for a few months and yet most of these people on Nauru are from those very same countries. If I take them, I will lose face. Help me out here, you are a clever guy, what can I do?”.   I am sure Malcolm Turnbull would of his own volition come up with some workable ideas. He is a smart guy, he is a self-made man, he is very rich and successful. As a lawyer, he did gain world fame through his defeat of the British Government’s case in the “Spy Catcher Trial”.   Being the sponsor of the ideas, he would drive them through the Australian domestic political process and fix the problem to Trump’s satisfaction. The processing might quietly slow down to taper with the period of the ban. Or the whole process might be delayed until the ban has been lifted. Or, miraculously, only non-Muslims get through the vetting process and proceed to the US. There are a number of solutions here to solve Trump’s issues. These could have been reached with positive cooperation, through using the Dale Carnegie Human Relations Principles.   Instead, the world sees Trump criticising little Aussie. In the workplace the other staff see how you treat people. They know that one day that verbal tongue lashing will be aimed at them and they don’t like the prospect.   So, if you are running a business or are running a team and you look at Donald Trump and say, “well obviously criticising people is the way to get things done”, think again.   Trump’s methods won’t create the loyalty that America will need. In your world of business, you won’t get the staff engagement and loyalty you want either. Dale Carnegie published “How To Win Friends And Influence People” in 1936. There is no excuse really, the information is out there. Dale Carnegie’s training is still going 105 years later, so it obviously works and it works in over 100 countries around the world.   Hello to Donald and all business leaders around the world - read “How To Win Friends And Influence People”. The long-term solutions to your people issues are all laid out for you in that book.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.   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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Buying People  When we buy a company, we are buying the people and all the “assets” - plant and equipment come with them, rather than the other way around. The due diligence gets done, the books are looked at carefully for any signs of “cooking”. Hidden debts, secret undertakings, compliance and regulatory issues are scrutinized. The people part however is given a “once over lightly” look because this is much harder to do thoroughly, than the other investigations. HR can tell us a lot about the structure of the pay arrangements, who are the high potentials, previous performance review results and the current staffing levels. Gauging staff productivity however is much more obtuse. The silly part though is that this is exactly what we are buying – staff productivity.   Often, the perceived productivity gap is “fixed” by firing staff to reduce costs and at the same time drive the leaders to push the team harder for higher revenues. This scenario usually doesn’t happen straight away. It takes time to get a sense of how things work, who are the “A” players etc. At the point of purchase though it is very hard to know these things. So having paid the money and received the company, how can the staff be engaged?   They have loyalty to the old regime and people. As we know, if the handover is not done well, the first out the door are the good people. They are quick to go because they have options and can easily find another job. Recruiters get very excited when there in an acquisition because they know they will pick up good quality candidates fleeing the carnage.   The top 20% of any organisation will be producing 80% of all the good things we wanted when we bought the company. The transition has to be handled well or we will lose the best people. The key producers have to be identified quickly and what they want ascertained, to ensure they remain deaf to the siren calls of the recruiters. These early conversations are vital and need to be authentic. People can spot spin very quickly in these tense times. In short order, expect there will be a swarm of recruiter worker bees buzzing around the organisation, so there is plenty of temptation for insiders to depart. Once key people leave the others remaining worry those who left know something everyone else doesn't know. Rumors fill the vacuum if there are not great efforts to control the narrative of the change over and bright future at the firm.   An organisation I know well is experiencing that. The new management brought in some harsh measures to lift the profits and the diaspora got underway immediately. The best people were soon safely ensconced in their rivals organisations, taking the long held client relationships with them. The organisation, which had been a profit machine is now falling apart.   Those who are not in the top group are often rapidly disenfranchised once the firings start. They cannot gauge when their turn for the chop will come and they don’t have super confidence to find another good job, so they spend all of their time worrying and trying to foster the appearance of work. They rapidly become brilliant “Yes” men and women trying to survive. Their focus is on internal organisational politics and trying to find protectors. The existing finely balanced internal order breaks down as people leave, new people are brought in and the zero sum game triggers old rivalries and battles between divisions and individuals. The whole focus shifts off the competitors out in the market to fighting with internal rivals. The client or customer is now a long way down the list of interests.   The concept of investing in the people is not well developed in these situations. The HR team are engrossed in the amalgamation process and everything else is suspended until the mechanics are completed. When they do finally come up for air they are asked to nominate who can go, to reduce the duplication across the common functions. Next come the firings and that saps the energy, spirit and job satisfaction of the HR team as they terminate colleagues of many years standing. At the end, the HR team gets the same medicine because they are also duplicated in their roles.   After all this disruption the “develop the people” part has been lost. If a fund has bought the business, then there is little appetite to invest in the people. They are looking to get their money back as soon as possible and flip the business. The people get run harder, the numbers get a lift and when the profit graph lines are tracking propitiously, the business is put back on the market. What about the people? They are there to produce results not receive development funding. If talent is needed new people are brought in, rather than trying to develop those inside.   We hear a lot about “people are our greatest asset”, “all of our key resources go down the elevator every night”, etc. A lot of the time it is theory and not practice. When we acquire a new business we are literally “buying the people”. Treating people as disposable assets kills the spirit of the organization and you can only engage people so far through fear. The innovation and creativity bits go into hibernation as people struggle to eek out their existence inside the machine. The damage is long-term as well, because the trust has been destroyed.   The lesson is that if you are buying an existing business, realise you are buying the productivity of the team. This is made up of their engagement levels and their creativity commitment to see the firm do well. This is the classic hearts and minds requirement. Short-term thinking is a game changer for the worse and a better approach would be to invest in the people already there. Show them that they are valued, that the organization is proud of them and that the enemy is without not within. Focus the energy on serving the company’s clients and on beating the competitors.   The amount of money required to do this is actually a “peanut”. The return though is vastly different and the true value of the enlarged enterprise can be better realised. This is what we actually bought. If we really believe that “people do make a difference”, then we need to have a “people first” orientation, rather than a “human asset” view on dealing with our team.     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 and 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Still Stinky Performance Assessments   Seems hardly a day goes by when yet another big player announces they are no longer using annual performance assessments. Basically, this is a combination of clever corporate PR and a recognition that their managers were not up to the job of leading their people. Performance assessments have moved from once a year to twice a year as a formal construct, to now regular discussions between leaders and the led. Has anything really changed except the patina of modernity and cutting edge investor relations department propaganda?   The issues are the same. How do we evaluate our teams, how do we determine who to promote or reward with pay rises, bonuses, higher commissions etc?. How do we get some consistency across the entire organisation, so that the same performance level is evaluated and rewarded in basically the same manner? When you have big teams this is tricky. Whether we are doing these reviews weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or annually makes little difference, if it isn’t done well. Being annoying more frequently isn’t progress.   Employee satisfaction surveys and engagement surveys consistently indicate that most performance reviews are not done well. Usually, neither party comes out of the affair feeling more motivated, empowered, inspired and better as a result of the process. Having more frequent poor quality dialogues doesn’t help much. Leaders who can’t communicate properly, just keep piling on the damage, and now under the new regime, they have the chances to ruin more occasions more often.   Previously, it was expected that somehow bosses would have regular feedback sessions with staff throughout the year, rolling up in to either annual or bi-annual formal evaluation processes. This in reality is such a rare event. Normally, email tsunami, meeting deluge and reporting rampage combine in a perfect storm with poor time management skills and non-existent delegation capability to ensure the boss is maxed out. Poor or excellent conversations are simply not held, because the boss is too busy.   Moving to a more codified, frequent model of conversation implies there is sufficient schedule availability for this to happen and also that the proper preparation is being done prior to the conversation. What magic unfolded that a notoriously poor time manager, running a delegation free zone, can now function more professionally? Actually, none and now they just have an additional level of reporting to complete. They are already busy.   If there is professional skilling up of leaders on how to handle performance management and reviews, then there is some hope. The addressing of fundamental time management and delegation issues are closely tied in with that goal. Just spending time on the conversation model itself is pointless, if there is not the proper boss focus on the employee dialogue. That focus is a product of time management, communication and people skills. Training in improving all three would make a lot of sense, but is this the case? Does the new wind of groovy, corporate change bring forth a holistic fix?   People do make a difference and they are usually the most expensive and valuable component of any operation. Recognising that the current state of play with annual discussions is not sufficient is a good step forward. Recognising what is needed is trickier. Retraining busy, unrepentant bosses to be better communicators is certainly needed but usually not done well enough.   This is not the quick fix of a two hour workshop. Of course, the HR function can safely check the box that the training has been competed and move on. The reality however is the people part is still left trailing behind. Getting bosses to move out of their Comfort Zones and do new things is not achieved by just giving them more or new information.   Intellectually, they may get it, but what comes out of their mouths will be the same old, same old. The skilling up process needs to address the risks and fears of doing new things and to have immediate linkage between the theory and the practice. Knowing about something and doing it, are not the same thing.   If we all abandon current review schedules for the fashion of permanent reviews, then we have to do a lot better at handling the content of the conversations. Unless this becomes a reality, this will be another fad that hangs around for a while and then is taken out the back and quietly garroted.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

2017: Three Day Train Wreck   Japanese language has lots of insightful sayings and “mikka bozu” or only lasting as a priest for three days is one of them. It means we wilt in our determination and fold after just three days of commitment. On day one, when we start the new year, we are full of resolve, like an aspirant priest. The daily realty as we move through the year though, saps our ability to deliver on our initial best intentions.   If you feel a mikka bozu departure coming on, over the next weeks and months, here are a couple of ideas on how to deal with that less than satisfactory turn of events.   Don’t beat yourself up You may have been setting goals when flushed with the excitement of the moment, but the cold dawn of reality has now sunk in and you realise that maybe you were being a bit too presumptuous.   No problem. Re-set and focus anew on outcomes that are achievable and which can help to build some momentum. With resolutions we tend to be all in or all out. When we realise we were actually kidding ourselves, we just throw the whole show out the window and now go to nothing, the void, infinite empty space.   Rather than an all or nought approach, how about a recalibration on what is more realistic and possible. Can we see the realisation of a few steps, which further down the track, will lead to bigger goals being achieved? Can we carve off a few bite-sized pieces which we can actually consume? They are there, so let’s pick these out and attach some realistic milestones around their completion.   Focus on the possible Some goals are more easily achievable that others. Start with doing those activities which will lead to wins. Success breeds success and we are often confidence players. The more we succeed, the more emboldened we are to try to do more. Let’s set ourselves up for success, by allowing ourselves to actually win. This is a good strategy. Piling up small victories over ourselves, our weaknesses and shortcomings creates positive momentum to help us keep moving forward. Coming out of our comfort zones is scary stuff, so let’s still do that, but in a way that doesn’t blow us up right at the start.   Don’t be influenced by others We may have set bigger goals than we could chew, because we were listening to what others were doing. Some guru was spruking big hairy audacious goals and we were carried along for the ride. Keep in mind, that some of these gurus make their living from occupying the gap between your goal and your ability. They project themselves as the solution to bridge that gap, so it is in their interests for you to feel inadequate. There is an earner in there, but it is not for you.   Or we may be influenced by what our family or friends are doing. We need to keep up with the Joneses and we feel pressure to do more than we should. Better to concentrate on what we need to do, at the pace and in the way we need to do it. The hare and the tortoise race is a famous fable about the ability to be self-aware and to play to your strengths. Slow and steady often wins the race, but the key word here is “steady”. Keep going, however slowly, rather than handing back your priestly robes in a pique after three days and quitting.   What can we do? I like that quote from the Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi about “blocking and tackling” being the keys to success in football games. Reflecting on my own 46 years of training in traditional Japanese karate, we always start our training with the basics.   The basics are the key to business success, but we often get caught up in the glamour and complexity of the more elaborate solutions. If you watch enough TEDx talks and guru videos you may start to wonder what is wrong with you? Why aren’t you achieving at these genius levels.   Well you can, but only if you start with mastering the basics. So here is how hard it is: take 10 minutes, sit down, get out your pen, some A4 paper and in the middle of the paper circle the words “The Basics”. Around those words start adding other circled words that describe what the basics of your business are. Having fleshed them out, now add numbers to the circled words – the priority of importance of each of these selections.   Ten minutes later you have a game plan on where you need to start working and on what. It is not hard, is likely to be very practical and realistic and directly correlates with your success in your profession. If you focus on the basics then momentum is invoked, ideas will come and things start to happen.   So, don’t give up like a mikka bozu. As the philosopher Mike Tyson told us, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. We might have gotten a smack in the mouth by day three or month three of the new year, but we can regroup, recover, recalibrate and reestablish our starting point. Another favourite quote is by baseball coach Yogi Berra who said, “it ain’t over till it’s over”.   Baby, by day three, week three or month three, it ain’t over, there is still time – a whole lotta time.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Be The Light On The 2017 Hill     New Year, new starts or not? We religiously muscle up in January to set our resolutions to improve ourselves in the coming 12 months. Often these resolutions are inwardly focused. Lose weight, get better organized, be more patient, etc. This year, let’s set a breakthrough goal and make it really worthwhile going through this process. Let’s become a catalyst, a trigger, a spark to become the light on the hill for others around us. “Be the change you want to see” is a great Gandhi quote and tremendously wise and insightful.   We can start by changing how we see others. Instead of being a perpetual “fault finder”, a corrector of errors, a righteous blade to cut those making mistakes, a terminator of the terrible, why not try another approach? Rather than putting others down for their failings, why not become a person who is a serial encourager and builder of others?   Imagine the type of workplace you want to work in? Is it rife with politics, backstabbing, petty power tussles, whining, bitching and complaining about others? I doubt that is what any of us would vote for as a “workplace of the future”. We probably want a trouble free zone, where each person pulls their weight, is cooperative, supportive, committed, capable, successful and nice.   How we see others has a big influence on how we interact with them. If we see people in a negative light, we tend to search out their poor performance, their faults and inadequacies, while remaining blind to their strengths, achievements and potential.   Switch gears and start becoming a “good finder” rather than a “fault finder”. See that each person is operating under tremendous pressures – personal, financial, health, etc. When we see that all of us are united in carrying heavy burdens through life, we can become more empathetic, more forgiving and less judgmental. Remember we often selfishly hold everybody else accountable to a higher standard than that which we set for ourselves. We ingeniously cut ourselves some additional margin, because we know intimately all the problems we face, which mitigate our ability to be perfect. How about we extend some of that understanding to those around us?   Henry David Thoreau is often misquoted, but what he actually said still carries significance, especially here in Japan: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”. Japan is a modest place, not much given to hubris, exaggeration, bombast, boasting, self-promotion or superlatives. Whether it be ridiculously high density living in the big cities or the gossipy, tedious provincial humdrum, Japan is a place where few people realize their full potential. They purposely rein themselves in, knowing if they don’t, society will do it for them.   This adds up to tremendous internal, self-induced pressures which constantly bubble away under the surface calm. The Japan patina of customary standard politeness and consideration masks what is really going on in people’s “desperate” lives. So let’s get off our high horse this year and stop being a pain. Let’s encourage those around us to live to their full potential.   Let’s feedback to them what they are doing well. Let’s recognise them for their many strengths. Let’s be indirect, tactful and circumspect about pointing out any shortcomings. Let’s help others to really stretch their Comfort Zones and assure them that the risks associated with growth are worth it. Let’s note and praise tiny, faltering steps forward, to inspire others to make even bigger strides.   We must simply stop complaining. We should take that whole sad vocabulary out of our thought and speech patterns. We will now speak in positive terms about life, business and those around us. We will switch on a mental outlook that emanates a powerful external illumination to guide others to find their own strengths hidden within as they climb the hill.   In short, in 2017 we become a tremendous giver of good. A guiding beacon for the positive in our dark, desperate, foreboding and at times, simply terrifying reality. Decide which world you want to inhabit and then become that world. We often want and wait for everybody else to make the change, to improve, to do better. By the way, how has that been going for you so far? This year let's try another approach. Be the light.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

2017: Good Or Bad?   There are many starts to a year. Some are based on financial years, zodiacs and calendar years. Generally speaking though, January 1st signals a new start and we are re-connected with our better selves. Those extra kilos we need to shed, getting down to the gym more regularly, eating more healthily, drinking less booze and all the other typical personal and work aspirations we embrace for a better new year to come are commonplace goals. All excellent stuff and hopefully this time we will carry through on our brilliant starts.   How about setting a serious goal though? Why don’t we make a commitment to stop complaining in 2017? This means a total overhaul of our brain. We have a lot of concerns, stresses and worries in our daily lives, so complaining comes very naturally. It doesn’t take us anywhere though. We just focus on something that is either already done and irretrievable or we express some concern over something that might happen in the future. Well it might not happen too. Perhaps we can take some steps and make sure it doesn’t happen or if it does happen, we can lessen the impact? Just complaining about it is basically pointless.   Why don’t we resolve to make 2017 a “complain free zone”. This means we have to re-think about how we see the world around us. We have to have fresh eyes for old problems. We have to move from having our usual “pity parties” to being proactive. When we decide we won’t complain, we are taking on more accountability. We are saying we are in the fix not the dither business. We have to switch our language from negative to positive. We need to embrace the mantra of IWWCW or “In What Way Can We” and deal with whatever is causing us grief and hardship.   If we take away the complaining refuge, we need to mentally move to a new place – a land of the possible and the positive. Now this requires discipline obviously, because we are all whiners at some point. This perspective shift has two dimensions. One is internal – our self talk around what is happening in our own world. The other is related to our dealings with others. We often get frustrated with other people and we complain to them and/or about them. This does no good whatsoever. The individuals in question often become defensive, usually reject what we say and sometimes even feel required to counterattack or seek revenge at a later point.   We are better off to find other ways to communicate our concerns or dissatisfactions with others. We might be inclined to tell it as it is. We feel better because we were righteous. The only problem is the other party feels offended, insulted and righteous about justifying whatever it is they are doing that annoys us. Allowing others to keep face, being tactful, indirect, subtle and talking about our own failings first, are all tried and true methods of dealing with the insufficiencies of others.   If we fix our self-talk and shift to the positive, we will have a much better 2017. If we stop complaining about others, we will have a spectacular new year. None of this is easy but the rewards are definitely there. Are we all perfect and can just switch out of old habits with a mere snap of the fingers? No, so let’s not beat ourselves up if we occasionally slip up. Rather let’s keep working on establishing new habits that will work for us. Each time we truncate our negative self-talk or we refrain from giving some irritating transgressor both barrels, we have made progress. It takes 21-30 days to cast a new habit, so we have to be patient and just keep going with it. Imagine how life would be if we were able to eliminate complaining from our lives? A worthy goal for sure. Best wishes for your success in making this a reality.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Dangerous People   It sounds quite obvious not to hire people who are dangerous. The problem is people can have a nice resume, can sound quite articulate in interviews and we buy this false persona.   They can also have a lot of energy, can be quite forthright and outgoing. They are often brimming with confidence and self-belief. On the surface, it all looks fine. The issues come out though in dribs and drabs.   They often have a weak association between their mouth and their brain. They shoot their mouth off, with great vigor, babbling stuff and easily overwhelm others around them. The content of this babbling becomes the future pain point for the organisation. Their mouths are too fast for their brains. Stream of consciousness thinking probably works better in literature, than it does in business.   I was facilitating a brainstorming session and observed a painful reality. Loud, aggressive, dim people can do major damage to companies. They compensate for their intellectual inferiority complex by becoming very vocal, dominant and aggressive. Considered, steady, sensible people allow the dangerous air to breathe, because they are polite, fair, want to see everyone contributing and are open to a variety of ideas.   This is fine in the idea generation stage, what we call “green light thinking” and that is exactly what is needed. By the way, when you are doing brainstorming, don’t mix idea creation and idea evaluation together at the same time. Separate them out. The problems arise though when we get to the idea parsing stage or “red light thinking”.   Here the need to be dominant surges up in these dangerous people and they push their ideas, not through the value of the contribution, but through the force of their personality. This is why it is often better to have an outside facilitator, who can be oblivious to the internal politics of the organisation and can make sure that everyone gets heard - not just the loud, aggressive, agitating and voluminous. Because they are usually not deep, reflective thinkers, they rely exclusively on top of mind idea generation. That is fine, but the best idea creators will take those starter ideas further or will plumb the depths of possibility of an idea and go much further, much richer.   Another dangerous employee variety is the seemingly intelligent sort. Most of what they say seems reasonable, but their analytical ability is weak. They tend to damage companies more by what they miss and don’t contribute. They are harder to spot because their camouflage is pretty good. The damage often only becomes apparent after the event. These are the missed opportunities, the chances never seized, the information never proffered, the connections never made, the added value never added.   This is the brand killer for companies. The clients realise later they have been short changed by these dangerous people. They find out there were parts of the system they could have mobilized to boost their business, but that little morsel was never offered. There was a timing advantage that closed out unrealised.   When the clients raise the point, they are unhelpfully told “oh yes, you could have done that”. This makes clients irate. They are immediately gripped with the thought, “then why on earth didn’t you tell me?”.   They have spent the money and the time to subsequently discover they only got partial value. They now understand they have just witnessed a splendid opportunity go sailing by unrealised. Successful businesses make every post a winner and cannot tolerate lost opportunities. The buyer servicing organisation’s reputation and brand are now potentially shredded by the activities or actually non-activities, of these dangerous people.   How do these brand assassins survive? Their bosses are to blame. They are not educating them, guiding them, controlling them sufficiently. They are too busy, too distracted or too trusting. Maybe the boss is not the sharpest tool in the toolbox as well, so now we really start to multiply our problems. Or it could be there is no internal mechanism to work on analytical skills. The educational backgrounds may have been a “once over lightly” approach to decision-making, problem solving and situational analysis.   Dangerous people reading this article won’t recognise themselves. They are simply too confident, based on nothing in particular. They lack self-awareness and they lack it almost completely. Left to their own devices they will hurt you. Search them out and either fix them or find a place where they cannot hurt you any further when dealing with clients.   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 [email protected]   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 and 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

One Of the Biggest Leadership Challenges   How do you run your business.  Sharp on the cost control, right on top of the quality, working hard on building the brand, watchful of competitors, full throttle on appealing to shareholders and stakeholders?  There is one area that is going to become a bigger headache. That is people.   I am not talking about just training them. I am hearing from leaders in Japan that they are growing more concerned about getting staff and keeping them.  In the “good old days”, there were tonnes of staff to hire and fire as needed by Japanese companies, but that is changing big time. The lack of qualified staff is hitting across more and more industries.    There are multiple job openings for new hires from which to choose.  Why would they pick your company and even more importantly, why should they stay?   We know people don't leave companies, they leave bosses.  Today there is so much information about your shop available on-line, they can check you out thoroughly before they even contemplate joining. There are battalions of diligent recruiters out there, busily contributing to Japan's labor mobility by moving people into jobs and around jobs.   The idea that we can have an unattractive workplace where people are ill treated by the system or their bosses or both, is clearly out of date.  Position aspirants will read about how the organisation really treats people behind the velvet curtain.   Once inside, they will be engaged in direct relation to how they are managed.  The results of the engagement surveys, we have conducted world wide hold up true for Japan as well.  The feeling of being "valued" is the critical piece of the puzzle to get our staff engaged.     The only trouble with this construct is that the presidential suite of offices is not where too much mass staff engaging takes place. This is more the wheelhouse, scouring the horizon for opportunities and trouble.  This is where the organisation’s direction and preferred culture are determined.     The actuality of the delivery is done by people much further down the food chain.  Supervisors and middle level managers are the dispensers of justice and travesties of justice, that either keep people or enrage them to leave.   One quick contemplation of this current reality tells you that the leadership of organisations is only going to become more complicated and more important.  How well do your middle managers treat your team?  Are they ensuring the increasingly finite human resources under their stead are being properly taken care?   Do the troops feel valued?  Engaged staff don't move shops, they spurn the recruiter’s siren calls to jump ship.  They see a future for themselves right where they are, they feel valued and that their contribution is both recognized and making a difference.   How do they know this?  Because their boss is communicating this to them.  These bosses really know about their team members.  They know their fears, frustrations, concerns, hopes, aims and aspirations.  When I was growing up in business, there was a solid wall between work and private.  The boss going into the non-work zone was a taboo.  This is no longer applicable today, as so many face issues with aging parents and the younger employees want a more holistic approach from the company.   To date the pressure on bosses to produce numbers, have mainly been concentrated on revenues. Now, in addition to that, the pressure to retain staff and maintain low turnover numbers has become more critical.   Flexibility is bending the previously rigid HR rules in companies.  In fact, it is changing HR.  The classic Japanese model of HR focus is that of enforcers. Meeting out penalties for breaking the rules, punishing them by dispatch to remote provinces or mentally torturing miscreants until they crack and quit.     The idea of the HR partner in the business is still catching on in Japan and the “rule police” role is still the default mode.  Reality has collided with demographic trends. More wives are working, staff need to take time off to take their parents to hospital, to stay at home when their kids have a fever or break their toe or get a cold or refuse to got to school.   They need to have their request to work from home granted and not to be judged slackers and doubtful future management material.  They may need to come in late or go home early – disloyal travesties in the current regime thinking in most Japanese companies.   Bosses need to be handing out more praise and it has to be quality praise.  Quality praise - what does that mean?  Comments like “well done” are low quality praise and pointless.  Exactly what was well done?  The praise has to capture the concise detail of the thing done well and this has to be fed back to the staff.  The credibility of the praise is directly linked to the specificity of the praise.     It also has to be timely.  Saving praise up for the annual review, like a Christmas present to be delivered on just one day of the year is an antiquated idea.  The impact of the credible praise is directly linked to its proximity to the event that deserves the praise.   The boss as super coach is also a new idea, that will only grow in importance in Japan.  The “can't delegate” boss is an anachronism in this era.  Delegation is how we train people to take over our jobs and not some happy dumping ground for our workload.  The time devoted to helping staff step out of their comfort zone is correlated to the number of innovative ideas which will arise from conversations with staff. Senior management in Japan complain to us that they hardly hear of any innovative ideas from the front line. The reason is simple. The middle managers are doing a poor job engaging and encouraging their people.   Having ideas picked up and implemented by the organisation and being praised for their work will engage staff to stay.  It also results in the social media jungle tom toms broadcasting this is a great place to work, where people are valued, ideas are implemented, bosses care and do coach their staff.   Do your middle managers get it yet?  If they don't, then some remedial training on the new reality is in order.  The possibility of running out of people to maintain your current business is possibly here right now. If it isn’t, just around the corner is the future challenge of not being able to get enough new people to drive the business forward. Being a Leader is fun isn't it!   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

The Boss As Super Coach   The younger generation are the future and they want a different type of boss. That boss has to be a new model - persuasive, able to sell the WHY of the job, razor focused on building the team member’s careers, a brilliant communicator and personal coach. A snap really – probably be able to knock that lot off before lunch. Well maybe not.   In Japan, they are not making as many members of the younger generation as they used to, so what they want becomes very critical to the boss’s ability to meet the demands of the organisation. The over 65 age bracket in Japan is currently accounting for 33.45 million people, whereas those under 15 are only 15.88 million. That youth number will continue to decline.   Meeting their expectations means survival, because if you are losing them to your competitors, then you will run out of having enough staff to run the business. You can see it now in construction companies, convenience stores, even sushi restaurants in Tsukiji, all having to find non-Japanese young people to do the work.   Japanese youth will be in high demand and the ability of their boss to satisfy their requirements will determine their longevity with the company. Are these bosses up to the task though? It doesn’t appear to be the case. Japanese government statistics (always old in Japan - the latest survey was 2013) show that 32% of young graduates are quitting their jobs within the first three years. This isn’t going to improve.   How skilled are the current crop of middle managers in Japan at coaching. Pretty lousy I would reckon. Why would I say that? There is almost no leadership training in Japan for middle managers apart from OJT (On The Job Training). This effectively means the flawed systems of the past are faithfully transmitted to the next generation, without any insertion of modern professionalism. If your mentor was really skilled, then you were exceedingly lucky, but that batch is few in number.   The boss super coach needs to identify what are the skills needed in the team. There are many possibilities so prioritisation is essential. The person being coached, together with the boss as coach, picture the desired outcome. What is the skill gap to be closed and what does success look like? The goal must be owned by both sides.   Attitude is vital. People are different though and what triggers desire for improvement in one, may not work in another. What the boss thinks is exciting, may underwhelm the under 30s team members. Is the trust in place? How well does the boss know the team members? If the boss has invested the time to know their staff, then coaching them becomes easier, because they can identify their respective interest triggers.   The key resource needed for coaching younger people tends to be the boss’s time. This is in critical short supply usually, which is why so little coaching gets done in the first place. There is a chain reaction that starts with the boss’s time management ability. This is rarely a strong suite for middle managers in Japan. The super coach has mastered time management and prioritisation, so they can live more in Quadrant Two (important but not urgent) rather than Quadrant One (important and urgent) of the classic time management structure.   The ability to spend time reinforcing the strength of the company brand, explaining the Why behind what we do around here and applying attention to developing the skills of the younger team member are the keys. This means having the bandwidth for identifying, explaining and demonstrating the skill required. It means coaching the practice of the skill rather than abandoning the young to their own devices. The latter approach usually fails and so their self-confidence gets hit hard, limiting their appetite for doing more or trying new things.   The idea of recognising results only at the end is flawed, but that is how most people do it. Young people are constantly coming out of their Comfort Zones, so they need instant feedback on two things: what they are doing well (good) and how their can improve further (better).   Recognising their baby steps and partial successes is vital to embolden them to keep going, to keep facing what they see as the black tunnel ahead full of risk and potential career obliteration. Rewards should definitely come at the end and if we know them well enough, then we will know what type of recognition most resonates with them.   The modern boss in Japan has to become a super coach and give the young people in their charge, all the things they themselves should have received on the way up but never did. Unfair, yes, but we can’t keep shortchanging each successive generation and expect we will be making consistent progress in our organisations. The time is now and we have to see some significant changes in the role of today’s boss.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.        

The Madness Of Moods     Are you moody? You might say no. You see yourself as an upbeat individual, smoothly navigating your way through the workday. Good, but the workplace is roiling with confirmed, card carrying boss watchers. They have their antennae out every time you appear, as they gauge the risk level of any interaction with you today.   Should I raise that project possibility, talk about the budget, have that revenue results discussion, etc. They have been studying your body language, your gait, face and voice with such intensity, that they can easily distinguish your mood on any given day and throughout the day.   So if you are troubled, have you been a sufficiently skilled actor to mask the emotions coursing under that bespoke suit? We radiate information to our team regardless, but do we maintain our equilibrium when everyone around us is losing theirs? When everyone is panicking, are we an amplifier or a suppressor?   We are the boss, so we set the tone for the day. If we are up, we have a much better chance of taking everyone else up with us. Conversely, if we are worried, concerned, down, then we drag the entire crew toward the bottom. The scary part is how hard it is to draw them up and how quickly we can sink their boat.   Are we circumspect in what we say? If we awake in the morning and the look of the sky determines our mood, how much control are we exercising? The somber rain clouds, driving sleet or ice cold snow may encourage us to whine about what a “lousy day” it is.   Alternatively crisp blue skies and lovely fluffy white clouds under a gorgeous warm sun might make us comment “what a great day”. Both are dangerous statements. Both tell everyone, that it is acceptable for our mood to be randomly controlled by the weather.   We have to be the sunny boss, every day, regardless of the meteorological conditions. We don’t discuss the weather at work with any judgmental comments. We might note it is raining, so we need to take our brolly, but that is as far as we are allowed to stray.   There are other moods we need to be vigilant about. If the mood doesn't grab you, are you procrastinating on doing certain unpalatable tasks. Especially, those you find difficult, boring, time consuming or require you to really think hard? When you scan your well considered priority list for today’s assault on the workload and you spy that a certain item has now crept to the upper reaches of the “to do” pile, do you inwardly wince?   Are you frantically looking for an escape route. Maybe a quick diversionary attack on the email, social media, papers scattered on the transom or that phone call you need to make. In other words, every possible thing other than the irksome burden in front of you. Do you feel your spirited, happy mood start to fade as the reality dawns that massive pain is inbound?   What about when people let you down? The news arrives that a certain item hasn’t been completed, on time, on budget or to the required standard by one of the team. You were hurtling down the highway of happiness, fully charged with control of your day and now this train wreck appears on the horizon to derail your positive mood.   The boss is not allowed the luxury to react. As the boss, you can only respond. That means engaging both the head and the heart. It means super control over your moods, to intentionally impact both yourself and your team. The discipline to do the things you need to do and when you need to do them is the objective. The boss is not perfect but has to appear perfect to everyone else attached to the oars on the galley deck.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Personal Visionary Leadership   Normally we think of a visionary leader as someone who shows us the way forward, who motivates, encourages and inspires us. The entry ticket to becoming a visionary leader though, is to have a clear vision for yourself. We are all notorious spruikers of pungent advice for others, none of which we normally adhere to in our own lives. This is where the visionary leader’s personal credibility bit sails right out the window.   Visions should be backed up with goals. Leading an “intentional life” is a good starting point as an aspiration. This means we don’t aimlessly wander through the decades, directionless or often becalmed. We choose to garner ten years of experience rather than achieving one year of experience ten times. We choose the way forward and we choose to work hard to realise those goals we have set for ourselves.   What is the timeframe to realise the vision? Where can we start? Let’s leave the company vision thing aside for the moment and concentrate on our personal vision first. This makes sense, because if our own life is a meandering mess, then how do we imagine we can magically bring order to the corporation? If you don’t have your own act together, then the people working for you know that and your credentials as a visionary leader look a bit torn and tatty.   Normally, our future vision is an extension of how we want to see our future life. Where will we live, in what circumstances, who will we be with, how will we live, what will motivate us, entertain us and fulfill us?   In corporate life, we spend considerable time, effort and money to define the brand we want to establish for a new business or a business being taken in a new direction. We can do the same thing for ourselves. We might think about the most desirable location for our house. Which city, which part of the city and maybe even which street? We can collect myriad magazine photos for our vision book of beautiful houses that have elements of our dream home.   We should determine the house colours, the exterior, the interiors, the approach to the house, the scale of the property, what is in the house, what is in the backyard. Going to this level of detail makes the whole exercise more concrete and more likely to be realised, than a vagary like “I want a nice house”.   If we are to live intentionally, we must visualise our objectives in concrete detail, to make the whole process as real as possible. We also look into our future state and see how we will live. What sort of person are we to become? Who are we with, how do we get along with them and what do we do? How are we regarded by others and how do we treat others? Where do we travel to, in what style do we travel and what experiences do we have? What sort of car do we drive? Which restaurants do we frequent? What are our fashion flourishes?   We create a combination photo and word picture description of the future state we want to realise. We now have to consider the goals which, when they come to fruition, will supply the vision objectives we have set for ourselves. Goal setting works best when broken down and linked to our roles in life. Often, we only consider our corporate goals and forget about ourselves in this process. We are multifaceted beings and so should be our goals. We have our company role, but we also have our family role - wife, husband, son, daughter, father, mother, brother, sister, etc. We have financial, health, friendship, personal development and lifestyle goals we want to achieve.   The point is to link these goals back to our personal vision. The vision is the direction, but the goals are the vehicle to carry us along the road to realisation of the vision. We have set an overall timeframe for the vision achievement, so the goals have to have milestones too, to be able to back up the timetable we have set.   Zig Ziglar had a great quote, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want”. If we want to be a visionary leader for our team, we need to be able to help them realise what they want. First step, stop kidding ourselves and let’s get our own act together. The sheer focus that process will bring, will establish our credentials to help others achieve their own goals. When we can do that, we gain willing cooperation from our team and we become a true visionary leader.   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 [email protected]   About the Author   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Become Your Own First Responder   There are billions being spent in the beauty business, the weight loss, fashion and entertainment worlds. These are the fantasy lands from where we receive our images of success. By comparison, we are too short, too tall, too skinny, too fat, too poor, too whatever. Actors, sports stars, captains of industry all seem to be living the dream and we are barely making a living.   If only I had been born to wealthier parents, in a better neighbourhood, in a better city, in a better country. I wish I had a better education or had a better job, better prospects. I wish I had been dealt a better hand in life.   Stop wishing that because you are not going to be dealt a better hand. You have what you have, you can’t change what has happened in the past, but that doesn’t mean that is all you can ever have.   Many have made mistakes, specified poor choices, taken unwise paths, and have hung around with the wrong crowd. Face it, accept it, stop fighting it - you can’t undo the mistakes of the past. Stop trying to go backward and use that energy to go forward Don’t live in the past. Look at your strengths, not just your weaknesses.   Well this all sounds very fine, dandy and noble but how do we do that? Well, we have to become our own first responder. When a catastrophe occurs, the first responders go in and rescue people, they apply life saving procedures and spirit the wounded away from the scene to safety.   The white knight, on his white charger is not about to turn up anytime soon and rescue us, so we had better get busy helping ourselves. We had better come up with our own rescue plan and start to move forward.   Before we can make that move though we have to throw off the heavy burdens holding us back. These are not physical, but mental barriers. We need to start by freeing ourselves from our past. Horrible, sad, unfair, gross, ridiculous things happened to us or we had supreme bad luck – it doesn’t matter, we have to move forward.   Now I didn’t say we had to forget what happened – that is unlikely and probably impossible. The trick is to free ourselves from the incapacitation that those events in the past are having on our daily reality. We need to focus on what is in front of us today. What is in the locus of our control.   If yesterday is haunting us to the point we can’t focus on today, we are never going to break free. To get rid of yesterday, so we can concentrate on today, we need to take the worry component out of our frame of reference. We can recall the past, but we need to deduct the worry bit. Worrying about it changes nothing, so recall but stop worrying about it. Create your own hermetically sealed memory house with glass walls, ceilings, windows, floors and doors where the content is visible but nothing can get out. Mentally make it so the worry dimension cannot escape to contaminate your today.   Having done that, we switch gears and look at our strengths and assets. Assets – what assets you ask? You have time and that is your greatest asset ever. You spend time either productively or less productively, but you still spend time. By looking at the time available as your asset, you can now start the process of going on to the front foot and thinking about how to spend that time more efficiently, effectively and productively.   You can set down a detailed vision for yourself. Where and how you would like to be in the near future. Next you can arrange a series of key high priority goals which will help you achieve that vision. Your goals must break down to precise, defined, realistic action steps to realise the vision’s objectives. Now we devote all the time we have available to working on those actions steps. This process creates forward momentum from which we can build further, step by step. What did all of this cost you? A small part of your greatest asset – time.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Trust   Leaders gain automatic trust by dint of their position power.  Title and authority ensure people will toe the line, laugh at our jokes, tell us “Yes”.  This type of trust only goes so far though in gaining the willing cooperation of the team members.  In a busy life however, with so many demands on our time, we mentally merge automatic trust with earned trust and confuse the two.  Earned trust differs from automatic trust because it is based on the reality of our interactions and communication with our team.  This is the “walk” as opposed to the “talk”.  We imagine we have established a trust relationship with the team and therefore are getting their full support for our efforts to progress the business.  As Yogi Berra once noted, " Leading is easy. It is getting people to follow you that is the hard part".   Time management is closely related to trust.  The ability to leverage ourself as a leader and get others to work on projects for us, means we can concentrate on high level tasks that only we can do.  However, if the trust is not there, the person receiving the task feels unmotivated and lacking in commitment to do what needs to be done.   If we are not able to trust our team we are afraid to delegate, because we a concerned they will not be reliable and we will suffer later, when things go wrong.  The flip side of this scenario is we don't delegate and therefore kill ourselves twice. Once by not developing our people, by giving them a chance to grow through taking accountability and responsibility for higher level tasks. Secondly, because we murder our own time management abilities, by heaping too much work on our own shoulders, ensuring we are doing mainly lower and medium value tasks for the most part.   Discretionary effort is that jewel whereby our team want to go beyond, to innovate, create, think ahead and step up.  They get paid for their services of course, but this is a much higher degree of commitment. It goes far beyond the basic expectations of labor in exchange for money.  When the trust levels are high, then the discretionary effort levels are also very high.   Building trust is not a “one and done” effort.   It is a constant and we can be adding. to and withdrawing from our trust account with our team. We lose our temper and lash out at one of the crew. The previously accumulated trust now goes through the floor.  We take strong exception to a suggestion from a team member and in doing so, we just cancel their innovation ticket. We say one thing but do another, or we say something and do nothing, provide no follow through etc. and the trust is out the window.     We are well intentioned, hard working, busy people so we cut corners all the time to get it all done.  One of those corners is with our communication.  We are chronic non-communicators.  Now some reading this may be thinking, " No I am not".  Talking a lot and telling everyone what to do, isn't the type of communication I am referring to.  I am on about the communication facility that leads to increasing trust.  This is the communication of explaining the WHY, of listening, of asking for input, of seeking beyond the limitations of your own experience and ideas. This requires more time than telling those around us what to do and how to do it.     Here is where we close the loop on ourselves, like a hangman’s noose around our own necks. We don't have the trust to delegate, therefore we don't have the time to communicate properly. So we fail to build sufficient trust to delegate and so around and around we go.   Spending time with our team, finding out what inspires them, interests them, what they fear, what they hope for, are the fundamental building blocks of good communication. These efforts lead to a better understanding of how to build the trust with each person in the team.  The starting point has to be making the time available to have those conversations and not just the prerequisite ones at performance review time.  These have to be built into an already packed schedule. This means we have to take the delegation process seriously.   If we are delegating properly, we are matching the task with the person's career path and development track.  We are having a discussion where we sell the value of the task, as part of their personal development process, as opposed to a hospital pass of something, bothersome and unpleasant.  It means having them set the plan, the relevant milestones and we just monitor the execution to make sure it is on track.   This conversation and follow up requires time and that is where best intentions are often sacrificed on the alter of expediency.  We uphold in principle, but we allow all manner of competing priorities to push this down the list of things we need to be focused on. Eventually it just seeps away almost unnoticed.   We need to change our mindset, work habits, time scheduling or nothing will advance. Instead of ten years of experience we will just be repeating the same year ten times in a row.  How easily does this happen? All too easily, in the busy life of a leader.   Earned trust is so valuable for the leader and there is a price to be paid to receive it. That is time and consideration. If we really value our people, then we will vote for them to be higher up in our priority list. Because of this higher attention escalation, the necessary conversations are held, the time is spent and repeated consistently. This consistency builds lasting trust.   Action Steps Understand the difference between position power and gaining earned trust Learn how to delegate properly Check to see you are really communicating rather than imagining you are Make time available to get to really know your team   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 [email protected]   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 and 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Running A Foreign Business In Japan    Running your own business is challenging anywhere, but Japan adds a bit of spice to the broth. According to official statistics, 70% of Japanese companies are unprofitable. Business seems pretty simple at one level – constantly seek to increase revenues and reduce or hold down costs. To increase revenues you can find more customers, more repeater customers and raise prices.  Raising prices in Japan gets tough, when you are in the churning wash of decades of deflation and when there are always lots and lots of competitors. When the consumption tax was raised previously, the economy immediately plunged into recession, which indicates the price sensitivity of the populace. The Abe Cabinet blinked and gave up on the last scheduled increase out of fear of the consequences.  The usual way of differentiating yourself and justifying higher prices is through the added value you provide. Naturally, there is a major sales and marketing effort required to get that value message out. Both options in Japan however come with high price tags.  By the way, whenever we do training as part of a global arrangement, we always get push back on the pricing in Japan, especially when the yen is converted to other currencies. Abenomics is not helping much at the moment, with the rapid strengthening of the yen.  Why overseas head office staff would imagine that pricing here should be the same as at home is a mystery, but that is often the expectation. The cost structures here in Tokyo for wages and rents are high relative to other countries and the prices reflect that. Downtown Tokyo office space rents per square meter, in a reasonable location, will fall in the JPY9000 – JPY 14,000 range (USD$90-USD$140).  I refer these global partners back to their own local operation’s wage and rent bills in Tokyo. I point out these are nothing like what they are costing at home, so why expect global pricing to be uniform? In general, fixed costs as a percentage of revenue are high in Tokyo and it is a struggle to get them down.  Unlike other Western countries, where salespeople are prepared to work on a 100% commission basis, very few Japanese staff are attracted by that option. Again this opportunity to move wage costs away from fixed to variable is less available here. This means there must be a base salary plus bonus or commission arrangement and the base will be relatively high. Especially if you are a foreign operation, as you need to attract potential employees. When were a start-up in 2007, we had to pay our sales staff close to double the norm, to get them to work for us. That hurt but we had no choice. By the way, add another 15% to you wages bill for all the various social insurance and pension costs.  Of course, if you are a prestigious mega corporation, encapsulated by a powerful brand, this attracting staff challenge may not be such an issue. If you are a Small Medium Enterprise (SME) then attracting people becomes more competitive. If your team needs to speak some reasonable level of English, then the wage bill goes up immediately. As an illustration, a competent English speaking Executive Assistant in Tokyo would earn around JPY7m-JPY 8m (USD$70k-USD$80k) per annum.  There is also a limited supply of Japanese who want to work in an international environment and that number is declining rapidly, as less and less young people go overseas to study. We are currently in the midst of a real turning point regarding the internationalisation of the younger generation. The young don’t want to learn English and they don’t want to live overseas, because everything is so wonderful here in Japan and it is safe. In the future, they are going to become almost impossible to hire for SMEs, as we are simply outbid by bigger companies.  Marketing in Japan, especially in Tokyo is a remorseless pit into which you have to throw lots of money. Print ads and content marketing driven advertorial are very expensive here and the local publishers have plenty of Japanese companies able and willing to pay, so trying to cut a deal is fraught.  Television predominates with 15 second ads, so even if you can afford the big money involved, your appeal to buyers in that time is microscopic. On-line banner ads are not inexpensive. Pay per click keyword search ads and Facebook ads are also not cheap and can burn through cash at an alarming rate. Few Japanese are using LinkedIn as yet, so it mainly targeting a foreign audience at this point. PR is a viable option for brand awareness, but you get what you pay for. SMEs can rarely pony up the type of money required to get the PR agency’s “A Team”, so don’t expect any particular marketing magic from the “D Team”.  Japanese websites are often the complete antithesis of the Zen like western approach. Garish colours and packed screen real estate are very common here. So what do you do, go Zen or go Garish? Do you have the cash to pay for a Japanese language copywriter or do you do it internally to save money? Are your team members any good at it? Your SEO has to be fined tuned to push yourself forward in the page rankings and you need people who know what they are doing, as DIY is cheaper, but a lot harder. These resources may be in-house or on contract, but they still push up the wage’s bill.  Networking in Japan is different to Western countries in that few Japanese go to these events all that willing to meet new people. Sound promising? The meeting charges are also expensive as well (USD$50-USD$80), so if your team are really getting out there, the costs can be significant for what is really a shotgun marketing effort.   It sounds crazy, but the usual style is that someone you know introduces you to someone they know. This is acceptable, if quite limited in scope. Bounding up to complete strangers and introducing yourself is possible, but the reactions are often mild shock, blank stares and some resistance. This negative response is applied to Japanese as well as foreign staff. “Working the room” hasn’t quite made it here yet as a concept.  Cold, as opposed to warm approaches are also tricky. Sending a direct mail piece to someone unknown goes straight in the bin. Any email from an unknown entity similarly gets deleted unread. You can cold call here but you really need to know the person’s name. If you don’t, you will usually get blocked at the entry point, promised that your message will get passed on and a return call offered – if they are interested. You will never hear back from them.  There is always the issue of what you are offering may work overseas, but it won’t work here. If you bring global statistics, then there had better be a Japanese component of the survey or the whole thing is just dismissed as irrelevant. That means you have to pay to run the same survey here, to show the significance of your findings for the Japanese market. This costs money. Testimonials from overseas companies, super brands or otherwise, are also invalid by definition. You need a local track record to be credible and skepticism reigns without relief.  Natural disasters, especially earthquakes are a constant prospect and all of us living in Tokyo know we are overdue for “The Big One”. After the triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear core meltdown in Fukushima a few years ago, our training business ground to a halt with four months of no cash flow. Who wants to do training, when you are having large numbers of major aftershocks every single day for months. We all know it is important, but it is at moments like these, we really understand the importance of cash flow in a business. This was a painful period for many businesses to get enough cash to keep going and in fact many disappeared as a direct result.  The good news is that in Japan you do get paid by clients. Also, Japanese companies prefer the devil they know, so if you supply value, then you can expect repeat business. Staff are hardworking and diligent. People are honest, neat, polite and things work here, also there is fantastic infrastructure.  There are large numbers of foreign corporates with businesses here, who are more open than a lot of domestic companies to your approach. There are English language magazines aimed at these expatriate leaders, which because of the limited market, cost a fraction of the Japanese mainstream media. There are many foreign Chambers of Commerce, business associations and study groups here, so there are many networking opportunities where you can actually “work the room”.  The rule of law applies here and legal disputes that have to go to court are few and far between. Like anywhere, there are criminal gangs (yakuza) extorting businesses, but they tend to leave foreigners alone and prefer exploiting the locals, as it is a lot easier.  Because of Japan’s extremely strict immigration and refugee policies, there are very few ethnic or religious groups who are likely to cause Japan much trouble. The biggest non-Japanese ethnic group are Koreans. The majority were born here after the war, their grandparents being brought in during the war years as forced labour. There are some foreigners here illegally overstaying their visas, but they are keeping a very low profile, because the Japanese government deports them once found.  Japan is still the third largest economy in the world. The main leisure activities here really, for the majority of the populace, is to shop and eat. Many foreign companies have done well here, they have found the formula for success but few have done that rapidly. Long-term planning, patience, grit and sustainability take on different dimensions here in Japan.  All in all, Japan is a land of opportunity. Progress just comes more slowly here and with great difficulty, but if you stick it out, then it will come. There are plenty of foreigners who have made a success of their businesses here. Adopt some samurai style “grit” and keep going.  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 [email protected]  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 and 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

The Boss’s Genius Ideas     Shinya Katanozaka President of ANA Holdings came up with a genius idea. Allow the passengers to order breakfast, lunch and dinner whenever they pleased. Passenger surveys showed the clients were in full agreement. What the boss had not anticipated was that passengers would order the meals immediately on take-off, making it impossible to deliver on the promise. The plan was soon scrapped.   The point here is not about being willing and unafraid to try new things, in order to differentiate ourselves from the hoi polloi of the competition. That courage and motivation is exemplary. The real issue is that no one inside the ANA organisation told the boss the “Emperor Has No Clothes”.   When you have dynamic leaders, you often get the “success at all costs no matter what” dynamism, that comes as part of their personality package. They are mentally strong, persuasive, disciplined, hard working, intolerant of weakness, tough, masterful and basically a handfull for everyone around them.   Is this you?   As leaders in Japan, one of our biggest fears is ignorance. We may come up with a genius idea that is actually rubbish. The age, stage and power hierarchy here ensures no one wants to stand out by “speaking truth to power”. Subordinates learn quickly that taking personal responsibility for anything is a risky business. Better to make it a group decision, so that the blame evaporates and never settles on any one person in particular. There are plenty of parents of success in Japan and also plenty of orphans, when it comes to failure.   Take a look at what happened with the original Olympic Stadium design for Tokyo for 2020. It was almost impossible to locate anyone who was responsible. The current excitement about the toxicity and design of the Toyosu site for the new fish and vegetable markets is another textbook case study where no one seems responsible.   So the odds are stacked up against anyone reporting potential bad news to a powerful boss. In the Japanese context, it is much better to be a “Yes Man” and blend in with the office shrubbery as much as possible. As the boss though, we need people around us who can speak back to us and tell us we are not considering all the negative ramifications of our genius decision.   This sounds simple in theory. However, if you have built a career on getting things done, despite everyone around you telling you it can’t be done and then you go and do it, your ego gets pretty puffed up.   You become a powerful advocate for your own opinion, you are ace at debate, you can wrangle with the best of them to get your way. Hasn’t that been your formula for your massive success so far? Why change what is working? This is especially true in Japan, where you have to push like crazy to get anything new introduced or to change anything to make it better.   Here is where we run into trouble of our own making. We have browbeaten the troops reporting to us to genuflect when the genius boss is speaking, to doff their caps to our cleverness, to tug their forelocks in submission to our superiority.   Like Katanozaka san though, sometimes we don’t have full command of the situation or enough facts about the gemba（現場）or the on-site reality, to really know everything needed to make the best decision. If the people around us don’t feel the trust to speak up, without being decimated by our forceful personalities, then we will keep on building our ladder higher and higher, better and better up against the wrong wall.   So, when we hear hesitation or see doubt or sense reluctance on the part of those reporting to us, let’s not opt for a preemptory nuclear harpoon strike to wipe out any possible resistance to “Our Word”. Instead, let’s bite our tongue, put on our best inscrutable poker face, shut up and listen to what they have to say. Let’s draw them out without riposte, without immediate evaluation, without issuing the death penalty to their idea. Let’s tell them: “Thank you. This is an important consideration and I want to give the idea sufficient time to mull it over”.   The first few times you do this, it will probably kill you. Fast paced people like speed of execution – no loose ends, nothing left hanging, no untidiness. They pile up the workload until it almost crushes them. They are so time poor they can hardly get through their most high priority tasks for each day. In this environment, taking additional time to listen to subordinates seems like a waste of valuable time. This is especially the case, when there are so many highly urgent items which need our attention.   Listening to others is a new skill for most bosses, so it will take time to bed it down. The key is to slooooow down. To give our 100% concentration to the person in front of us. To really listen to them for a change. To switch off all the white noise in our minds that is interfering with good communications. We need to hear this person, if we want to hear from the others. Everyone is watching like a hawk to see what happens.   We have built up a reputation of not listening, of being the bulldozer, of pushing through regardless and of being oblivious to dissenting opinions. This will not get turned around in a day. This is the work of months of effort. This must become the new behaviour change we need to install, if we want to draw on the full power of all the opinions at our disposal. Here is the real crunch point – we have to become more humble about the validity of our own judgment and experience. Got it boss?   Action Steps   Check to see if you have surrounded yourself with “yes” men and women? Are you the last to hear about bad news? Are you constantly in bulldozer mode, on every topic? Don’t respond immediately when you hear something you disagree with from subordinates Become more humble about the validity of our own judgment and experience   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 [email protected]   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 and 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Training Women in Japan   Discrimination against women in business in Japan takes many forms. Prime Minister Abe talks about targets for women in leadership positions in companies but not much has changed. In fact, he significantly lowered the targets after barely getting started on the campaign. I am a Rotarian in Japan and it is male bastion still. Rotary is a vast international organisation with the purpose of connecting diverse professions together, to build better networks and to contribute to the community.   In Japan around 94% of rotary clubs do not have women members. My own was the same until a few years ago. Every year since I joined in 2002, we have had internal debates about accepting females into our club. The “no women” faction has basically aged and passed on, over these last 14 years.   Of course, there were no regulations stating that women could not join, but the reality was women could never pass the selection protocol because of their gender. Happily that era has now passed and we are now at a massive 5% female membership. The global average by the way is 21%.   Who are these men in Rotary. They are businessmen ranging from small local business owners to the mightiest captains of industry. My club is fill of the latter. In Japan, Rotary just adds another layer to those male connections built up at school and University.   Rotary around the world continues to grow in memberships but not in Japan. Up until 2000, Japan was leading the world in recruiting new members and since then has spiraled down until today, it is less than half the world average. Since opening the doors up to women in business, it has finally begun to turn around.   Facing a steadily declining membership, did the captains of industry embrace the reality and accept women to stem the haemorrhaging of the numbers. No, they hung in there as long as possible to avoid it.   I feel that we are finally getting somewhere in Japanese business. My club is very large, rich, conservative, powerful and the average age of our members is 69. If even my club members can now accept the requirement to have women, then this could be barometer of broader social change and the better acceptance of women in business in Japan. These guys are running Japan’s biggest corporations, so one hopes that progress here means there will be progress inside their companies.   Today, we see our corporate training classes composed of about 70% men and 30% women. Where are the rest of the women? They are not selected for training, because their company’s Middle Management team is still basically a male only club.   There are lot’s of diversity trainings going on, but for the most part the wrong people are being focused on. Giving women more training is a great idea but we need to train their male bosses as well. Whenever we discuss diversity training with Japanese clients they are wholly focused on up-skilling the women employees. When we suggest that is fine but a more holistic solution means bringing the men into the picture and better educating them about how to lead their women staff, we find we are plumbing a new idea here. Leading and managing are different - managing means supervising the processes within the company. Leading means supervising the processes within the company and means building the people. “People” here includes women. Leadership in Japan needs men to think in these terms, because, like my Rotary Club, decline is guaranteed unless changes are made.   We won’t see women meeting Abe’s original target, unless we get the male bosses to change first.   We can skill up the women as much as we like, but their male bosses are the ones who recommend them for promotion or for increased responsibilities. Like my Rotary, there are no regulations preventing women from being considered but magically only the male staff get the nod.   Let’s start with male Middle Management and bring forth the changes Japan business needs in order to succeed in the future.   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 [email protected]   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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Japan: Your Educational Ladder Is On The Wrong Wall   Japanese education includes exciting things like adults screaming abuse, using threatening words, kids mouthing slogans at mass rallies and making over $2 million in a week.   We know that Japan has a well established escalator system for work and education. Enter on the correct ground floor and with the passing of time and effort, you get out at the top. Get accepted into the right elementary school and you will get into the right middle school, the right high school and then the right university. You graduate and get a job at the right company and then over decades of grind work your way up to the top.   Japan still loves rote learning and parents will pay cram schools to get their kids fully tuned up and on to the education escalator. I was watching a programme on television about the Waseda Academy’s week long training camp for aspirant future captains of industry. The programme focused on 6th year elementary students trying to get into the all important Middle School of their choice. They had their hachimaki (headbands), a Japanese symbol of resolute martial spirit and determination. They lived in small groups, working hard all day taking tests and doing their homework together at night.   The televised scenes showed their adult instructors yelling at them to get serious or get out. Their insufficient efforts drew harsh rebukes and extended tirades. If you were not matching the regime’s expectations, you were bluntly told to get serious or leave now. You are twelve years old.   The amazing thing was there were 2600 kids on this training camp. The organisers were also adept at psychological indoctrination using mass rally techniques of getting everyone to come together outside on the assembly grounds, for some good old fashioned chanting of slogans and thrusting of fists into the air.   This was a $2.3 million programme for the week, which is not a bad earner. This is on top of the regular monthly fees the parents already pay to cram schools throughout the year, to get Michi Chan or Taro Kun on to the right escalator.   A few things struck me when watching the show. This reminded me of karate training with my Japanese masters. A rain of criticism every class was the order of the day in the Dojo. It also occurred to me that Japan loves this type of hell fire right of passage. One of my team sent her son on this very camp and she was happy that they were dealing out lot’s of tough love. Japan is famous for companies sending their errant staff to the adult equivalent of this training camp, meeting out humiliation and abuse in large doses.   You could argue that given how the older generation decries what a bunch of molly coddled, over indulged, spoilt brats the younger generation have become, they need a bit of toughening up.   Another thing that got my attention was the focus on rote learning and exam technique. This is the standard educational approach in Japan right through to starting University classes. At University, unless you are trying for very specific careers like medicine, the elite bureaucracy or some job that requires you to pass a national exam, then the next four years are a type of Club Med for undergraduates. I know because I did my Master’s Degree at a famous Japanese University and witnessed this luxurious life of undergrad student leisure.   Getting into a University will become even less of a grind, as the declining youth population means fewer and fewer barriers to entry, as institutions go into a death struggle for survival. So the ease of graduating will soon be matched by the ease of entry.   Japan’s experiment with the yutori kyoiku ( relaxed education) approach didn’t last long. The original idea was get away from rote learning and exam technique and try to help students to analyse, to think, to tap into their creative attributes. The first dismal results for Japan, from standardised international tests and yutori kyoiku was out on the trash heap. If the object was to foster creativity and innovation, you have to wonder why they used the usual standardised tests as their ROI measure?   The innovation issue hasn’t gone away though. In the internet age, when anything you want to know can be found through a search engine, how relevant is rote learning and exam technique for the future. How much longer can a varsity system of floundering entry requirements and day care for adolescents continue? We all know we need more innovation and creativity in companies. Where is this going to come from?   There are a lot of public and private sector vested interests in keeping the current system moving forward ever nudging irrelevancy, so don’t expect change soon. The sting in the tail will be the decreasing quality of our new company recruits. They won’t have much creativity after the system has had its way with them and their rote leaning abilities won’t be of much use either. If we think about the work skills, knowledge and abilities we will demand of our employees in the next twenty years, we can be absolutely sure the current Japanese system of education won’t be producing it.   Japanese companies have never heavily relied on academic institutions for educating their staff. With lifetime employment, investing in training people made economic sense because you would reap the rewards. With greater job mobility on the horizon however, this social contract between staff and company will be broken. Young people, who will be in short supply due to demographic changes, will become like baseball free agents. They will rapidly discover they are able to swap teams for a better deal.   The “lost decade”, now in it’s third decade, gutted in-company education. Training budgets were cut and many were never resurrected. Instead they relied on OJT (on the job training) and so the investment on skilling up staff never occurred. This is sustainable for a limited period of time and that point was reached long ago.   So where are we up to? The companies aren’t training their staff as comprehensively as they once did. The staff themselves will find themselves being lured by recruiters to move on to greener pastures.   I believe the educational construct in Japan basically has its ladder up against the wrong wall. What will become of this country? What will we need to do to prepare ourselves for this brave new world? Are we thinking about these prospects?   If we haven’t spared a thought for this grim future of work, then now is a good time to take another look at assumptions, strategies, plans and targets. Those preparing now, will win in this coming war for talent. Game on!     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 [email protected]   About The Author 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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

People Are A Pain   "All of our problems walk on two legs and talk back”. I can’t recall when I first came across this expression but it is true isn’t it. Most business problems can be fixed with more capital, technological breakthroughs, greater efficiencies, patience and time. People problems though are much trickier.   An after work drinks session erupts into an alcohol fuelled shouting match between two colleagues that doesn’t end there. The hostilities continue and now the entire work atmosphere is polluted with the bile between them.   The discussion about next year’s budget allocation turns nasty, as two strong willed leaders start a very public stoush aiming for some advantage over the other. Frosty relations prevail between these two silos within the firm thereafter and everyone is involved.   An innocuous remark by a colleague causes offense and now the boss has to deal with complaints about, “I can’t work with Taro anymore”.   Head Off Trouble Rather than trying to sort out the incidents, the rivalries, the perceived insults etc., wouldn’t it be better if these didn’t arise in the first place. We are all adults – although sometimes you have to wonder about that! Why can’t individuals take more responsibility for their own actions and reactions, instead of wasting valuable time and energy on intramural feuding. We should be concentrating on beating up our business rivals not each other.   Why do these problems arise in the first place? When you think about it, people have not been taught any methodology to control their emotions. We had better fix that - here are 6 actions for when you get emotionally charged.   Get cerebral Collect your thoughts and note your emotions. Draft a note or an email, really telling the offending party how it really is and why they are an idiot. Don’t miss anything, make sure you give it to them right between the eyes. Don’t fill in the name in the email address section when writing it and don’t send it. Writing it will get all the anger out, so you can relax now that is done.     Ask for input Run the situation by someone impartial and ask for honest input. We can often fail to see the woods for the trees when we are too deep in the situation. A third party dose of reality can be helpful to improve our perspective on the issue at hand. Even if it doesn’t, just sharing the burden with others gives us some relief.   Get physical No don’t punch them out, but get yourself out of there. Take a power walk or go the gym and burn that anger off baby.   Reflect Look at the situation from their point of view. Think about what you would do if you were under all the pressure they are under or you had to deal with what is facing them. Think about what you said and how that contributed to the escalation of hostilities. Are we each perfect? No and the sooner we remember that the better. It will help us to separate our ego from the details of the issue or argument.   Sleep on it Review your “I’m angry” notes or email in the morning. Think about all the more important tasks you have that require you at your best and most energetic. Decide if this is just a total waste of your valuable time or not? If it is, then let it go and work on some concrete projects that will positively advance your business.   Pick your battles. Make a balanced, strategic judgment about whether this is worth getting emotionally charged about? Should you metaphorically duke it out with them or is it best to just take the high ground and move on?     So when things become highly volatile, don’t spontaneously combust. Pause and run through this list- like an adult!   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 [email protected]     About The Author 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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Employees As Number One   There is a great Simon Sinek video floating around about how companies say employees are important, but don’t really act like it. He lines up the typical CEO hit list of growth, shareholder value, customers and in fourth place, employees. He notes that even if you elevate customers to number one, employees still come in second in importance. Richard Branson is also a powerful advocate for putting employees first before all else. It makes sense. We want motivated, enthusiastic staff engaging with our customers and going the extra mile.   In many ways, Japan has long had a different order to Anglo-Saxon corporate philosophy. Workers first, then customers and shareholders last. Can we learn anything from Japan’s corporate traditions on how to put workers first?   This system worked fine in an environment of lifetime employment, low growth protected by interlocking shareholdings and price fixing through the dango or cartel system. The foreign ownership of Japanese company shares and the expansion of so many businesses outside of japan has changed things and put more pressure on showing revenue returns. The customer has remained a constant in all of this change though, because culturally, the buyers have very high expectations that must be met.   Escalator System Won’t Work We can’t rely on importing the Japanese nenkojoretsu system of steady escalator career advancement based on seniority and age. Many Japanese companies still have this system, but today talent is in short supply. In a global economy, awash with disruptive and competitive technologies, waiting for the best and brightest to become older in order to be given their leadership shot is an opportunity cost you don’t want to pay.   These old style Japanese companies often still focus on OJT (on the job training) and technical training alone, for developing the talent base of their people. That is a slow burn into oblivion, when your competitors are laser focused on quality world class training to improve their people’s performance.   Technology makes such a big difference today. President Sugihara of Oracle Japan made the point recently in a speech to the American Chamber, that rather than thinking that technological efficiencies will cause people to lose jobs, it will instead increase the productivity of the whole existing workforce.   In the past, with a worker surplus, there was no company impetus to work hard to keep people. Japanese risk aversion preferences also kept people in jobs they didn’t really enjoy, because they were scared of having no job and of having a tough time finding a new one. Mid-career entry rarely occurred in the bigger firms.   After the Lehman Shock, Japanese companies moved to creating a lower risk work environment by employing more and more people part-time. The thinking was, if the economy tanks again, it will be easier to fire these part-timers than regular employees. This was seen as a positive, a stable buffer against future unknowns.   Abenomics Intervenion The economics of this has led to a decline in consumer spending, the inability of part-time working men to find wives and start families or move into better paying work. The Abe government is stepping in to force companies to change. They are looking to end the discrimination between the wages and conditions of permanent and non-permanent staff, restrict the use of fixed term contracts and prevent successive renewals of fixed term contracts. In other words, remove the labor liquidity attraction of using part-time workers in preference to full time staff.   The demographics of less and less young people coming into the workforce will mean labor shortages. Women re-entering the workforce and older workers continuing on working will be preferred to the perceived social disruption of having immigrants come in substantial numbers. The current mass migration to European countries will be seen as a negative example by most Japanese and will make the whole immigration argument harder to promote.   Retaining staff will become harder. Recruiters will have a field day, searching for talent to lift them out of their current firm and place them elsewhere. Automatically, this worker shortage will swing the pendulum to placing workers first above shareholder value and customers. However, we are not going back to the cushy old days of “who cares about shareholder value and corporate performance”, but people will be again at the forefront of company business plans.   Do we have a middle management skillset able to retain our most talented people? Have we replaced the elevation by age and stage with performance evaluations which identify, inspire and mobilise the talent. Do we have the right training in place which will actually lift staff productivity. The soft skills are where the big gains will come from, as we better lead our teams, engage them, motivate them and keep them. This time around, the workers can more easily vote with their feet and leave. Are we ready for the revolution?   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 [email protected]   About The Author 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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Gaining Cooperation From Others    The hero’s journey is for the very, very few. I did it my way, I slaved away in a garret and got to the top, I realised the American dream – all good stuff, but an illusion for most. The reality is there are more of us who need the cooperation of others, than those who can succeed despite others. The age of the “one” has been taken over by the age of the “many”. Hero teams are more powerful than individual heroes.   The problem is although we may need the cooperation of others, we are not that good at getting it. We limit our scope through two key areas – how we communicate and how we react. We like what we like and we find affinity with those who like similar things. We like to speak in a certain way and we click with others who speak the same way. It might be a shared accent, denoting a similar background, and we are all pretty good at spotting the subtleties of dialect. That is okay, but it still doesn’t help us to go far enough. You might share a common accent, but that doesn't mean you get on with everyone from back home   Reflecting the preferences of others is a much more effective way of building trust and cooperation. Does this mean being two faced and manipulative? No, it means being flexible and other focused rather than me, me, me focused.   When we are speaking with others we notice the way they prefer to communicate. It will vary from very low energy to high output - softly spoken to plain loud. Neither side likes the other much. The loud person can’t hear the softly spoken person and feels annoyed, because they have to struggle to hear what they are saying. The softly spoken person is quietly upset, because they don’t like people who are loud and aggressive.   The key here is to adjust ourselves to suit the situation and the other person, if we want to gain their cooperation. If you say, “well I am me, I have my rights and they should adjust themselves to how I like it”, then let me know how that is working out for you?   We will need to increase our energy and volume when we speak with high output people. We may feel like we are screaming, but on their scale all we are doing is communicating normally. The opposite applies, when we have to drop the volume and the strength. We may feel like we are whispering and it is killing us, but the counterparty feels very comfortable chatting with you.   Some individuals are really detail oriented, they are constantly seeking data, proof, evidence about what they are being told. When we interact with this group, we notice the micro focus immediately and so we need to start adding a lot more detail to our explanations or recommendations. We may feel this is too nitty gritty and frankly, massive overkill, but that is not how they see it. For them this is absolutely normal and unremarkable.   The opposite preference is for big picture discussions. Don’t worry about the details, the practicality, the roll out - we will get to that later. They want to plot the future direction in broad brush terms. For detail orientated people this is painful, because everything seems fluffy and unrealistic. Don’t fight it – encourage them to go big and go with them. Put up some crazy ideas (judged crazy from your evidence based thinking point of view) of your own and don’t feel guilty. They will welcome all crazy ideas, including yours.   When we hear something we don’t like, we often react first and think later. Bad approach! Instead, bite your tongue and hear them out – don’t jump in over the top of them with your counter idea, critique or cutting comment. Try ear, brain, mouth rather than ear, mouth, brain as an order of approach. Use a “cushion”, a sentence that is neither for nor against what they are saying. It is a neutral statement, used to simply break our usual pattern of too rapid intervention. It gives us crucial time to think about what we want to say and how we are going to say it.   Before we comment or attempt to criticise them, we instead ask them why they think that or why they say that. While they are providing some background and context around their position, we are able to bypass our immediate chemical reaction and reach deeper down to our calmer second or even third, considered response. When we do speak we may even accept their position because the context made sense or be able to suggest a counter position. We can do this in a calm way, that doesn’t lead to an argument and bad feelings.   These two actions on our part will build the trust and establish the lines of communication required to convince other to help us on our own hero team journey. Speak in a reflective manner and don’t react immediately to what you are hearing. You may think this is killing you, because it is so different to how you normally operate, but if you want to be effective with all types of people, this is the secret – adjust yourself first.   Newtonian physics says for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Fine, but we don’t want that – we want a different and improved reaction, so let’s change our own angle of approach with others, so that we get a much better response.   Action Steps   Be flexible and be focused on those with whom you are communicating: If they are micro, you go micro If they are macro, you go macro If they are fast paced, then speed up If they are moderate in pace, then slow down When you hear something you don’t like use ear, brain, mouth Before you reply, use a cushion to give yourself time to craft your response   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 [email protected]   About The Author 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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Three Critical Things Entrepreneurs Need   Usually, when we think about how to succeed in our own business, we favour things like sufficient cash flow and capital. This is absolutely true, but this is a product of decisions we have already taken. We need to focus on the core drivers of the company's success. There will be certain businesses where technology alone makes it work, but these are rare. For the rest of us to be successful, we need three critical skills: the ability to master our time, to clone ourselves and to be persuasive.   Time How we spend our time is the most high value resource we have. More than money, it makes or breaks our business. Poor time control leads to inefficiency, wasted efforts, stress and missed opportunities. Entrepreneurs are geniuses at trying to do too much. This means they are run ragged with time demands and no good solutions.   This has to be turned around and time gotten under firm control. Start with a simple audit of where you allocate your time now. Create a spreadsheet and track your time usage in 30 minute blocks for a week. Brace yourself for a huge shock. Next compile a list of what needs to be done by you and rank the items in order of importance. Compare the time audit reality with your prioritised task list of what you should be doing. You can’t be bothered doing this? Wake up! When you do this analysis, the gap between where you are now and where you need to be will be massive.   Take your list and this mantra: “I can’t do everything on this list everyday but I can do the most important thing”. Each day take that list and re-work the order, deciding the number one priority for your business and complete that. Next, you take number two and work on that, etc. If something crops up, well change the priority order, but stick to the discipline of doing the highest value item first.   Delegation Being so busy is a result of not having trusted people around us to whom we can delegate. We must get leverage through our team. But we don’t. We cannot find the time to develop them, so we are stuck like a rat on the treadmill. Don’t be that rat. Don’t let projects stagnate, things fall through the cracks or important work not get started. Also don’t get carted off to hospital with angina, a stroke or ulcers.   Getting a better grip on your time will create space to spend on training your key people. Don’t fluff the delegation process, because you are clueless on how to do it. Don’t just dump stuff on people, expecting them to magically get it and somehow be able to come back with excellent work. Stop dreaming, it won’t happen.   Have a meeting with the delegatee, where you explain the task in terms of how this is designed to help them grow and succeed in the business. Talk in terms of their interests not yours. Help them to lead the design of how it should be done, have them take ownership and then monitor the milestones to make sure they are on track. Praise them on the way through, not just at the end and have a celebration when they complete the task.   Inspire Investors, potential new staff, valuable existing staff, clients, all need your persuasive ability to impress and keep them happy. If you are an unclear, unimpressive speaker, it is hard to get people to believe in you and follow you. You can be a tyrant, but let me know how that is working out for you? Honey does better than vinegar, when it comes to communicating with people. You will never work it out on your own. Get the necessary speaking training and stop kidding yourself.   These days there is no excuse to not be persuasive. There is plenty of knowledge and experience available about what works best. All we have to do is make the time investment needed and we can avail ourselves of all of this applied wisdom and knowledge. I recommend the High impact Presentations course – the Rolls Royce of presentation training. Do this and you will join the elite levels of persuasion power in two days.   Master time, grow the leverage throughout your team and learn how to inspire people. Get on to it.   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 [email protected]   About The Author 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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Real Freedom    Motivational quotes are everywhere and they remind us of useful things we already know, but have forgotten. Two recent messages struck me with their introspective power. Both are by recognised thought leaders. One was a distinguished academic, psychologist and philosopher. The other was a distinguished psychologist and holocaust survivor. Their conclusions are profound and achieved through different experiences and understandings of the human psyche.   William James (1842-1910) taught at Harvard and has been called “the father of American psychology”. He was a leader in the idea that we could control our lives through our mind. He said, “The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be”.   This was a breakthrough notion at that time. The prevailing idea had been that God’s will, chance or luck determined your life.   Victor Frankl (1905-1997) a concentration camp inmate, survived the holocaust and subsequently wrote a fascinating book called, “Man’s Search For Meaning”. Through his personal experience of horrendous torment he found, “Everything can be taken from a man…but the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.   Given we have this mental power to control how we think, then why is it we are so poor at it? We find ourselves replaying the movie in our mind, on a pitiful endless loop, of some past humiliation, insult, degradation or unfairness that we have suffered. If we can control our thoughts, then why can’t we hit the pause button on that movie and keep it from polluting our present life?   We don’t muck around either, do we. Not only have we unleashed the horrid past to continue to haunt us like a zombie crypt debut, we invite the future apocalypse into our today as well. We imagine all of the things that will go horribly wrong in the future. We attack our optimism muscle with thoughts of future doom and gloom, thereby disabling it. We can’t seem to turn these thoughts off either.   Real freedom is to be able to recognise that while we can’t completely turn these ugly musings off, we can neutralise them. You might ask, can we separate worry from reminiscence and from divination? How do we do that?   Let’s use two of Dale Carnegie’s stress management principles. Let’s live in ”day tight” compartments. Think of each day like an air-tight container into which nothing can enter. We need to concentrate on shutting out the worry component, not trying to block the complete recollection or prospect.   We observe our memories, relive the pain, but firmly tell ourselves that was the past: “I am not going go back to that time ever again”. We can see our pain point in our mind’s eye, but we don’t have to attach ourselves to it or embrace it, as if a crocodile has gripped us in a death roll.   This is similar to meditation techniques, where you observe your breath cycle, but you don’t attach your mind to it – you just note it and let your mind move on.   Our control and therefore real freedom, is over the amount of worry we ascribe to the memory or the foreboding. Regarding the past, we can determine to cooperate with the inevitable. Face the fact it happened, knowing we can’t change that. Having done so, now let’s switch our thoughts away from that memory to something much more pleasant or successful in the interim. Let’s switch out our debilitating thought with a much more positive memory.   For the future, we should prepare for it, but again not attach the worry emotion to it. Let’s view it this way: what is the worst that can happen? Having contemplated that prospect, we mentally accept that this is inevitable and will happen. Mentally, we prepare for the worst.   Finally, we get our brain working on how we can improve on the worst? We switch from mental incapacitation and paralysis, to producing possible solutions and alternatives. We move from negative to positive. We do this by controlling how we think about the issues.   Action Steps   Recall but quickly swap the message to something better. Visualise the future issue as a possibility but plan a 100 ways to defeat it. Cure the worry virus because this is where our real freedom is located.   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 [email protected]   About The Author 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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

The 106 Centimeter Cold Caller   Salespeople are world class whiners. They are the most creative group amongst all professions for coming up with excuses about why they can’t meet their targets. The sale’s life requires a constant stream of new buyers. Marketing is permanently inhabited with ne'er-do-wells, who are sabotaging the sales department’s efforts with underdone campaigns and inept promotions. When the leads are few and far between, desperate measures are called for and the chief villain of the piece is cold calling. Everyone will assure you that you can’t cold call in Japan.   Salespeople everywhere are delicate blossoms. They get a rocket from their boss about their poor results and try to cold call potential clients over the phone. They get total, irreversible rejection and quit phoning after the third call. There is a variety of cold calling which is even more debilitating and that is tobikomi eigyo (飛び込み営業). You have probably seen some seriously stressed out younger person in your reception hall of your office, hanging around looking totally out of depth and out of place, getting the bum’s rush from the most lowly person on your company’s totem pole. That was a tobikomi eigyo salesperson, someone who just drops by unannounced and devoid of an appointment, always unceremoniously shown the door.   Invisible Sales Imagine if you were so short, that the receptionist can’t even see you unless she stands up and peers well over the counter. Or, that the typical unmanned reception phone and organisational chart are at such a height and depth, that you can’t even use them. This presumes you can even get into the building, in the first place.   Toshiya Kakiuchi was born with a brittle bone crippling disease that confined him to a wheelchair. He applied for jobs, found the going tough, then one day a firm which built websites, accepted him as an employee. He expected to be seated at a desk, building websites in the safe bosom of the office. His boss told him off to the sales department. “You have to get out there and cold call offices door to door, tobikomi eigyo style, looking for companies who need a website”.   Seated in his wheel chair, he was only 106 centimeters tall, found that most buildings were difficult to access because of vertiginous stairs. His sales comrades were seeing 40 or 50 companies a day and he was only seeing 5, if he was lucky. Yet, in a short space of time, he became the top salesperson in that company.   After his talk to the Economist Conference Network event, I asked him about how he managed it. With only a limited number of calls he could make in a day, he had to really make every post a winner. He found a way to turn his disadvantage into an advantage. We have tobikomi eigyo people coming to our office every month, trying to sell us one thing or another. Like everyone else, we send forth the lowest person in the chain of command to shoo them away (nicely of course, because we are Dale Carnegie!). Do we remember any of them 30 seconds after they have moved on to the next company’s reception area? No. Kakiuchi san, though, is definitely memorable, distinct, differentiated. You are not going to forget him turning up to you office. He told me that he had to just keep going back again and again. Eventually he would get to talk to a decision-maker who could buy and they did buy.   Stop Whining So, for all those able bodied salespeople out there whining in their suds about how tough sales is, stop it right now – you have nothing to complain about. Takiuchi san found a way through by differentiating himself, by having grit and stick-ability to keep going back despite being constantly rejected. He was physically weak but mentally tough.   Today he runs his own company Mirairo that researches, designs and consults on the needs of the disabled. He has produced an app called Bmaps that tells the disabled where there are stairs, elevators, physical barriers on their route to their destination. His book Barrier Value (バリアバリュー) tells his story of how he overcome his challenges. With our aging population demographics, we will all be needing his companies services in the future, as our hips and knees weaken and those stairs are looking like Everest.   So salespeople, don’t complain about cold calling. Read Takiuchi san’s book and reflect on how lucky you are, with so much sales opportunities right in front of you.   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 [email protected]                  About The Author 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 podcast “THE Leadership 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 & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Keep Your Shtick To Yourself Buddy     Smoothly memorised shtick, elaborate glossy materials, sharp suits, large expensive watches, bleached teeth, the perfect coiffure are not important in sales. Yet, this is the image of the pro-salesperson. Most of us never meet many pro-salespeople, because the vast majority we run into are hopeless. We meet the great unwashed and untrained, the part-time and partially interested, usually in a local retail format. The slick sales dude is what we see in movies or is a received image from urban myths. Hollywood pumps out Wall Street, Glengarry Glen Ross, Boiler Room, The Wolf of Wall Street and we get sold an image of what high pressure salespeople look like.   Japan is fascinating, in that it throws up some doozies. Rotting blackened stumps for teeth, disheveled clothing, scuffed worn shoes, ancient food stains on ties – you encounter this low level of personal presentation here with salespeople. It is almost the opposite extreme of the American movie image.   Rat with a gold tooth or rat with a rotting tooth – neither appeal very much. What we buyers really want is someone on our side. We want help to solve issues slowing us down, holding us back or preventing us from growing as we would wish. There are 6 steps on the client journey with salespeople: know you, like you, trust you, buy from you, repeat buy from you and refer you because we are a believer. This sounds simple, but salespeople get confused about who they are working for. They think they are there to work for themselves and get their commission or bonus or promotion and the client is just a tool in that process. This is stupid.   Dumb Things Said I coach salespeople but am amazed at the dumb things they say and do. Some want to jam the square peg in the round hole and then argue with the client about why it will fit when it clearly doesn’t. When they get pushback from the client they then try to overwhelm the objection by will or force of personality. This is stupid too.   The salesperson jumps into the slide presentation on the laptop from the get go. Or they are pulling out their shiny flyers or expensive brochures or whatever and are launching forth with their memorised shtick. My first sales job was early evening door to door Britannica encyclopedia sales in a poor working class suburb in Brisbane. Before we were unleashed on an unsuspecting semi-literate public, we had to memorise, word for word, the entire twenty-five minute presentation. It wasn’t great then, but it is unacceptable now. Some people are still back in the 1970s with their sales efforts. I get calls even today telling me “so and so” is in my area etc. I can hear the cadence of them reading it off a script!   No More Show & Tell When I am coaching aspirant professional salespeople, I ask them how do they know which slides to show or which flyer they should offer to the client? This is usually greeted with a “Huh?” response. We all did “show and tell” in elementary school but some have not travelled very far since then and think this is how you do sales. When I arrived at the Shinsei Retail Bank the financial product sales team would whip out a flyer of one product and if the wealthy client didn’t go for it, then they would just whip out the next one. This went on until the client either got tired of it or bought something.   As salespeople, we don’t know what to show the client and we shouldn’t show the client anything, until we know what they want. So keep the laptop closed, the flyers in the briefcase, the widget under the table and ask questions instead. By the way, get permission to ask questions first, especially in Japan. Here the status of the buyer is sky high and it is a total impertinence for a lowly sales pond scum to be asking God questions about anything.   Get Permission Nevertheless, get permission and ask. Find out if there is a match. Mentally scour the walls of your gigantic solutions library, floor to ceiling packed with possible antidotes to their business ailments and select the best one for the client.   If there is no solution in your library, then don’t try and force the square peg into the round hole. Just thank them for their time and go and find someone you can help.   If your solution doesn’t fit, then don’t waste the client’s time - keep your shtick to yourself.   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 [email protected]      

Stage Fright Got You?     Hands and legs quivering, knees knocking together, face turning red, pulse racing, mind whiting out – this is stage fright. The term is associated with the total melt down people experience when they get up on stage in front of an audience to speak. In Japan, there is even an association of stage fright people who wish to suffer no more. Our exposure to the “stage”, broadly defined, is any occasion where we are required to get up and speak in front of others. This frequency increases as we get older.   Our work responsibilities are rewarded with a salary but also the obligation to give reports or speeches. We are innocently beavering away at our jobs, are recognised for doing well and given promotions or more responsibility. This is when we are forced to move out of our area of defined expertise and out of our Comfort Zone.   Tetsuya Miyaki is a typical example. He was a low level bureaucrat in a municipal government office. Promoted to become the head of a department, he suddenly found himself having to give public presentations, including to the municipal assembly. His ambitions had now out stripped his abilities. When he became the mayor of a city ward, the speech requirement exploded, and so did his stress. The opportunity to enjoy the fruits of hard earned prominence were removed, because this one piece of the work was killing him. “I feel like I barely made it through my term”, he lamented.   Eye Off The Ball This is what happens to us. With no thought for the future, we plough along working hard, looking for the rewards but forgetting the escalation of expectations that go together with that. If we took our nose off the grindstone and looked ahead, we would realise that if we go further up in the echelon of organisations, our ability to speak in a professional manner will come with the territory.   I was the same. When I was younger, a friend of mine asked me to be his best man at his wedding. I deferred and suggested an older mutual friend instead, citing my lack of experience with such a daunting responsibility. The real reason was my terror of having to speak at the wedding, instead of just sitting there cool, calm and collected, eating, drinking and enjoying myself like everyone else. Did I look ahead and realise this is what comes with future responsibilities and go and get some public speaking training? No. I just avoided the issue at every turn, running away from every request like a scared rabbit.   Eventually, I gave my first public speech. It was in Tokyo in late 1983, in Japanese and it was horrible. I was supposed to talk for 30 minutes but I finished in about 8. My nerves were ramping up my speaking speed. I read the whole thing, never looked up at my victims, didn’t smile, had no pauses, no gestures, no animation except high blood pressure giving me a big red face like a warning beacon.   I was stubborn. Did I go and get training after this near death experience? No. I just kept on going along doing it the hard way. I ultimately gave hundreds of speeches in the course of my work responsibilities. I improved as I got more experience through simple repetition of the act, but I was still just an amateur bumbling along.   Revelation When I took the High Impact Presentation Course with Dale Carnegie it was such a revelation. Two instructors, everything videoed, massive personal coaching – it was amazing. I just kicked myself for all of the opportunity costs I paid by not doing this when I was younger.   I was an idiot. I could have spent decades polishing this speaking skill rather than hiding from it. I could have ramped up my personal brand big time, if I had been even half smart and gotten the training. Like Miyaki san, for long periods of my career I was in pure, self-inflicted denial.   Don’t be stupid like me – get the training. If you are going to get anywhere in your career, you will need this facility to not just speak competently in front of an audience but to speak persuasively. It is not a matter of if, only a matter of when. Are you going to let stage fright get you?   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 [email protected]    

Leaders: Get Off The Chems     Our cave dwelling ancestor past is still with us today. Rather than sabre tooth tigers though, we are reacting to anyone who argues with us or seeks to deny us what we want. The chemical cocktail in our bodies ignites passion, anger, mouth-before-brain outbursts, cursing, putdowns, sharp rebukes and killer comebacks. Fleet of foot, our reactions saved us from being lunch for predators but today that same nifty speed can get us into trouble with those around us.   Common sense is not common. Crystal clear communication goes unheard. The obvious is not obvious. There are no shortages of things in our leader world, which can set off a chemical chain reaction in us, that we can come to regret. The six-step devastation cycle plays out like this: Event, Interpretation, Emotional Response, Physical Response, Attitude Response and Effect. Event triggers can be mistakes; stupidity; something said, overheard or reported; interactions with others or a business crisis.   Our speed is astounding - we react in a nanosecond but we regret at leisure. Once the chemicals kick in, we are off. So, to maintain control we need to stop the chain reaction before it ignites. You normally imagine that leaders are there because they are in control and can therefore be trusted. Someone who can’t control their own emotions isn’t usually someone we want running anything, let alone big corporations worth very large sums.   I was amazed to see one of the captains of industry a hostage to his chems. His curriculum vitae was perfect, a prince of the first water. Yet he would explode with instant white-hot rage when he didn’t get the results he wanted and would viciously tear strips off the offending patsy. We learnt to sit to his right or left at the end of the long meeting room table, where it was hard to be seen. We observed that the poor saps who sat opposite him got it between the eyes, every time. I am sure we all have our war stories of demented leaders who couldn’t control their emotions and maybe sometimes, in extremis, we have joined them ourselves.   How do we keep the chems in check, when we are tormented by people who don’t do what they are supposed to do, when they are supposed to do it? Here are some steps we can take:   Recognise it is anger and that it is chemically fuelled. When we know we have set off a chain reaction and the chemicals in the body have now kicked in, we better understand that we have to take action to seize control back from the chems. Suspend judgment, because we may not have enough facts yet. We may have been told a version of events and there may be certain circumstances that would change our view. Before exploding, seek more data and insight – this will also help us to cool down a bit. Don’t attack the other person. None of us are perfect, so keep that in mind before we set forth with a tirade about their shortcomings. Remember every person we meet is carrying a heavy load in their lives, which we don’t know about, so who are we to assume we could do any better in their circumstances. Before we launch forth, inject a pause, followed by a cushion. A cushion is a short sentence that acts as a chem breaker to allow us to regain control. We might say something innocuous such as, “Well this issue is an important one”. We neither agree nor disagree when using this statement, but we buy valuable time to remember to ask more about the problem background, rather than immediately verbally lacerating our interlocutor.   Walk away. If you feel uncontrollable molten lava about to start erupting out of your mouth, just say “excuse me” and add some physical and temporal distance to enhance your perspective on the lava trigger.   As ancient wisdom says, when faced with a killer issue, how we react is the real problem we need to solve.     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 [email protected]  

Dream It   “We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do”. This quote from one of the pioneers of the self-help movement, Dale Carnegie, marked a major change in how people thought about the future. Up until the 1920s, fate and God’s will were the more common explanations for what would become of us. Psychology studies in the USA began to drive the idea that we could control our futures to a much greater degree than we thought, by controlling our thoughts. Not so remarkable today, but this was a brand new idea back then. The problem though is we still haven’t quite found the escape velocity to blast us out of our self-limiting beliefs about ourselves.   The decline in available well paying jobs following on from the Lehman Shock on September 15, 2008 has had a broad impact around the globe. China’s ability to become the factory of the world, has meant that many manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the developed nations. Recent research is telling us that workers are not transitioning seamlessly from one declining industry into other growth sectors.   In Japan, companies found the banks wanted their loaned umbrellas back, at the first spot of rain after the Lehman collapse and so have become fixated on having large reserves of cash and minimum borrowings. Despite profits rising, wages have not risen and to overcome the rigidity in the labor pool mobility here, part-time jobs have grown enormously, offering no great stability and no great pay for the workers involved. The fear of being restructured out of your company if you are part of the aging baby boomer cohort, but with prospect of additional decades of life expectancy (which have not been funded), is causing concerns. Add global extremist terror attacks to the mix and we face a very uncertain future.   In such a scary world, the idea of peaking out from your Comfort Zone and challenging the new doesn’t look so attractive. We may have had the benefit of decades of the self-improvement industry pushing us all to be better and do better, but the reality is we are not purpose bent on discovering our unheralded possibilities. Instead we are searching for security in a very insecure world. We have gone back to looking outside for solutions, rather than trying to discover what lies inside ourselves. We are now privy to previously unthinkable, instant, vast, global, information 24/7, but we don’t feel much better for it. Belief in fate and God’s will have not made particular comebacks as alternate explanations, but belief in our own possibilities is also flagging.   We need to re-immerse ourselves in the world of possibility, to re-read ancient and modern wisdom about our potential. We need to find that escape velocity to project ourselves beyond our Comfort Zone. If we keep doing the same things, in the same way, we will keep getting the same results. Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same things but expecting a different outcome. So staying in our Comfort Zone, but expecting to do better is basically a crazy idea. The problem is how do you get out of your Comfort Zone and find the strength to move forward, especially in this highly uncertain, fast paced and challenging high tech world. Dale Carnegie came up with an answer that works. Through experimentation, observation and adaption he found ways of challenging people, using bite sized pieces, that would gradually expand their Comfort Zone but not blow it up. The process involved taking practical ideas and getting people to act on them immediately. It also involved providing feedback that was only positive and encouraged people to keep pushing forward. That process became known as the Dale Carnegie Course. Like so many people, when I took the course, I was kicking myself for not having taken it when I was much younger.   We can do things we haven’t dreamt are possible, but we don’t have to work it all out by ourselves. We can follow what already works and get the benefit of all that kaizen built up over ten decades. If we want to grow our Comfort Zone we need a proven method and this Dale Carnegie course definitely works. Try it!

We Won’t Follow Bots     Basically your job is toast. There is a machine or there will soon be a machine that can do it faster, better and cheaper than you. Our skill set didn’t change much from the start of agriculture 12,000 years ago until the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century. This last 150 years has been busy. We have created a weapon that can destroy our race. Who thought we would be that stupid? Fifty years ago we didn’t believe machine translation of our complex language skills would get very far. Certainly it was expected that there would never be non-human intervention simultaneous translation. Also, fortunately, machines can’t pivot or anticipate (well except for IBM’s Deep Blue against Garry Kasparov in 1997).   Driving cars and trucks requires us, because it is such a delicate, detailed and difficult set of tasks. What a ridiculous idea to imagine replacing those cantankerous, aging Japanese taxi drivers and punch perm truckers here in Tokyo with a self-driving, self-navigating vehicles. Internet of Things Komatsu tractors ploughing rice fields by themselves, nah, never happen. Apocalypse Now style “death from the air” requires top gun pilots and gum chewing gunners, doesn’t it. Killing each other can’t be delegated to drones. Robot vacuum cleaners, programmable pets, hotty droid receptionists, nimble stair climbing machines, adult men (many with passports) waving light sticks at holograph vocalists (Hatsune Miku) – not possible right?   So what do you tell your kid to do about a career? Where will they still be needed and not ditched by some circuit board on wheels? Actually, we are not so keen about handing over accountability to machines. Moral and ethical judgments, “the buck stops here” business decisions, hiring and firing employment protocols, creative brainstorming – there is a long list of actions which will always require people to be involved.   Today, we don’t follow people we don’t respect, regardless of where they sit on the organizational chart. We may genuflect in their general direction, because they have a pompous title, but we don’t commit our brain and blood to them. Machines are not going to get that leadership gig unless they are leading other machines - uh oh!). We need the human interaction, to hear stories, to share experiences, to be motivated, to aspire together against the rival firm, to set and follow our organisation’s Vision and Mission. We want empathy, collaboration, a sense of ownership, relationships.   Geoff Colvin in his book “Humans Are Underrated” references a recent Oxford Economics study asking employers which staff skills they will need the most over the next five to ten years. The answers were not a reading from the left brain hymn book of P&L and balance sheet analyses, portfolio planning, strategic assumptions, run rate calculations, etc. The top priorities were all right brain - relationship building, teaming, co-creativity, brainstorming, cultural sensitivity and the ability to manage diverse employees.   So if you are a whiz on the macros on spreadsheets, doing numeric based research – anything machine like, then start worrying. Henry Ford complained that every time he wanted a pair of human hands on his assembly line, he got “a brain attached”. Today, we want that brain that can feel as well as think. Being more machine like than machines is on a hiding to nothing.   We have to be good at being human and good in our interactions with other humans. Colvin noted, “being a great performer is becoming less about what you know and more about what you’re like”. Interestingly between 1990 and 2009 empathy scores for US college students have declined by nearly 15%. From the trend of these scores we seem to be educating people toward the wrong direction.   Here is the challenge for typical males CEO driver types, who are assertive and task, not people, oriented: how to lead organisations where technical skill is being outsourced to bots and the value of human interaction has become more critical to the success of the organisation?. Do you ignore it or do you decide to change? How do you change?

Effective Project Management Rules   Projects have been around for a long time of course and in the modern era we have accumulated a vast amount of best practice on how to manage them. It isn’t usually that we don’t know what to do, it is that we don’t actually do it. We get into trouble when we just leap in and dig straight into the logistical entrails, without giving enough thought to a macro 360 degree view of what is involved. Having a common and clear set of rules helps to ensure we are all approaching the project in the same vein.   Here are ten rules for ensuring that what needs to get done is completed on time and to expectations.   Mind our business. Keep our eye on the ball, especially defining what is inside and outside the project scope. This often changes mid-steam. Know the customer’s requirements. Double check you have properly understood the detail, document it, and keep checking against that documented record, especially if there are changes needed. Plan well. The plan will cover the scope, schedule, cost, approach etc. Involve task owners to gain buy-in and apply a strong reality check to what you have created. Strangely, the planning value comes from the creation process and not just the project outcome. It forces some hard thinking, tough prioritisations, player commitments, clear controls, smooth coordination and cooperation. Basically the things at which companies are usually rubbish. Build a great team with strong ownership. Motivation of the team is critical, so we need total clarity around the WHY, trust, communication, sufficient resources and mutually agreed deadlines. Track progress. Frequent reviews, wide visibility, broad communication and clear goals are needed. There are hard and soft aspects to most projects, so ensure we don’t overlook the soft skills needed to succeed. Use baseline controls. These are the fundamental building blocks against which we steer the project forward and against which we alter course when needed. Write it, share it, save it. Here is the Holy Grail of project management – write it down - if it isn’t written down it doesn’t exist. Document procedures, plans, evolving designs. Baseline controls are compared against the preserved records. Repeatable projects especially need this record, to which are added the fresh set of insights and learnings. Test it. Jumping into new territories with both feet can be high risk. Better to develop test cases early to help with understanding and verification of what is required to succeed. Resources and time are the most often underestimated elements, so an early testing helps to flush out the gaps. Ensure customer satisfaction. Make the customer’s real needs the prism through which everything is viewed. Undetected changes in customer requirements or not focusing on the customer’s business needs blows up in our face. Be pro-active. Be proactive in applying these principles and in identifying and solving problems as they arise. Review and search for problems, knowing there are people dedicated to hiding issues. Vigilance is a virtue we all need to practice when working on projects, especially anticipating trouble before it arises or becomes too explosive.   Stop the same old, same old and take a fresh look at your methodology for approaching projects. You might be surprised at how loose and inefficient it is. We can all do better and these ten rules will help us on that journey.

REAL Leaders   We love acronyms! Our workplaces are thriving with them, such that we can hold extended conversations composed entirely of seemingly impenetrable codes. They are handy though and this one REAL is short and serviceable to describe best practice leadership attributes. It always good to combine evidence with pontification. This summary of the great and the good tendencies amongst leaders is based on recent survey research we did in the USA We asked what respondents thought leaders needed to do to be more successful. We are in the process of rolling this survey out globally. The REAL acronym is composed of these key elements – Reliable, Empathetic, Aspirational and Learner.   “Reliable” is an obvious choice and though much upheld in principle, tends to break down in practice. “Managing upwards” is a buzzword for describing how to deal with one’s boss. It used to be called “sucking up to the boss” to get ahead. In the latter case, it means taking all the glory for yourself, Teflon-like blaming others for mistakes and stepping on the bodies of your staff, to elevate your own brilliant career.   Reliable however is an attribute that leads to trust only when the staff observe that what is said is actually done, that promises are kept and that their own personal development is being given a high priority. “What’s in it for me” is a common human frailty. Bosses who keep this in mind when making sure the organisation and individual goals of their staff are aligned, get more loyalty and more accomplished. Misunderstandings do arise, usually traced back to poor communication. More work need here!   “Empathetic” is closely linked to listening skills. Taking the viewpoint of the other person is difficult if we don’t know what that viewpoint is. The Japanese expression kuki wo yomu or summing up the real situation, is a great phrase to explain empathy. What is being said is important, but more often what isn’t being said is where all the insight is buried.   Busy bosses though don’t have much time to get below the surface calm of the workplace. Some don’t care – just get me the numbers – or else! Using our position power produces up to a point, but we miss out on a lot of creative potential as the opportunity cost. If we want to know what is really going on and what people are really thinking, we have to spend time and work at it. Expressing we actually do care is also another orphan amongst communication skills. Successful bosses have good awareness and confidence to communicate they really do care about their people.   “Aspirational” reflects ideas about grasping the bigger picture. Hovering above the melee of the everyday to see the vision being realised far on the horizon. It means communicating beyond this quarter’s goals and placing each individual’s role in terms of their contribution to the bigger goal. The framed glass protects the vision statement, ceremoniously hung on the wall. While it may not fade in the sunlight, it fades in the collective memory. No one can recite it, let along live it, so it is as meaningful as the flower arrangement on the reception desk. Pleasant enough idea but ephemeral. The leader has to inject the ideas and concepts involved into terms that resonate with each person individually. This takes time, which is why so few organisations get any return on their investment in their vision statement.   “Learning” gets nods of approval but many executives have had one year of experience thirty times rather than thirty years of experience. Their views are still locked away in a mental vault, for which they have lost the key. Too busy to learn. Busy, busy working in their business, rather than on their business. They are up to date on Facebook but way behind where the industry is headed and where their company needs to go. Well informed yet ignorant, because they lack perspective and acuity. If we aren’t prepared to permanently kill our darlings, our favoured ideas and concepts, we must be prepared to risk falling behind, trampled by our competitors.   How do we learn? We read what the leaders in our industry have to say, we attend conferences which assemble the best minds on the subject. We get training and re-train on things we have learnt in the past, but have forgotten. We head off to Executive programmes at leading institutions to be exposed to fresh ideas and information. We look for relevant surveys of our industry or sector, to provide some insight into future directions. We read broadly as well, looking for tangential inspiration to spark ideas in our minds about our own situations. We are not afraid to test things in our companies, to see if there is better way. That means tolerating certain degree of failure in the messy process of innovation.   REAL, another acronym heaven dweller, is easy to remember and that at least is a start to actually realising its power. We know all of these things – we just forget or get too busy to do them. We should change that.

Running A Foreign Business In Japan    Running your own business is challenging anywhere, but Japan adds a bit of spice to the broth. According to official statistics, 70% of Japanese companies are unprofitable. Business seems pretty simple at one level – constantly seek to increase revenues and reduce or hold down costs. To increase revenues you can find more customers, more repeater customers and raise prices.   Raising prices in Japan gets tough, when you are in the churning wash of decades of deflation and when there are always lots and lots of competitors. When the consumption tax was raised previously, the economy immediately plunged into recession, which indicates the price sensitivity of the populace. The Abe Cabinet blinked and gave up on the last scheduled increase out of fear of the consequences.   The usual way of differentiating yourself and justifying higher prices is through the added value you provide. Naturally, there is a major sales and marketing effort required to get that value message out. Both options in Japan however come with high price tags.   By the way, whenever we do training as part of a global arrangement, we always get push back on the pricing in Japan, especially when the yen is converted to other currencies. Abenomics is not helping much at the moment, with the rapid strengthening of the yen.   Why overseas head office staff would imagine that pricing here should be the same as at home is a mystery, but that is often the expectation. The cost structures here in Tokyo for wages and rents are high relative to other countries and the prices reflect that. Downtown Tokyo office space rents per square meter, in a reasonable location, will fall in the JPY9000 – JPY 14,000 range (USD$90-USD$140).   I refer these global partners back to their own local operation’s wage and rent bills in Tokyo. I point out these are nothing like what they are costing at home, so why expect global pricing to be uniform? In general, fixed costs as a percentage of revenue are high in Tokyo and it is a struggle to get them down.   Unlike other Western countries, where salespeople are prepared to work on a 100% commission basis, very few Japanese staff are attracted by that option. Again this opportunity to move wage costs away from fixed to variable is less available here. This means there must be a base salary plus bonus or commission arrangement and the base will be relatively high. Especially if you are a foreign operation, as you need to attract potential employees. When were a start-up in 2007, we had to pay our sales staff close to double the norm, to get them to work for us. By the way, add another 15% to you wages bill for all the various social insurance and pension costs.   Of course, if you are a prestigious mega corporation, encapsulated by a powerful brand, this attracting staff challenge may not be such an issue. If you are a Small Medium Enterprise (SME) then attracting people becomes more competitive. If your team needs to speak some reasonable level of English, then the wage bill goes up immediately. As an illustration, a competent English speaking PA in Tokyo would earn around JPY7m-JPY 8m (USD$70k-USD$80k) per annum.   There is also a limited supply of Japanese who want to work in an international environment and that number is declining rapidly, as less and less young people go overseas to study. We are currently in the midst of a real turning point regarding the internationalisation of the younger generation. The young don’t want to learn English and they don’t want to live overseas, because everything is so wonderful here in Japan and it is safe. They are going to become almost impossible to hire for SMEs, as we are simply outbid by bigger companies.   Marketing in Japan, especially in Tokyo is a remorseless pit into which you have to throw lots of money. Print ads and content marketing driven advertorial are very expensive here and the publishers have plenty of Japanese companies able and willing to pay, so trying to cut a deal is fraught.   Television predominates with 15 second ads, so even if you can afford the big money involved, your appeal to buyers in that time is microscopic. On-line banner ads are not inexpensive. Pay per click keyword search ads and Facebook ads are also not cheap and can burn through cash at an alarming rate. Few Japanese are using LinkedIn as yet, so it mainly targeting a foreign audience at this point. PR is a viable option for brand awareness, but you get what you pay for. SMEs can rarely pony up the type of money required to get the PR agency’s “A Team”, so don’t expect magic from the “D Team”.   Japanese websites are often the complete antithesis of the Zen like western approach. Garish colours and packed screen real estate are very common here. So what do you do, go Zen or go Garish? Do you have the cash to pay for a Japanese language copywriter or do you do it internally to save money? Are your team members any good at it? Your SEO has to be fined tuned to push yourself forward in the page rankings and you need people who know what they are doing, as DIY is cheaper, but a lot harder. These resources may be in-house or on contract, but they still push up the wage’s bill.   Networking in Japan is different to Western countries in that few Japanese go to these events all that willing to meet new people. Sound promising? The meeting charges are also expensive as well (USD$50-USD$80), so if your team are really getting out there, the costs can be significant for what is really a shotgun marketing effort. It sounds crazy, but the usual style is that someone you know introduces you to someone they know. This is acceptable, if quite limited in scope. Bounding up to complete strangers and introducing yourself is possible, but the reactions are often mild shock, blank stares and some resistance. This negative response is applied to Japanese as well as foreign staff. “Working the room” hasn’t quite made it here yet as a concept.   Cold, as opposed to warm approaches are also tricky. Sending a direct mail piece to someone unknown goes straight in the bin. Any email from an unknown entity similarly gets deleted unread. You can cold call here but you really need to know the person’s name. If you don’t, you will get blocked at the entry point, promised that your message will get passed on and a return call offered – if they are interested. You will never hear back from them.   There is always the issue of it may work overseas but it won’t work here. If you bring global statistics, then there better be a Japanese component of the survey or the whole thing is just dismissed as irrelevant. That means you have to pay to run the same survey here, to show the significance of your findings for the Japanese market. This costs money. Testimonials from overseas companies, super brands or otherwise, are also invalid by definition. You need a local track record to be credible and skepticism reigns without relief.   Natural disasters, especially earthquakes are a constant prospect and all of us living in Tokyo know we are overdue for “The Big One”. After the triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear core meltdown in Fukushima a few years ago, our training business ground to a halt with four months of no cash flow. Who wants to do training, when you are having large numbers of major aftershocks every single day for months. We all know it is important, but it is at moments like these, we really understand the importance of cash flow in a business.   The good news is that you do get paid by clients. Also, Japanese companies prefer the devil they know, so if you supply value, then you can expect repeat business. Staff are hardworking and diligent. People are honest, neat, polite and things work here, also there is fantastic infrastructure. There are large numbers of foreign corporates with businesses here, who are more open than a lot of domestic companies to your approach. There are English language magazines aimed at these expatriate leaders, which because of the limited market, cost a fraction of the Japanese mainstream media. There are many foreign Chambers of Commerce, business associations and study groups here, so there are many networking opportunities where you can actually “work the room”.   The rule of law applies here and legal disputes that have to go to court are few and far between. Like anywhere, there are criminal gangs (yakuza) extorting businesses, but they tend to leave foreigners alone and prefer exploiting the locals, as it is a lot easier.   Because of Japan’s extremely strict immigration and refugee policies, there are very few ethnic or religious groups who are likely to cause Japan much trouble. The biggest non-Japanese ethnic group are Koreans. The majority were born here after the war, their grandparents being brought in during the war years as forced labour. There are some foreigners here illegally overstaying their visas, but they are keeping a very low profile, because the Japanese government deports them once found.   Japan is still the third largest economy in the world. The main leisure activities here really, for the majority of the populace, is to shop and eat. Many foreign companies have done well here, they have found the formula for success but few have done that rapidly. Long-term planning, patience, grit and sustainability take on different dimensions here in Japan.

Good Messages Delivered Badly     Seriously sad really. Our speaker had some excellent points to convey but due to silly basic errors, killed his organisation’s messages. I believe there is no excuse for this anymore. Today there is so much information available, so many role models, so much video instruction, so much access to insight, so much training, you really have to wonder how some organisations can do such a poor job.   The impressive thing was our speaker was delivering the talk in English, when that was not his native language. Actually, the level of English fluency was impressive. The speed was good, the pronunciation was fine, the speaking voice was clear. He came with a grand resume, part of the elite of the land, a well educated, senior guy. This was game, set and match to be a triumph of positive messaging and salesmanship. It was a fizzer.   I approached him after it was all over. Being the eternal Aussie optimist from the land of vast horizons, blue skies and wonderful sunshine, I thought our speaker would benefit from a bit of friendly, positive feedback on how he could help his organisation to do better. He wasn’t buying that and asked me for one example. Clearly he believed his talk went down a treat with the crowd, a group by the way, full of long term Japanophiles and boosters for things Japanese. He was in fact preaching to the choir, in audience terms, but his messaging went astray.   I asked for the first slide to be brought back up. A confusing coat of many, many colours, seriously dense with data, totally impervious to easy understanding – a florid mess in other words. They were all like this. Data was simply killing the key messages. When I suggested the slides were perhaps attempting to put too much on the screen at the one time, he said I was looking at the cleaned up version. He had taken the organisation’s standard slide deck and pared it back. “Pared it back?”, I thought incredulously. Well it was still ridiculous.   The other issue was the delivery. Our speaker chose to stand in front of the monitor and read to us what was on the screen, while having his back to us for most of the presentation. Fortunately, he was handsome, urbane, charming, international and articulate. He had all the natural advantages to carry the room to his way of thinking. Unfortunately, he failed completely.   What could our erstwhile hero have done? He made the slide deck the centerpiece of the presentation, instead of making his messages the key. We should all carefully cull our ideas and distill the most powerful and important. We should present only one idea per slide, restrict the colour palette to two colours for contrast and try to keep it zen-like simple. If our audience cannot grasp the key point of any slide in two seconds, then it needs more paring back.   Graphs are great visual prompts and the temptation is to use them as unassailable evidence. This usually means trying to pack the graph with as much information as possible, showing long periods of comparison and multiple data points for edification. Instead think of them like screen wallpaper. They form a visual background. We can then go to another slide showing a turning point in isolation or we can have a pop up, with a key number, emphasised in very large font. In this way, we can cut through all the clutter and draw out the critical proof we want our audience to buy. Trying to pack it all on one screen is a formula for persuasion suicide.   We need to learn some very basic logistics about presenting. Despite how the organisers have set up the space, move things around if possible to give yourself the best shot to present as a professional. Try to stand on the audience left of the screen. We read from left to right, so we want them to look at our face first and then read the screen. We want to face our audience and if anyone drops the lights so your screen is easier to see, stop everything and ask for the lights to be brought back up. We need the lights on in order that we can see our audience’s faces. We can then gauge if they are with us or resisting our messages. They can see us and we can use our gestures, facial expressions and body language to back up the words we are saying.   Changing the slides and the delivery would have made the speaker’s messages clearer and more attractive. None of the things I have suggested to him are complex or difficult. Why then are we still assailed with unprofessional presentations from smart people? He remained resistant, so I saw him riding off into the sunset on his quixotic quest to convert others to his organisation’s point of view. Good luck with that one buddy!

Structured Project Planning     It sounds so obvious that we should have structures for doing our project planning. Projects are part and parcel of the fabric of work life and they constantly arise. It is surprising though that so many teams are busily working away with no structure whatsoever. The project team jumps straight into arranging the details of the project, without giving any thought to how the project should be approached in a holistic manner. Think about your own experience? Can you rattle off a structure for how projects should be planned, because you have always done it that way in the past? Probably not! I was the same. In one of my previous organisations, we actually completed a lot of projects and yet we never did anything apart from some very basic planning. We didn’t even think of them as projects – we just saw these activities as work.   So lets all get better organised. There are eight steps we can consider when we begin working on a project. Let’s assume that the team has been created, hopefully a great match up between resident skill sets and the tasks required to successfully complete the project. Even if you don’t have all the bases covered through your team, a good structure will help to overcome many of the gaps.   Step 1: Define what is the “should be”. This is the project scope and must be in harmony with the project creator’s vision. What will success look like to the project client? If we don’t have a clear idea of what we are supposed to achieve then trouble is close by. Often though, the project goals are vague and very ”big picture”. We need to push hard at this point to attain greater clarity about the end result we need to produce. If we are inheriting a project objective, we need to make sure what we are being asked to deliver.   Step 2: Analyse where we are with the “as is”. This is our current reality, our circumstances at the start of the project. What is the situation in our broader work demands, beside this new initiative? What resources and time frames have we been given? Do we have experience with this type of project? Do we know what we don’t know?   Step 3: We need to set our goals for the project. With no clear goals, firmly attached limpet like, we will see drift and time wastage. The larger goal is a construct of as series of smaller goals, all coalescing into the final output. SMART is a well-known useful acronym for thinking about how to create the goals in the first place – a 5 point checklist for us to make use of. Are the goals Specific in terms of processes and resources? Are the Measurable, allowing us objective data to gauge progress? Are the goals Attainable, something the team can be motivated to pursue? Are the goals Relevant to the vision of the project sponsors or are we heading off course? Finally, are they Time-Specific with clear deadlines and milestones with which the check our progress?   Step 4: Have we chosen the right “action steps”? In order to achieve the goals we have set, there must be priorities established and flowing from that, the action steps developed. We need to clearly set the requirements of the job, noting who will do which tasks and how the tasks should be completed. We also have to plan for how the individual work pieces will synchronise and emerge as a coherent progression that arrives at the desired outcomes. We must also think about how we will need to communicate the results on the way through and again at the end. Often we forget the all important communication piece because we are too busy all tied with the actual doing!   Step 5: What are the costs? People, money and time are the usual resources we are normally short of when trying to do projects. We need to estimate how much of each we will need and do this at the start.   Step 6: Timetables are key to checking progress. Clear deadlines, well communicated and understood will be broken out into stages throughout the project. We set them at the beginning.   As we move forward, we need to check against the completion of work, compared to the original time estimate to understand our progress. When we do this, we enable ourselves to make studied adjustments, in a holistic fashion, rather than having panic set in.   Step 7: Implementation of the plan necessitates that everyone in the team understands their role, the specific goals, the timelines and the WHY we are doing this. This WHY part is often just assumed and not actually communicated. “Of course everyone knows why we are doing this”. Well I wouldn’t be too hasty to assume that – check there is real understanding and you may be surprised to find out you were too optimistic!   Step 8: Upon completion we need to celebrate, then go back and check the reality against what we presumed would occur. This is a vital learning step often neglected, which if we miss it ensures we keep re-inventing the project wheel. This is where we seize best practice, refine our internal procedures and set ourselves up for future success.   It is time consuming to do this and after the project everyone is usually tired and worrying about their next project. This is such a valuable part of the project structure though, because it produces templates, checklists and insights that make the next project that much easier to do. It also helps when there is a change in the composition of the group and the corporate memory is no longer available to you.   This eight step progression is not a complex process, but it will save a lot of panic, late-nights, wasted efforts and stress, if we go through it from the start. We can do it the hard way or the easy way, so let’s choose the structured way and make life a bit easier for ourselves.

Charismatic Leadership   Are you a perpetual student? I am always keen to learn and improve in my business, so I recently participated in a webinar on the subject of charisma in leadership. The set up for the webinar was impressive – the web landing page, the registration process, the videos, the automated follow–up emails. It was a Master Class in marketing and this part was worth it alone. The webinar itself was very good and the speaker was excellent. While listening, I was reflecting on charismatic leaders I have known and compared them to what I was hearing in the webinar.   There is an abundance of definitions on charismatic leadership. The definition proffered during the on-line session was uncontroversial and acceptable: emotional and intellectual engagement, inspiration to go the extra mile – all quite reasonable elements. Somehow though, they left me feeling vaguely unfulfilled.   Reflecting on charismatic leaders, what was it about them that made them so attractive? Of course they were highly skilled, experienced and professional. Yet their technical knowledge wasn’t the distinguishing feature, because hosts of uncharismatic leaders are equally skilled. Great communicators, they capture the key points, are concise, insightful, engaging. No shortage of would-be charismatic leaders with this resume, but still no cigar. Optimistic, positive, high energy, fast paced, dynamic – yes all good points, but there was still something missing.   The webinar speaker made the point that anyone can learn to be a highly engaging leader. It is not a “born with” attribute, more a learnt outcome that reflects itself in how we behave with others. But what elevates a charismatic leader above an engaging leader? Behaviour, communication, kokorogamae (心構え) or true intention all play a part. True intention pertains to the WHY we are wanting to lead. Is it all about us or is it about our team?   I think the missing piece of the puzzle was the way charismatic leaders make us feel when we are with them. I have heard that in his prime Bill Clinton would speak with you and make you feel like you were the only person in the room, despite being bustled by the massive crowd. When you think about it, there is a lot happening in that situation, for us to sense that. Our feeling of importance, regard, value, trusting almost whispered intimacy is so attractive.   Well, if it is behavior driven and not God given, then what do leaders need to do to become more charismatic. Do we have to be over 185cms in height? I notice that a lot of famous leaders are tall, so there is bound to be some physical advantage associated with the presence that size brings with it. As kids we look up at our authority figures – parents, teachers, coaches, so there may be deep psychological roots in giving regard to those we have to crane our necks toward. There is probably some caveman DNA regard for physical power in there too. I have stopped growing, so there is no possibility for me to bridge that gap. Maybe we can’t be tall or a Bill Clinton, but we can be a better version of ourselves and a more effective leader of our team.   What are some relevant behaviours we can adopt to make us more charismatic? Begin with praise and honest appreciation. This must be genuine and linked to actual behavior, not vagaries or flattery. There isn’t a lot of praise and appreciation floating around in businesses every day, because a lot of leaders are Driver personality styles, who prioritise task completion over building people (e.g. you will all die, but we will take Hill 103).   We can be different – we can look for the good, the strengths in our people and play to those rather than lurking around the cubicles with our super fault-finder, nuclear harpoon at the ready.  If we find fault, call attention to it indirectly. We don’t lift people up by making them feel small. We should also use encouragement and make the fault seem easy to correct. Our weak side always needs bolstering, so charismatic leaders lead us to hope. Let them save face, don’t create a barrier by lambasting them. Showing whose the boss only makes one person feel good. Everyone else observes like a hawk and anticipates what will happen when it is their turn. No hearts and minds will be won this way. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. This means seeing people at their best and treating them that way rather than the opposite. Seeing them as winners, when they don’t see themselves that way just yet.   We can ask questions, instead of giving direct orders. Socrates was on to the power of this approach centuries ago, but the typical boss today is still an order dispensing android. When we tell, we own the task - when we ask, our people take ownership. We all own the world we help to create, so let’s be the boss who seeks help creating our world. Make them feel happy about doing the thing you suggest. Self-discovery is powerful, convincing, energizing and credible. The leaders job is to create the environment where self-discovery becomes the daily norm.   Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. We ask people to step out of their Comfort Zone to try new things. There is a strong fear of failure associated with any new, unfamiliar initiative. We build confidence through mini steps, gradually setting larger stretch tasks, recognising improvement on the way through, as well as at the end. Success, however small, builds confidence to take on more and we are right there with them to reassure that they can do it. We talk about our own failings first, to give them the freedom to fail, to remove the albatross of “perfection” from the equation. It is hard to follow ”perfect leaders”, because we can’t identify with them. In the leader’s vulnerability is authenticity, but this requires heart, guts and bravery.   Is any of this easy – no!   If our behavior is the driver, then we need to persistently and permanently change our approach. To do that we need some guideposts and these principles of better human relations are well road tested and work. Maybe achieving charismatic leadership isn’t that important, but better leadership certainly is. It is also attainable, now. We need to adopt these principles, apply them everyday, every occasion and gradually make them our default habits. It won’t happen in a week but it will happen – we just need to clarify our true intentions and make a start.   . Action Steps   Begin with praise and honest appreciation Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly Use encouragement and make the fault seem easy to correct Let the other person save face Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to Ask questions, instead of giving direct orders Make the other person feel happy about doing the thing you suggest Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement Talk about our own mistakes before criticizing the other person Start with clear and correct kokorogamae - true intentions

You Don’t Want Sales   Clever, shallow, smooth as silk, glib, “rat with a gold tooth” salespeople are the scourge of the earth. They are focused on your money and how quickly they can separate you from it. There are no barriers to entry or qualifications to enter this field of work. Riff raff need not apply but they do. Some will tell you anything, they live for today and like a shark, are constantly moving in order to feed. Snake oil purveyors to the naïve and trusting.   So, how do honest salespeople get anywhere when the image of the profession is so negative. Movies like The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room, people like Bernie Madoff, etc. - it goes on and on convincing us that we are permanently potential victims of scammers, charlatans and confidence men.   By the way, we are all in sales today. You might be in one of the “professions” but you are no longer above the fray. Lawyers are competing for clients just as voraciously as dentists, architects, engineers, doctors and everyone else who spent years slogging through varsity. The title might be vague, such as the popular “business development”, but the activity is the same, just without the skills.   The key point to differentiate yourself from the carnival barker, pond scum is to stop focusing on sales. Instead focus on the re-order. This mental shift is fundamental. A sale can be a one time thing, a transient satisfaction of a temporary itch. In some cases that may be all that is needed. This is the hard road of sales though – constantly prospecting to find new clients, having a pipeline that is razor thin and precariously teetering between feast and famine. Not recommended.   The re-order concept is totally relationship based and is linked to the idea of the lifetime value of the buyer. There is a degree of trust that brings the business to you, without you having to go and hunt it down. Clients want to work with you because they feel safe and secure. They know the value you provide and they know your word is your bond. Sometimes, it may be a long time between drinks before the follow up order appears, but it will eventually appear. In this profession of sales, we all know the client is never on your schedule.   So what is the key to gaining the trust and providing the value? I believe the concept of kokorogamae (心構え) or “true intentions” is the key. This is a Japanese mental outlook which appears in many traditional activities - calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, martial arts, etc. I discovered kokorogamae through my study of traditional Japanese karate-do – the Way of Karate. In business, your true intention is to be a partner in achieving the client’s success, on the basis that the more successful they become, the more goods or services you will need to provide them, as they grow and expand their operation.   If your true intention is to build trust, then there will be no attempt to snow the client at the first meeting, to lure them into a false sense of security. Instead you will tell the client what you do, who else you have done it for and some evidence about the results achieved for them. Evidence not bombast is a constant theme in your client conversations. Fast talking salespeople invariably are an evidence free zone.   You will bring insights you have gathered, that spark those client “we hadn’t thought of that” moments. You don’t string together a bunch of statements and claims about your widget’s features. Rather you ask questions enabling you to best analyse whether you in fact have a suitable solution or not, for the client’s issue. If you don’t have it, you say so immediately - you don’t prevaricate or equivocate. If you can’t be of service to this client, then your job is to go find someone else you can serve.   Your questioning skills are such that the client feels safe in the knowledge that your really understand what their business needs. Most salespeople are poor listeners, but clients really want to know you have heard them, rather than having been engrossed with what you will say next. You introduce the solution’s features, the benefits of the features, the applications of the benefits and the back up evidence to support what you are saying. You execute on the order from the client, as agreed and you deliver value at every point possible. You do this every time.   What you do after the sale tells the client everything and this determines whether this will be a long-term partnership or not. If something goes wrong you fix it immediately, you don’t become mealy-mouthed about what was happened and you hand back the money without hesitation. Salespeople defending the indefensible happens far too often and destroys all trust. If you are wrong admit it, fix it and make sure there is no repeat of the problem.   When I was involved in trade, the Japanese client’s container didn’t make it on to the ship as originally planned. The day before the ship sailed the overseas supplier told us that they would miss the departure. From the exporter’s point of view, no problem, just stick the container on the next available ship. The client was furious. One of my sales staff was holding the phone away from her head and we could all hear the meltdown underway. Yes the next ship would arrive soon, but the buyer had promised supply to their key clients and now they would show their unreliability and many years of trust would be destroyed. Needless to say there was no further business for that exporter, so a big opportunity lost through a casual attitude to service and a lack of understanding of the client’s needs.   No trust or no value – then no re-order. It is simple and complex at the same time. The salesperson’s job is to demonstrate the trust and supply the value. If your “true intentions” are correct, then value and trust will flow accordingly and so will the re-orders.   Action Steps   Think lifetime value of the client Focus on the re-order rather than just a sale Understand we are all in sales today Have a correct kokorogamae and be a long-term partner to grow the client’s business Validate claims with evidence Use questions to properly understand the client’s business Don’t argue with the client, be accountable and fix problems immediately

Hard Talk Fallacies   You have to tell people how it is or you will lose power and authority. If you swallow what you want to say, you will diminish yourself. If you avoid hard conversations, you will have less influence. You need to tell them exactly how you are feeling. This was the tenor of the advice coming from a communication “guru”. While listening to this, I thought this is absolutely going to fail in Japan, if not every where.   This guru is appealing to an American audience, so there is the temptation to just dismiss this as typical excess. There was however an earlier icon of communication skills named Dale Carnegie. An American from (show me, don’t tell me) Missouri, who started training (brusque and brash) New Yorkers in 1912. Despite being from the mid-West and teaching in the apocryphal rude capital of the universe, Dale Carnegie concluded that direct hard talk would fail. Both men appealing to the same audience, but approaching the subject from diametrically opposing stances.   Dale Carnegie’s human relations principles work well not only in Japan, they work well everywhere. So rather than trying to ardently assert our rights, telling others how we feel and gaining power through strength of will, let’s try some proven methodologies that actually work.   Don’t criticize, condemn or complain The guru gave the example of someone keeping you waiting, suggesting you “respectfully” tell them how you feel about that. Dale Carnegie realised there was no point. Even if you are polite, people become defensive and are irritated to be reminded that they are less than perfect. You might think you have politely schooled them, but all you have done is create a barrier. So much for your power over them! They were late, you can’t get the time back, so you just have to accept others are not as reliable as you are and move on.   Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person Rather than “speak the truth” about their selfish tardiness, making yourself feel superior and ruining the relationship in the process, Dale Carnegie suggested we reflect on our own failings first. Are we perfect? No, we fail all the time and so do others. We can talk about our own inadequacies, how we had a problem making an important meeting and how we realized we needed to become better organised. In this way, we can reference the problem, but allow the other person to save face. Calling attention to other’s mistakes indirectly makes sense. Speaking the truth may sound noble and brave, but it doesn’t help in a world driven by human emotions. You can get the point across without rubbing it in.   Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view When we are fixated on what we want, with having power relative to others, we become inwardly focused. The goal of successful human relations is to be liked and trusted. Selfishness won’t get you there. They are massively late, so what? Are they doing this to annoy us, to punish us, to irritate us? No, there are bound to be any number of things happening in their world which we don’t know about, so let’s not be too hasty to apply “our rights” to the situation.   Begin with praise and honest appreciation Rather than launching into the witch hunt of the “crimes’ of the other person, zeroing in on the hard talk topics, build the relationship with praise. Not fake, apple polishing, sycophantic praise. Rather, genuine reflections on their good points, backed up with concrete evidence or examples. We build trust and cooperation not barriers this way.   Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves Few people listen today. Tied up in themselves, in having power or status, they are all about them. They interrupt others when they are talking, they try to display their cleverness by finishing other people’s sentences, they one-up others to be dominant. People however want to be acknowledged, to be heard and our job is to get them talking about themselves. In the process we improve our mutual understanding, we discover points of similarity and shared interests – all powerful bonding agents like a type of human relations super glue.   Forget about being powerful through winning at hard talk. People will willingly cooperate with you, if you apply these principles. The ideas are easy to understand, but not so easy to apply. We need a correct kokorogamae （心構え）– true intention – and we need practice.   Action steps   Don’t criticize, condemn or complain Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view Begin with praise and honest appreciation Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves

How To Be A Much Better Leader   “Born to lead” is nonsense. Many things shaped that person in order for them to achieve credibility with others. Of course, we can become a “leader” as part of our company designated hierarchy. We sit somewhere in an organizational chart above others, with various reporting lines elevating us above the hoi polloi. We know many people with that august title of “leader”, who we would never willingly follow in a million years – pompous, tiresome, incompetent jerks!   Can we become someone who others will follow when all the paraphernalia of leadership pomp and circumstance has been stripped away? At work the definition of a leader is fairly narrow: they manage processes and build people. There is leadership more broadly embraced outside of work – parent groups, hobbies, volunteer organisations. Often these non-work related positions become the sordid playgrounds of amateur politicians. People who cannot command respect at work, but who have the spare time and energy to manipulate organisations. They seize power and laud it over others. The rest of us tolerate their maniacal fantasies, because we are too busy working to contest with them.   How do we become a better leader, whom others willingly wish to follow? Even being the obvious best at something isn’t enough to get others to want to follow you. They may defer to our technical excellence and superior knowledge, but they remain skeptical observers.   The starting point is critical. If your desire for leadership is driven by personal aggrandisement and ego, where all good things must flow to you, this force of will factor is not attractive. Good leadership is differentiated by the followers desire to want to follow, when there is no coercion, structure or impetus to do so. We gravitate to these leaders because of how they make us feel.   Effective leaders are good with people.   There are some key principles they embody, which make us like and trust them. This is not artful manipulation, where they fake these principles in a cunning way. That approach exists and will ultimately be revealed as hypocrisy. What we are talking about here is having correct kokorogamae (心構え) - true intentions.   Talk in terms of the other person’s interests We are often so wrapped up in our selfishness, we become the center of our world and want others to serve us. The better leader talks about our interests in a way that fosters close alignment and agreement.   Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves Bossy people often love to brag. Instead, build the trust by focusing your conversation on them not you. As you stop dominating and start listening, you uncover areas of shared desires, values, interests and experiences which are magnetic in their properties and bind us more closely together.   Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely “Sincerely” – not fake praise or manipulation. Having listened to them, we discover their abilities, capacities and strengths.   By linking those excellent attributes to a shared bigger picture, we help others to feel part of something worthwhile.   Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view Often we are egocentric - it always about me, me, me. Having listened, we uncover the context behind their beliefs and arrive at a greater appreciation for their views and positions. We can more easily get on each other’s wavelengths. When this happens, we become more mutually simpatico, supportive and powerfully bonded.   Ask questions instead of giving direct orders The inclusive, humble promotion of self-discovery unleashes powerful forces that encapsulates our shared direction. We become the catalyst for their self-belief.  We all want to be around people who make us feel good about our better selves and with whom we share common goals.   People will willingly follow us when we apply these principles. We must sincerely switch from a “me” focus to an “our” focus. Change our approach and we change our results.

Ancien Regime Corporate Leaders   Sport is a popular source of inspiration for corporate leadership. Coaches attend off-sites and make good money telling executives how to be better motivators. Sports journalist Simon Kuper recently made an interesting observation in his column in the Financial Times about famous football coaches falling into decline, supplanted by younger, more innovative rivals. These superstar coaches were the original innovators, but they ran out of gas. Well not all of them. Almost as an aside, he flagged the difference between the shorter longevity of the “innovators” and those more hardy types who excelled at “people management”.   This is an interesting observation because often we surge through our careers based on our ideas, innovation or technical expertise. In Kuper’s article, the age of 40 was singled out. The planets start to align and leadership hopefuls begin their move to the very top. In my native Australia, historically, you were not thought to be a real man until you reached the age of 40. At that point you were considered to have amassed the knowledge, experience as well as the physical strength for pioneer life.   Kuper notes that at this age, when you get the big promotion or the shot at a significant job, you have probably expended all of the your innovator ammo just getting there and now it is all downhill. What does this mean for those who have risen in the organization, based on their technical knowledge or the strength of their ideas?   A lot of firms value those hard skills over the soft skills. The culture is geared that way and so are the promotions. Somewhere along the line the soft skills become more important in practice, but often there is not the organisational recognition that this is the case. Being the smartest technical person in the room is fine but not much help. Organisations today are more collaborative, require leadership and accountability at all levels and are screaming out for insights into how to beat the competition. Teams need to have good teamwork – that means producing more collectively, than what can be achieved by a couple of superstars.   Getting the best ideas out of everyone in the team, ensuring clear, concise communication and a culture of going the extra mile in the plan execution are not driven from the hard skills toolbox. The leader’s soft skills are required and now the gaps arise. Being the best technician runs its race at some point, as we are overtaken by rivals or technology. What then will happen to us for the rest of our worklife? Are we going to become victims, cast aside on the corporate scrap heap? We need to be able to substitute “I do it all” with “we do it all together”. The key question is why would anyone in the team care? They don’t, so we need the communication and motivational soft skills of the leader.   For aging leaders, the younger generation are a headache. These young staff are marching to the beat of a different drum. Companies are being treated like cafeterias. You slide in there, select what you want from what is available and then slide on out again. This might be fine for the upwardly mobile young but it is an expensive exercise for companies. We are becoming the training grounds for our rivals and there is an army of recruiters in Japan, ready to assist in improving Japan’s work mobility profile. Poaching these people you have spent time and money training is how that industry thrives and with declining numbers of young people the competition for talent has really heated up. This issue is not going to go away – ever!   So, the ability of leaders to retain young people will become a new measure of success and trust me, your technical knowledge won’t be much help here. They will milk you and move on. Understanding how to frame their future with your organisation is a key communication skill. Creating the right environment where their ideas are seen as valued is a soft skill.   Like the most successful sports coaches, we have to learn how to become excellent people leaders. When you get to 40, understand the clock is ticking and start working on your people management capability big time. Technical knowledge is important but it isn’t enough, so get help now rather than being a casual observer of your own career crash.   Action Steps   Don’t find yourself at 40 armed with only technical skills Become an expert on team leadership, combining the power of the many together Become a persuasive communicator, especially with the younger staff Renown for you ability to retain key people will boost your rise in the organisation so master this skill set

Drucker On Leadership   Peter Drucker has this great quote. “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion and under performance. Everything else requires leadership”. In this modern day and age, why do we still encounter these three horsemen of the apocalypse of organizational dis-function? Each signals its own raft of challenges, magnified even further when operating in Japan.   Friction is a tricky one in Japan for foreign bosses, because so often it is subterranean. Power struggles, factions, proxies, turf, ego all come into play here but not so overtly. Influence is achieved through access to key people more often than over the bodies of enemies. Apart from bosses disciplining subordinates, screaming abuse at colleagues isn’t acceptable in Japan. The problem here is getting the issues out on the table for resolution more than anything else.   The age old remedy of out of office discussions is usually where the boss finds out what is really going on, as opposed to what was thought to be happening. It is highly unlikely staff will seek the gaijin boss out and download the skullduggery going on, so you have to unearth it for yourself. Presuming you are able to achieve such a worthy goal, that is only half the battle, now what do you do about it.   The typical stance of getting two people in a room and telling them to sort it out may work in the West, but it won’t work here. I am not sure that this actually works anywhere, but that doesn’t stop supposedly intelligent and experienced people from trying it though. Rather, we need to really dig out the issues and manage the resolution process, paying careful attention to those spurious “yes” statements, which in Japan indicate I heard you but that doesn’t mean I agree with you.   This ensures that the follow up is critically important to make sure that the solution is actually executed and everyone is doing what they said they would do. White-anting, backsliding, artful misinterpreting of what was agreed, untrue communication gap excuses, willful disobedience – expect the whole gamut.   Confusion is usually the result of unclear processes and unclear communication. Japanese language is a big culprit, because in the hands of native speakers it is genius at leaving things muscularly vague. Having a process and having a common understanding of the process is not the same thing. In the same vein, common sense is not common and the unaccounted for action is often the project success killer. You might believe that we should move directly from A to B but that doesn’t guarantee that others will share that view. They might think a little detour to Q is more appropriate. So we need to spell out the process, in detail and we need to check for understanding. Expecting the next logical step to be logical to everyone else is too bold. Specify, micro-manage the detail, check back (ad nausium) is often the minimum required.   Underperformance is usually a factor of skill or motivation gaps. Skill gaps can generally be closed through providing quality training, mentoring and coaching. Motivation though is a lot harder subject. This is often a systemic problem, starting at the top. The senior leaders determine the culture of the organization. If the atmosphere is to defer to seniority by rank and age, then don’t expect too much innovation occurring anytime soon. If middle management only understand the two tools of “what” and “how” and don’t have “why” in their explanation toolbox, expect employee passive compliance. It boils down to “why be creative when you don’t care?”.   Latching on to the “why care” drivers is critical, if we want to move forward and succeed in the market, the latter brimming with competitors. Three things drive engagement: firstly, the relationship with the immediate supervisor – so trust, and communication are paramount. Secondly, the belief by those at the bottom that those at the top actually know what they are doing, requires middle management to cascade down the top group’s “why”. Thirdly, pride in the organization necessitates a one-team approach, rather than a self-obsessed internally oriented power struggle capital of the universe approach. This is why we talk about leadership at all levels – we need the alignment and agreement on what it is we need to do, how we need to do it and what success looks like.   As Drucker points out leaders need to lead but often in Japan they just rotate through positions in large organizations, never taking any significant decisions, avoiding as many initiatives as possible and keeping their heads down anticipating a cushy retirement. This is why we love working in Japan – never a dull moment here.   Action Steps   Carefully investigate the causes behind issues between staff Get agreement to correct the problem and then keep checking that what was agreed gets done Communicate more often and more regularly the same key messages, don’t imagine people get it with just one pass by Keep hammering away at the WHY

Attitude Control   We can control 100% of our attitude. Yes, but often we don’t. There are few things we can be 100% in control of and our attitude would have to rank at the top of things we really need to control. So you would think we would all be brilliant in this area. We aren’t and so why do we have problems?   Part of the issue can be allowing past failures to sap our mental fortitude. We mentally re-run the movie in our minds of things we regret or events we actually don’t want to remember, but do anyway. No amount of self-discipline seems to work, shielding us from the past. We seem drawn to flashbacks and re-living the past episodes where we fell short or failed.   We are really creative too. We don’t just allow the past to wipe out our positive attitude, we inject the future in there as well. We project forward and start imagining all sorts of failures and issues we will suffer, before they ever even happen or arrive.   The combination of past realities and future possibilities can be a powerful mix to drag us into a downward spiral, where the world seems bleak, dark and we are hopeless. No matter how many self-affirmations we do or how positive we try to make ourselves, these prior and future fears weigh us down.   What can we do about it? Try to “live in day tight compartments”. This means we focus 100% of our energy and attention on what is facing us today and don’t allow the past and future to impinge on our attitude.   Here is the crucial mental shift we have to make – don’t try to block out what happened in the past – we can’t. Instead though, we can recall it but not worry about it. There is the crucial difference – acknowledge it happened, but don’t worry about the past - we can’t go back and change it. Keep the focus totally on today, on what we can control and concentrate our energy and efforts there.   The same applies to the future. Of course we should consider what will happen in the future – hopefully we will be spending quite a bit of time there. Again, there is considering the future and preparing for it, but not worrying about it. This difference is huge. Prepare for it, but don’t allow it to cause worry. Again flick the switch and look at what is right in front of you now and work on that. Yes, random thoughts about the future will wander into our consciousness, so write them down and capture the issues.   Call them out and work on ameliorating them, but don’t worry about them.   When we think about controlling today, what we read and who speak with will have an impact on our attitude. Find positive information in newspapers, magazines, books, articles, Facebook and LinkedIn posts etc., and read that. Be aware of it, but skip the grubby details on everything ugly and negative. That actually means skipping most of the news on television, because you can’t control what is coming up next. At least with written text, on-line or off-line, you can control your intake. Let’s be very picky about what we feed into our minds.   People are the other biggie. Reduce the contact and influence of negative people as much as possible. Avoid whiners, complainers and negative mindset types as much as possible. You may be forced into close proximity with negative people due to where you work, but keep that exposure to a minimum. See them as radioactive and avoid all unnecessary contact. Find people who are positive, upbeat and spend time with them. There are fewer of this variety, but they are around and so soak up and contribute to their positive vibe. Look for organisations where the positive congregate and join the group.   The past, the future and the negative erode our positive attitude, so as a priority let’s organise our life to deal with these issues. When we do that, life gets easier, better and happier. “It is all in the mind” is old wisdom, but still true!   Actions Steps Accept past memories but don’t worry about them Accept certain things might happen in the future, prepare for them, but don’t worry about them Avoid all forms of negativity Search out positive environments and people and spend time there

Dojo Business Lessons   I have often thought there are so many lessons from the martial arts for our businesses. Here are my musings assembled from my 46 years of training in traditional Japanese Karate.   Entering the Dojo The Dojo is the ultimate equalizer. Whether you arrived by chauffeur driven Roller, Maybach or took Shanks’s mare, once you step on to that Dojo floor only your ability and character separates you from everyone else. You have had all of your wealth, privileges, educational background, social status, connections stripped away and you are left alone to rise or fall based on your own abilities.   In business we forget this and allow people to accrue titles, status and power unattributed to their abilities. It is always amazing how many politicians there are infesting companies. We need to see beyond the spin and politics and ensure that people’s real abilities are recognized and rewarded. If the politicians control the top positions then the corporate fish will rot from the head and the business will be destroyed.   Starting The class begins with a short meditation interval. This is designed to focus the mind and separate the day from what will now come. Next everyone is bowing toward the front. The front of the class represents all who came before us. We are not here today based solely on what we have done. Others were here before us building the art and the organization. By bowing we acknowledge the continuum and our responsibility to keep it going. Now we bow to the teachers, respecting their knowledge and their devotion. Finally we bow to each other expressing our solidarity as fellow travellers on a journey of self-discovery.   How do we start the work day? Are you controlled by the weather when you awake – rain means I feel bad, sunshine means I feel happy? Or are you motivated, irrespective of the weather and you determine yourself what type of day it will be? At the workplace is there a chorei or morning gathering of the work group, to get everyone aligned and focused on the WHY they are there. In our office, for example, we rotate the meeting leadership and review one of the Dale Carnegie Human Relation’s Principles each day. We then share our scheduled meetings, our highest goals for the day, end with a motivational quote and a final rousing call to all do our best (ganbarimashoo!).   Stretching We warm-up our minds and our bodies by going through a set routine to stretch our muscles, to be able to operate at a very high level of performance.   If you are a sales team, are you beginning your day with role play practice or are you just practicising on the client? Fifteen minutes is not a burden and quite a lot of practice can be achieved in that period. Salespeople, more than most, are really constrained by what they say and how they say it. The wrong explanation and the buyer disappears. The first thing that pops into your head, better not pop out of your mouth. Better to warm up the brain in the morning and get the syntax and cadence humming before you talk to any clients.   Basics We repeat the same drills over and over, every class, every year, forever. We are seeking purity of form and perfection of execution. We are preparing ourselves for a Zen state where we can react without pre-thought.   A large amount of our work is routine, but can we improve the systems, the execution to bring in greater efficiencies and achieve higher productivity? We need to constantly seek to improve our speed and accuracy of execution of projects and tasks. Are there procedures we can trim back or improve to save costs of time and money? Rather than just repeating things the way they have always been done, is there any opportunity to refine further?   Sparring There are two formats. Prearranged sparring dictates what is coming and the order in which it comes. Free sparring is 100% spontaneous, ebbing and flowing with the rhythm of move and counter move. At a high level, this is like playing a full chess match in one minute, but using our techniques with full body commitment. Trust me, if you get this high speed chess game wrong, you get a punch in the mouth or a kick in the head – a sure way to improve your focus.   When we compete in the marketplace are we a speedboat or an oil tanker? Are we nimble, adaptive, on purpose and aware of market changes? Are we thinking steps ahead of the opposition, anticipating their moves and constantly outflanking them, applying our brains over their brawn? Are we able to bounce back from losses? If the rival wins the business, can we analyse where we failed and better prepare for the next round? Do we have the guts to keep going when things get tough and we wonder if we can make payroll this month?   Kata These are full power set pieces, representing a battle against multiple opponents. The forms are fixed and the aim is perfection. The form is set and so Zen like, releases the mind to go beyond the form.   Are we able to keep reproducing execution pieces of our work that are perfected? Can we refine our actions for the maximum effectiveness? Can we eliminate mistakes, defects and rework entirely at all levels in the organisation? Do we have templates for processes that are best practice and which everyone can follow? Do we have the workflow in the best possible sequence? When was the last time we took a good, long, hard look at how we do things, in what order, by whom etc?   Strengthening and warming down Strength training is there to build the physical power and our mental perseverance. We do a final stretch to reduce stiffness and muscle pain by reducing lactic acid build up in the muscles.   Are our training methodologies making us stronger than our rivals in the marketplace? Are we allocating sufficient time to grow our people? Are we seeing outcomes from the training time invested? When we are busy, we are too time poor to allocate time for training. When we are not busy, we are too cash flow poor to allocate time for training. When can we train? If we don’t build strengthening processes into our organisations, we will never be able to grow the people, in order to grow the business. The people will plateau and so will the company.     Finish We repeat the bowing and this time we add the Dojo Kun (Creed). Voicing carefully chosen words which represent the value system of that dojo, (e.g. Effort, Patience, Moderation, Respect) so that these are the last things settling into our minds, before we go back to our usual routines of life.   How do we end the workday? Do we rush out the door to get home? Do we spend a few moments to set up for the next day by reflecting on what we did today, what we achieved and what we need to work on tomorrow? Do we review the quality of our performance and think about ways to do better? Do we look at the goals we set for the day and see how closely we went to achieving them?   There are many metaphors in Karate training for our business lives. I hope these different angles on what we do everyday and how we do them, has stimulated some thinking about how to be even better. Karate training teaches us that to succeed, we must defeat the weaknesses in ourselves, overcome our self-doubts and limiting beliefs. Business is just the same.

Why Leading Project Teams Is Tough   Projects are too common. Because of this we take them for granted, seeing them as part of everyday work, but we don’t approach them properly. We usually gather the team together and then dive straight into the details of the project, without really applying a professional approach. We certainly don’t apply as much planning expertise to the task as we should, as we wade straight into the mechanics of the execution. Why is that?   Poor leadership and lack of skills make for dangerous dance partners, as the team launches forth rocking and rolling with no strategy and little expertise.   Often, there is no existing documented planning process in place. This can be rather ironic because often the projects are repeated or very similar projects are undertaken. Templates and structure are missing so everyone just wings it, making it up as they go along, re-inventing the wheel.   The goals of the project are often vague. This is a lack of direction from the top leadership to those tasked with doing the work. The project leader has to push back and manage upwards, seeking clear reasons for the WHY of the project and then make sure everyone involved in the team understands the WHY.   Project scope creep is like a cancer that can kill the project, denying it success. The project begins with vague boundaries around what is to be done. In quick order, either external parties or the team themselves, become like Emus and are attracted by bright shiny objects. Very quickly the additional tasks multiply but the time frame and the resources committed to the project do not change. This never ends well.   The implementation strategy regarding roles, budgets, timelines and follow-up is weak or non-existent. Well, when you are having fun and winging it, you are super busy getting on with the actual work, so no strategy needed. Later things go wrong because timelines were not clear nor properly planned. The resources do not turn up at the required timing or the sequencing of the work is found to be skewwhiff, so there are delays you cannot easily cover or resolve.   You quickly find that people, rather than logistics, are the trickiest part of project leadership. You may not have been able to match the project team resource with the skill sets required and you have to make do with what you have. There may be incompatible working styles in the team and you are now chief psychologist, in addition to team project leader, spending a lot of time and energy dealing with staff or division conflicts.   The start of the project may be exciting, but over time other tasks start to impede on this project and compete for your people’s time. Their motivation starts to slide. You have to rally them constantly to be enthusiastic and committed to the successful completion of the project. This is when you discover your communication and persuasion skills are rubbish and you are getting nowhere with them. This becomes magnified when there are critical issues of internal and external cooperation required. People not completing their tasks on time unleashes issues around trust and reliability. Their excuses are never in short supply, but this is not especially helpful, because your boss won’t be accepting any from you, as project leader.   Because you have never been trained on how to delegate properly, you either don’t do it at all or you give it a shot, it fails and you wind up doing most of the work. This would be fine if you had nothing else to do and could devote your time to just this one project. Strangely enough the organization has bigger plans for you and they involve a whole slather of other work to be done as well.   The answer is fairly simple. Train people properly on how to lead projects. Projects are always going to occur and we should have our own organisation’s way of doing them. This would be developed through long periods of hands on experience and constantly updated to reflect best practice discoveries made along the journey.   There are seven project evolution steps we should follow: define scope; devise plan; implement; monitor/modify/keep checking; get closure/evaluate and finally celebrate. For each of these steps we need a trained project head, highly skilled in leading people, rather someone we who is ace on creating macros in spreadsheets!     Action Steps   Don’t treat projects lightly Capture the best practices and create a project management template Clearly explain the WHY of the project Be vigilant about scope creep Carefully design the implementation strategy for the project Ensure the project leader has been given leadership training