A number of years ago, I recall reading in Japan’s Spa magazine, the results of a survey they completed of 1,140 male full-time employees in their 40s, about what they hated about their jobs. The top four complaints were salaries have not risen because of decades of deflation; a sense of being underappreciated and undervalued and a lost sense of purpose. Apart from not enough money, in a time of massive corporate profits, the other issues they flagged are all about leadership soft skills. Here we are today, finally emerging from deflation, but wages are not moving much and these other issues are still with us. Dale Carnegie Training did a global study of engagement. The results for Japan were consistent with the global trends. Japan’s scores were also consistent with every survey I have ever seen on the subject of engagement in this country. The percentages of those who are not engaged are always gob smacking.
Why would staff feel underappreciated? The reason is obvious. No one in a leadership position has shown them any sign that they are important, that what they are doing is important and that they have an important place in the organisation. Part of the reason is cultural. Japanese prefer understatement and subtlety, not passionate outbursts of appreciation. A boss coming back from a training course suddenly telling staff how great they are and how much they are appreciated would be viewed with distinct suspicion that something odorous was about to descend. It would be viewed as some sort of smoke screen before all hell breaks loose.
This says a a lot about entrenched ideas about leadership and expectations about leadership in Japan. The bar is so low here that any deviation toward something approaching more normal western management styles is viewed in a negative light. That means we still have some work to do.
That global study said the gateway drug to gaining higher levels of engagement was to have staff feel they are valued by their managers. Often, work can become routine and parts of it can be tedious. The lower down the totem pole you descend, the harder it is for those at the bottom to recognize that what they are doing has any great relevance for the organization. This is where the boss has to re-connect them to align with the machine. They need to see how what they do is important and where it fits into the overall picture. The essence of the job itself has to be established as having relevance, for them to feel they have relevance.
Their work may or may not be perfect, but very few people in life actually try to do a bad day’s work. They may not be geniuses, but they are usually doing the best they can. If we want higher skills, we need to train them. Remember we say, “hire for attitude and train for skills”. If we want greater productivity, we need to help them become motivated. How can that happen? Well telling people “be motivated’ won’t do it. Try it. Tell them five times in a row “be motivated” and see the result. It will be a big fat zero. This is an inside out, not outside in process.
The boss’s job is to have such good levels of communication that the individual aspirations of the team members are known and the work can be related to how this will help them achieve their aims. There is a common alignment of purpose and direction between the staff and the organisation. For the boss to be able to do that with any credibility takes training in communication skills and understanding people. Barking orders at plebs is not the type of communication skill set about to unleash hitherto latent talent and high levels of enthusiasm for the work.
For bosses, even finding the time to actually speak about these things with their team are difficult. Flatter organisational structures has pushed a lot of work on to the boss’s plate. If the boss can manage time properly and if they can delegate effectively, then this flat structure ordained busyness will be counterbalanced to some extent. So boss effectiveness in managing themselves, sets up the organisation to help them manage others in a more professional way. How many bosses do you know who are doing this well?
Corporate Japan needs to address these failures of leadership in the soft skills area and tap into the full strength of the working population. There is little hesitation to invest in hard skills, but what about these key soft skills? By the way, OJT or On The job Training won’t be enough, so it is time to get serious about doing some real leadership training. The investment for the future needs to be made now. They are not making as many Japanese as they used to and so we are facing a major demographic shift of less access to human resources. We have to make sure we allow all of our staff the chance to shine.
In this regard, bosses have a bigger responsibilty than ever before to get this right. Let’s make sure the bosses are fully tuned up on how to do that and for them to be successful in leading the team forward. If we keep doing the same things, in the same way, we will get the same result. As Einstein said, doing the same thing every time and expecting a different result, is the definition of craziness. Let’s not be crazy
