Have you ever had the experience of leaving a job and seeing your successor screw it up? We spend so many hours at work and we are trying hard to lift the bar through our leadership. However, if we do well, we get promoted or we join another company seeking a bigger job. It is very disheartening to leave and see the place go backwards under your replacement. You wonder what all those weekends spent working and long hours were al about. We expect that we add to the cause and the firm progresses and moves forward, improving over time. We expect those who come after us to be doing the same thing.
So it was very confronting to read some statistics recently about how short the term at the top is these days and thinking about what does that mean for the leader’s legacy? According to data analysis firm Equilar, the median term for a CEO in the 500 largest US companies, is now down to 4.7 years, having dropped twenty percent over the last ten years. Russell Reynolds says globally, for CFOs, the tenure is down to a five year low of 5.7 years.
If you are sent from Headquarters to Japan to run the local operation you don’t have much time. If you realise this and decide to go gung-ho from Day One and drive change to get the results faster, then you will probably blow up the firm. On the other hand, if you wait to understand the market, customers, the staff and the culture, then years of study will be required. By the time you get it, it is time to pack for the next assignment or another job change.
The analogy I like is leading in Japan is like swimming in warm lake. You land here from headquarters and you are immediately placed in a warm, nice lake, but the surface is covered in a heavy fog. You can hear voices and vaguely make out shapes. Over time, the fog lifts a little as you understand Japan better and you can make out the shoreline and some islands. After about three years the fog lifts and it is now time to leave for your next post. What did you get done, what legacy have you left?
If we go too fast the Japanese team cannot keep up and we have new internal troubles. This might include staff writing to the Chairman anonymously informing headquarters that you are ruining the business in Japan and destroying the firm here. It might mean key staff conclude you are an idiot and they vote with their feet and join the opposition. In today’s society in Japan, job mobility has changed an enormous amount and shifting firms doesn’t have the same stigma it once had which used to ensure lifetime employment with the one company. It might mean you decide to become “efficient” with customer relationships and after overcoming stubborn staff resistance, you force you will on everyone only to see your buyers depart and not come back.
On the other hand, headquarters are contacting you because they are not seeing the spike in revenue numbers they sent you out there for. The staff engagement survey results are a disaster. Your bosses are not happy with your performance as a leader. You try to explain the subtleties and nuances of the Japanese market and how business is done here, but it all falls on deaf ears. They are fully preoccupied with themselves and nobody cares about your problems.
There are no simple answers unfortunately. Listening is a good idea at the initial six month stage, especially listening to customers. Finding allies within the staff of firm who can get behind your changes is going to be vital. You can pontificate and shoot out orders, to only find those below are sabotaging your efforts and are not doing anything to carry out your commands.
This country has a lot of informal lobbying going on underground and the big meetings are there to rubber stamp what has already been negotiated prior with the relevant parties. That means we have to persuade, rather than order, to coalesce rather the remonstrate. Sadly, none of this is fast and your bosses want fast.
We are fighting two fires on two fronts at the same time. We are pushing headquarters to get behind what we are trying to do and we are persuading the team to do the same thing, but at a faster pace than what they are used to. Staff are terrific at telling us what won’t work and why, if they are involved. They are less help in coming up with creative solutions to overcome problems. Often, we are the one to think differently and be prepared to try something new. Bite sized experimentation suits Japan, given the general fear of failure and risk aversion.
Change takes time in Japan, lots of time and maybe it just isn’t possible in one rotation of your term here and you have to rely on your successor to pick up the gauntlet and keep pushing the strategy through the changes. If you don’t get headquarters to sign on for it and therefore get them to engage your successor to keep going, then there will be lots of effort exuded by you and none of your legacy to show for it in Japan.
You leave the county feeling unfulfilled and ashamed you didn’t make a difference. Something you have been known for in your previous positions and one of the reason your were selected to go to Japan in the first place. Your mouth is full of the bitter ashes of years wasted, as you head for the boarding lounge to catch your flight out of Japan. Or you approach it differently and get a better outcome. Trust me, it won’t happen by itself, so you have to box smart while you are here.
