Big Brother Japan Inc Style
“What anchors their behavior is the salaryman’s desire to protect himself – no one wants to put their position at risk by telling the truth”. This little gem of an insight was made by a retired nuclear engineer who worked for Toshiba. He was referring to the various scandals that had taken place there and explaining why illegal decisions made by senior management like cooking the books went unchecked internally.
Corporate Japan in some ways, could be a modern model for George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”. Big Brother is the leadership who define that truths are lies and lies are truths. That anyone against the system must be eliminated because 100% loyalty is the minimum. There are facts and then there are “alternative facts”. We do the thinking around here, your job is to carry out our genius ideas.
This is not surprising because kids are inculcated into accepting authority, doing not questioning, following authority figures even if they are only one year older. Sempai (seniors) sensei (teachers) are respected as part of Japan’s Confucian construct. Group responsibility lessens the burden and gives air cover to individuals that they have learnt is essential if you want to void the stain of failure on your record.
Errors are kept track of and come into play later in your career when the bosses consider who gets the promotion and who goes sideways. That is one of the reasons HR is so powerful in Japanese companies – they decide the transfers to new roles and locations and they have the dirt file on everyone as they come up through the ranks.
So how do we get innovation going in our companies? The innovation process has trial and error built into it, by virtue of the fact that what we are going to do is new, untested, experimental. How do we test stuff if no one wants to try anything new because there is a risk of failure?
The fear of failure restricts people mentally from the very start. They are afraid to voice opinions because they have learnt from early childhood that going along is how you get ahead. Don’t stand out by taking a stand. Blend in, find the absolute middle of the fence and sit there. If the survey is a one to five scale select three for everything.
Just employing someone into your firm doesn’t erase years of brainwashing here about what is acceptable and what isn’t. Yet, we hear foreign executives moaning about they don’t get any quality ideas from below, that productivity is low, decisions are painstakingly slow, people don’t contribute during meetings, etc.
All true but not a fait accompli. The environment for failure has to be secured. The fear to step out has to be replaced with rewards for trying not just succeeding. Performance reviews and the measures used have to be changed away from outcomes to more process. Process in the sense of generating ideas, suggestions, taking risks, trying new things. All unrelated to actual success. If we only reward success, then we had better hope we have a bunch of geniuses working for us. In the Western work environment, we reward success but we don’t see failure as fatal, if people fail in the right way. Being incompetent in your current task is not acceptable. However, pioneering some new intervention or iteration is seen as good work and if it fails, the lessons learnt are considered valuable and the person is not terminated.
In a Japanese context nobody believes it is not fatal. It has to be shown that failure is acceptable as part of the innovation process. That means bosses have to walk the talk. The worst case is saying we welcome innovation and then whack someone in the head as soon as they fail. Maybe “innovation is good, we accept failure as part of the process” is the ethos in the dark wood paneled recesses of the executive floor, but it also has to permeate the culture throughout middle management. Getting middle management to accept this culture requires a lot of re-training in Japan. However, is this factored into the innovation process or are we hoping for the best instead? Let’s make sure we are all walking the same talk.
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 greg.story@dalecarnegie.com
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.
