The blow torch has never been applied more ferociously to how leaders lead than what we see today.  Once upon a time, there were resumes pilling up to consider who we would hire.  We had the whip hand, and the applicants felt the lash.  Now the roles have been reversed and the applicants are interviewing us, rather than the other way around.  I have done my weekly podcast Japan’s Top Business Interviews now for over five years, talking to CEOs here about one topic – leading in Japan.  It was...

We recently completed an in-house Leadership Training for Managers programme for a local Japanese firm. The President founded the firm as a spin-out from a well-established international accounting company many years ago and has successfully grown the organisation. He is now considering succession planning and aims to develop his senior leadership team. He had an internal survey conducted on the training programme, which he then shared with the trainer who delivered the course and myself. ...

Are you sitting too much and for too long at your desk every day?  Are you eating too much every meal because your mother told you when you were a kid to finish everything on your plate.  Are you hitting the booze after work with your mates or at home to rid yourself of your stress?  Are your kidneys and liver in good shape? Are you carrying around too much meat and making your muscles and organs work much harder than they should? Is your blood pressure elevated and too high every day?   Are...

We know that AI has gone from the domain of geeky people in white lab coats to the mainstream of business in a nanosecond. Such speed is difficult to keep up with and the roll out of new options continues unabated. As the leader how do we surf this tech wave and prepare our people for this AI enabled future/  Making data backed decisions is always preferred in leadership and AI has the power to crunch large amounts of data and provide answers very quickly.  As long as it isn’t lying to us...

Recently, I was teaching a class of APAC executives on how to handle pushback to their ideas. Some participants were senior legal counsels, who frequently had to say "no" to their salespeople. As a salesperson myself, being told "no" is something that comes with the territory and is not intimidating at all. In fact, we often hear "no" most of the time. We're tough and have learned to persist until we achieve a "yes." These executives spoke about how challenging it was to get the other side...

Pulling rank on people is clearly the fastest and easiest way to get people to fly straight and do what we want. It is also a very dangerous choice in Japan in an era when the demand for people is so strong and the supply so limited. Mobility today means people have choices. If you are not interested in what they have to say or their ideas, they will jump ship to somewhere they think they will be better appreciated. The problem is their ideas are rarely much chop.  They don’t have the...

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...

You really appreciate the importance of brand, when you see it being trashed.  Companies spend millions over decades constructing the right brand image with clients.  Brands are there to decrease the buyer’s sense of risk.  A brand carries a promise of consistent service at a certain level.  Now that level can be set very low, like some low cost airlines, where “cheap and cheerful” is the brand promise.  Another little gem from some industries is “all care and no responsibility”.  At the...

Is change good or bad?  When I was promoted or received a big bonus, I liked the change from my previous situation.  When the big boss changed at the very top, the person who hired me got fired the negative ramifications ultimately cascaded down the line. Eventually I had to look for another job and I didn’t like that change much. Often organisations go through major internal changes and the middle level leaders are expected to rally the troops behind the change.  How do you do that if you...

This Japanese expression “Ichi-Go, Ichi-E” (一期一会), linked to Zen, focuses on transience and can be translated as “one time, one meeting” or “treasure an unrepeatable moment”.  It is often closely associated with the Japanese tea ceremony, which is certainly never a hurried affair and the devil is definitely in the details of how the ceremony is conducted.  Contrast that with our modern leader life in business.  We are constantly in motion, always time poor and harassed for 24 hours a day by...

Recently, my social media has been full of short videos of various politicians and supporters giving talks at the Democratic National Convention.  It always begs the question for me about what are we doing as leaders in business?  We have the same goals.  We want our message to be heard and to be convincing.  The difference is, I am sure, all of these speakers have been well coached and have been practicing hard for their moment in the spotlight, given a global audience of massive...

Twelve Steps To A Win-Win Conflict Resolution Part Two We have looked at some of the steps in Part One, so let’s continue with the last six elements.  7. Deal with facts, not emotions In sports, as I have noted earlier, we say “play the ball, not the man” and in business we need to look at problems, not personalities. This sounds fair enough, but it is not easy to do. We may find we are attacking the person, their ideas and opinions rather than looking at solving the problem. Maybe we...

 “Remember that other people may be totally wrong, but they don’t think so”. This quote from Dale Carnegie sums up the problem. All those other people we have trouble with had better fly straight. All they need is a better understanding of why they are wrong and we are right. By force of will, strenuous, sustained argument and politicking, we will win the day. Or will we? Actually, getting a clear win in internal conflict situations is rarely the result. Battles may be won, but wars are...

Business is more fast-paced that ever before in human history. Technology boasting massive computing and communication power is held in our palm. It accompanies us on life’s journey, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, everywhere we go. We are working in the flattest organisations ever designed, often in noisy, distracting open plan environments. We are also increasing thrust into matrix relationships with bosses, subordinates and colleagues residing in distant climes. We rarely meet them face...

I saw a video recently from Rampley and Co in the UK featuring Caryn Franklin, a Fashion and Identity Commentator, talking about something called “enclothed cognition”.  When I saw her work title - Fashion and Identity Commentator - and the reference to psychology, I was dubious.  I was thinking, “here we go, more psychobabble”.  She referenced a psychology study by Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky, published in the journal of Experimental Social Psychology in July 2012. They looked at the...

I meet a lot of CEOs in Japan.  I am always out there networking and looking for clients.  If they cannot become a client, then I try to encourage them to be a guest on my podcast Japan’s Top Business Interviews.  I get two groups in particular who will refuse the offer – women and Scandinavians.  They say that women are more reticent about putting themselves forward than men and my own unscientific survey would seem to bear that out.  If a man only has 60% of the qualifications for a job, he...

Being an Aussie I don’t have the right to select the next US President or get involved in American politics.  I will steer clear of this minefield and concentrate on what we can all learn from the Biden train wreck. One moment he is a contender and in an instant he is struggling to hold on to power.  Why?  Because he gave a rambling speech in his debate with Donald Trump, viewed by over 50 million Americans. He was prepped for this debate by his handlers and yet it was a debacle. What...

I am a maniac.  A less charged descriptor might be an “enthusiast”.  Now Japan is a country chock full of enthusiasts.  They win best pizza maker, best sommelier, best hula dancer, best shoe maker awards, etc., out gunning the Westerners who supposedly should be winning these home town advantage awards.   This is a country where work is taken very seriously.  Growing up in laid back Brisbane, we didn’t live to work, we worked to live.  At 5.30pm most people were in the pub, the gym, the...

They are not making as many Japanese as they used to.  Every year we get these headlines about the new lows in numbers of births in Japan.  The demographic trend is obvious to everyone.  What is not obvious is how this is going to force a change in the way we lead.  Until now, we have all applied the like it or lump philosophy to staff working for us.  They were infinitely replaceable – lose one and go get another one.  Not anymore. It is hard to understand, really.  The economy is not doing...

Tough Love Or Fake Praise To Motivate Staff In Japan This tough love or fake praise alternative is a dubious construct. Are these two alternatives really the only options?  For some leaders they may feel that the staff are getting paid to do a professional job and their corresponding need is to get on with it.  The boss doesn’t need to be pandering to their needs.  This is especially the case toward these self-indulgent, coddled, spoiled brats who are now entering the workforce.  Giving this...

APAC always ranks low in global engagement surveys. At the very bottom of the APAC calculation sits Japan. Part of the reasons are language and cultural. The translations from English can sometimes be off the mark and lead the Japanese to score lower.  I always recommend carefully checking the translations to try to tighten them up and make the meanings clearer. Other hurdles can be cultural.  One question often asked is “would you recommend the company to your family and friends as a place...

Alan Mulally has had a very successful career at Ford and Boeing.  Over his 45 years as a leader, he developed an approach called “Working Together: Principles, Practices and Management System”.  His number one principles is “People first….Love them up”. This type of declaration is simple to make, but not that easy to live when you are facing quarterly reporting of results and the full glare of the stock market.   We see so many cases of CEOs firing people, the stock price getting a big boost...

Ideas are free and sometimes frivolous.  We can brainstorm anything we like and we will come up with a bunch of ideas. Often that is where things grind to a shuddering halt.  I have been in those rooms, where we covered all the walls with ideas great and mighty.  What happened thereafter?  Nothing. In Australia, in the 1990s, the government tightened up their regulations on company expenditures and particularly looked more carefully at “off-site” session expenditures. In many cases, these...