Couverture de The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

De : Dr. Greg Story
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 For succeeding in business in Japan you need to know how to lead, sell and persuade. This is what we cover in the show. No matter what the issue you will get hints, information, experience and insights into securing the necessary solutions required. Everything in the show is based on real world perspectives, with a strong emphasis on offering practical steps you can take to succeed.copyright 2022 Economie Management Management et direction
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    • 363 The Truth About Death by Overwork in Japan

      363 The Truth About Death by Overwork in Japan
      Aug 11 2025
      So many sad cases of people dying here in Japan from what is called karoshi and the media constantly talks about death through overwork. This is nonsense and the media are doing us all a disservice. This is fake news. The cases of physical work killing you are almost exclusively limited to situations where physical strain has induced a cardiac arrest or a cerebral incident resulting in a stroke. In Japan, that cause of death from overwork rarely happens. The vast majority of cases of karoshi death are related to suicide by the employee. This is a reaction to mental and physical exhaustion and the associated stress that piles up, until it totally overwhelming. So the real source of death from karaoshi is stress, not physically working too hard. Just where is that stress coming from? It is coming from two sources: the individual’s inability to deal with the stress of long hours, long commutes, and no time for recovery, driving them to depression and ending their own precious lives. The other source is management incompetence, to allow that amount of stress to be experienced by their staff in the first place. It is compounded by power harassment of those who struggle to keep up with the output requirements. In my view, management irresponsibility is the prime killer. If there were no cases of exceptional stress buildup, then the staff wouldn’t need remedial actions at all. The long hours worked, long hours of public transport commutation and high amounts of pressure from bosses are the real problems. The hundreds of extra hours of overtime worked are being logged for no justifiable reason. In many previous cases, such as Dentsu, the company tried to hide the extent of the hours being worked. Management was party to the process, all the while knowing it was wrong. They were also aware of previous cases where people cracked under the strain of too little sleep and permanent tiredness and took their own life. They knew this was a possibility, but did nothing to alter the work flows. This is criminal and that is what the courts found. Dentsu was fined 500,000 yen by the judicial system. However, was justice served? The young woman involved was 24 years old when she jumped off the roof of the Dentsu dormitory, to kill herself and end her stress and depression. Many would consider a fine of 500,000 yen insignificant. The management didn’t control the work flow. If there was so much work on, why didn’t they bring in either more full time staff or part-time or contract workers to help? This is what bosses are paid to do – get through the work and apply the required resources to do that. The system didn’t see it that way. Presumably, they expected the staff to put in the ridiculous hours to save the company the money needed for salaries for new or additional staff. We can talk about there being a culture of long hours in Japan and it is true. Dentsu was picked out in the 1970s by Time Magazine as a company of fearless samurai salarymen, toiling ridiculous hours for their bosses, so this is not a new development. They were held up as a model to contrast with their flabby Western counterparts. These long hours weren’t needed then and are not needed now. It is being driven by a pathetic white collar culture of low productivity. The work expands to fit the time in Japan as per Parkinson’s Law and so working hours elongate to suit. If bosses were capable, they would be seeking improvements in productivity to get through the work in less time. Is Japan not capable of being highly productive? The kaizen and kamban production systems in manufacturing are well known in the West as methods of achieving maximum efficiency by blue collar workers. The irony is that one hundred meters away, staff in corporate offices are working at super low levels of efficiency for the same company – the contrast is large. How can the same senior managers entertain these two contradictory ideas in their minds, at the same time? No problem for them because they have compartmentalised the situations. “This is how we do it around here and so we will keep it going just as it is. The factory system is different to an office, so there is no relevancy”. That is simply lazy thinking. Efficiency in process, in workload distribution, in systems sequencing, in checking methods, in approvals are all areas that can be applied to office work as well. What is being kept alive by mediocre company leaders in the way of standard Japanese corporate practices? Here is a list of leadership crimes for which no one is ever reprimanded. No clear daily prioritised individual goals, poor time management, meetings too numerous and too long. Painfully slow decision-making required to get everyone on board. Disengaged staff turning up to get paid and not motivated to be bothered to innovate. Poor communication, no real coaching, demotivating performance ...
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      12 min
    • 362 One Pitch, No Matter How Genius, Never Works in Japan

      362 One Pitch, No Matter How Genius, Never Works in Japan
      Aug 7 2025
      Presenting to buying teams is very tricky in Japan. Because of the convoluted decision making process here, there will be many voices involved in the final decision. What makes it even harder is that some of those key influencers may not ever be present in the meeting. Those proposing the change have to go around to each one of them and get their chop on the piece of paper authorizing the buying decision. In the case of Western companies, the decision tends to be taken in the meeting after everyone has had their say. In Japan there is a lot of groundwork needed so that the final decision is a rubber stamp exercise, because the actual decision has already been taken. Nevertheless, we turn up for the meeting and the buyer side has a number of representatives sitting in the room. Often it will be me facing across the table to five to ten buyers. Where do we start? Well the meishi or business card exchange is a critical step. Those hip, modern folk who have dispensed with the humble paper business card are at a massive disadvantage. From the meishi we can immediately understand exactly who is in the room. We can determine their function and rank instantly and this is very, very helpful. Before we know how to present to their team, we have to analyse the people in their team. A buyer team will often comprise multiple layers. We might have some functional interests represented such as: Executive BuyerFinancial BuyerUser BuyerTechnical BuyerOur Champion Each one has different drivers for making buying decisions. We can mentally list them in order from those with a long range vision to those with shorter range views. In the case of the Executive Buyers they are thinking about their strategic vision, the future opportunity and growth potential. For the Financial Buyers their attention will be turned to items such as cost, terms, flexibility and preserving cash flow. User Buyers will be interested in the detailed features, ease of use and reliability. Technical Buyers are looking at efficiency, practicality and capacity. Our Champion, the person driving the decision on the buyer side, will be concerned about relationships, influence and recognition. This sounds daunting enough, but just to spice things up a bit, there are also the buyer personality styles. The Amiables take their time, don’t rush into things and are concerned about the impact on the people from the decision. The Drivers (often the CEO) are the “time is money” types who are always in a hurry, can make an immediate decision and solely focus on the outcomes. The Analtyicals (often the CFO or the Technical Buyer) are comfortable with numbers to three decimal places, are keen on the micro detail and want tons of data to support their decision. The Expressives (often the Head of Sales and Marketing) want the big picture, do not want to get immersed in the weeds and want to have a big party to celebrate the success, at the end. So their role within the company and their individual personality styles will be key factors to fully understand when we present. Just when you thought we were getting a handle on the complexity of the task, there are also going to be attitudinal differences. It will vary according to the individual and even their mood on that day at that time. Different people will be hostile, resistant, discontent, ambivalent, favourable, supportive, enthusiastic. We are not finished yet with the layers of complexity. There will also be different levels of expertise in a team. Different experiences, education, biases, problems, goals, expertise and culture. Before we present, we need to know who is going to be in the meeting and try to understand what will be driving their reaction to what we are going to say. We need to work on our Champion beforehand where possible and yet we may not know this breakdown completely beforehand. We will have to start placing people into different sectors once we get into the meeting room. Have I talked you out of presenting to buyer teams yet? It is a bit overwhelming isn’t it when you break it all down into its component parts, but harden up baby, you have to move forward anyway. Your Champion will have fed you the problems they are facing, you will have analysed them and this meeting is to present the solution phase of the sale. We need a presenting structure which will be well regarded by the majority of people in the room. We need an opening to grab their attention. They will various things buzzing around in their brains competing with your message, so you need to blast way in to get everyone to listen to you. A startling piece of news or data is always good to grab attention. Next we need a statement of need for change. You can list up the enterprises which have gone to the wall because they couldn’t make the changes needed to adjust to the demands of the market. Suggesting this is a fate awaiting many more is a good step to get ...
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      13 min
    • 361 Your Outfit Speaks First – Make It Say ‘Professional’

      361 Your Outfit Speaks First – Make It Say ‘Professional’
      Jul 27 2025
      How should we dress when presenting and does it actually matter? Yep, it matters - particularly in Japan. Japan is a very formal country, in love with ceremony, pomp and circumstance. Always up your formality level in dress terms in Japan, compared to how formal you think will be enough. This was a big shock for this Aussie boy from Brisbane, who spent a good chunk of his life wearing shorts and T-shirts or blue jeans and T-shirts. Tokyo is not Silicon Valley, where dress down is de rigueur and where suits have gone the way of the Dodo. This is a very well dressed, sophisticated capital city where serious money is spent on quality clothing. Business suits are a given when presenting. Not even coat and slacks in the Italian style, but business suits. The colour should be on the dark spectrum to fit in with the solemnity of your “aura and presence” as an expert, about to pontificate on your subject. A serious speaker in a light coloured suit is an oxymoron in Japan. Go dark. The suits don’t have to be the deepest black in colour, because darker greys and navies will work. Now the odd thing is this applies in summer too. The summer speech outfit will be a little lighter in colour than the winter suit, but not as light as the very light colours in summer suits. It doesn’t matter if they are three piece, double-breasted, or have one, two or three buttons. Needless to say the suit should fit well. I have a very old and dear friend who has, like me, been in constant battle with his weight. We take it off and then we put it all and more, back on again. Very frustrating of course, but a painful reality. The sight one day, of him giving a major speech, while only able to close the bottom suit button, rather than the top, was very sad. It said to the audience, “I am fat, in denial and have not bothered to adjust my suits to match this reality”. We all have our “fat suits” of course, for those occasions when we are losing the struggle against our expanding waistband, so that would be a good selection if you are carrying a few too many kilos. However, if even the reliable “fat suit” is now too tight, then go to the tailor and get it adjusted. Better to be paying a small amount of money for that, then telling the world you are a loser in the battle of the bulge. The shoes will be formal, brogues are good, shined within an inch of their lives and never “down at heel”. It would be rare to wear any other colour than black, because the suits are going to be dark. The belt obviously must match the colour of the shoes and be in good condition, not looking like you have worn it to death. I don’t even know why I mention this, except that I often see some Japanese gentlemen messing it up, getting the colour coordination wrong and displaying a belt clearly on its last legs. The socks should match with the colour of the slacks and when presenting, avoid fascinating contrast colours that herald your rebellious and exciting individuality. Save that funky revolution for the weekend. They should be over the calf rather than ankle length. When seated on stage, for say a panel discussion, there is nothing more alarming than the sight of a very hairy shin protruding from underneath the suit trousers. The shirt should be white, never coloured. I know this seems very limiting and lacking in imagination, but there is a biological reason for it. When we are on stage we can become nervous or the lighting on stage can really heat us up. The consequence is we begin to perspire, and the neck area is one location where this happens very quickly. That gorgeous Egyptian Giza 45 cotton shirt, in light blue, becomes a two-tone job, as soon as the sweat envelopes your collar and makes it turn dark blue. Now the audience is losing touch with what you are saying and are fascinated by your unfolding two-tone colour gradation of your shirt. For the same reason, NEVER take off your suit jacket. I am soaked under my jacket, by the end of a 40-minute talk, because I am pumping out so much energy and heat. If I had my jacket off, there would be a much darker colour running down the side of my body. By the way, there is nothing more unpleasant than seeing someone in a shirt, sporting a saturated armpit, raise their arm so the waterfall armpit becomes visible to the audience. Your tie collection may have some daring beauties but leave them at home. At one stage, I was sporting some very ferocious Versace ties, with very vibrant colour combinations and adventurous patterns. I never wore them for speeches though, because they were competing with my face, for the attention of the audience. Also, forget the power colours. You don’t need them, because your speech delivery should have power and authority to command the obedience of the assembled masses. The same daring do logic applies to pocket squares. Especially fluffy, elaborate and exuberant ...
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      13 min
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