Steven's Blog

monster under bed

Monsters Under the Bed

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Tentativeness is rarely out of fear of consequences, but rather fear of unknown consequences, and there is a distinction.

Tentativeness is rarely out of fear of consequences, but rather fear of unknown consequences. Click To Tweet

A Japanese government ministry official in charge of supporting small to medium size businesses said a recent event in Tokyo said that a shocking number of profitable privately-owned small to medium sized companies with perfectly viable businesses are simply closing as their aging CEOs are unable to find a reasonable successor. The children of the owners who might take over the family business frequently lack either appetite or the aptitude to do so, and few if any possible buyers for the business ever materialize. Rates of entrepreneurship in Japan in general are about half of other OECD countries.

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Don’t be a Japanologist

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Japan-fatigue is real and can be fatal to your success and career. Don’t try to explain how Japan is different to executives in your head office. While such conversations are great for dinner parties, talks with students, and war stories with friends, unless executives in your head office are interested in Japanology as a hobby, it’s best to leave Japanology to academics. Executives will find discussions only frustrating and tedious.

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engagement survey

Engagement Survey Use and Misuse

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Leaders cannot engage people. People must engage themselves. All a leader can do is clear the way. Despite this, I often find overreaching conclusions from employee engagement surveys about leader’s capability that ought not be drawn, and decisions based on those conclusions that ought not be made.

Engagement is either in the nature of a person or it is not. Some employees will never be engaged no matter what you say or do because the business you want is not what they want. That’s fine, but perhaps they should be in a different role or in a different company. Other employees are simply disengaged from life, not just from your business specifically. You cannot fix that.

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mask

Fear Misplaced

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Risk and risk perception are rarely equivalent, but if you lead an organization, yours must be one and the same.

I write this as worldwide cases of coronavirus surpass 10,000, most of which are in China, and are certain to rise. While a frightening pathogen to be sure, the fears that coronavirus has provoked in people in other countries are beyond rational, as are the changes in their behavior.

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Your Own Worst Enemy

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Businesses can be their own worst enemies when business process supplants business thinking.

The CEO of a large industrial American company in Japan told me of difficulties he faces in buying from a division of a large Japanese industrial company, not because of a lack of will to sell on their part, but rather unnecessary and burdensome bureaucratic processes that were designed to meet Japanese government procurement requirements, the division’s primary customer. Quality control processes at the Japanese seller company were impractical and far beyond what the American company required, while lead-times and costs were excessive. Adherence to process, no matter how inappropriate, dominated thinking.

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confrontation

Institutionalize Confrontation

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If you want to improve collaboration in your business, it should not be done by encouraging harmonious interaction. Rather, you must institutionalize confrontation.

No healthy organization is ever in harmony; it is constructive disharmony that is the ideal state. Natural tension always exists between individuals and groups in any organizations, and there is no resolution of conflict without confrontation.

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Authority Isn’t Empowerment

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Empowerment is like breathing. We all recognize its need but we’re rarely aware of it until something is wrong. Passivity in business is the most common symptom of lack of empowerment. Continue reading →