Open workshop: Leadership for multi-cultural team, Geneva, 19 July

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Leadership for multi-cultural team

Diversity

Is it you?

“I wish to have clues to better interact with my colleagues with variety of backgrounds”
“I am not sure if I’m interacting well with my multinational colleagues.”
“Am I motivating my multi-cultural team in the right way?”
“How can I motivate everyone in my multi-cultural team?”
“I want to meet other managers in a similar position and exchange experience”
“I prefer a small class so that I can discuss better with lecturer and other participants”

If you say “Yes!” to one of the problems above, why don’t you join in the workshop? In the workshop you will learn internal, hence, invisible drivers of your multi-cultural team.

*** To ensure efficient leaning experience,
the workshop will be limited to five (5) participants ***

Topics discussed —

Why is culture in business so important?
The trap of “cultural bias”
Clues to better understand your multi-cultural team – Six dimensions of National Cultures, drawn upon the framework established by Professor G. Hofstede, one of the most cited in the domain of international management
Clues for leadership and motivation in your team
Your action plan

Date: 18:15, Wednesday 19 July

18:15 Workshop
20:30 Aperitif and Networking
Venue Calliopée, Business Center
Rue de Chantepoulet 10, 1202 Genève
Two minutes on foot form Geneva station
Fee CHF 100.- (To pay at the door)
Language English

Click here for registration and information.
Please write, “I will join in the open workshop” in the message box.

I look forward to seeing you!

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Interested in our cross-cultural trainings, coaching and consulting to move forward business with Japan? Please talk to us.

My “Taken for granted” is not the same as yours — Cross-Cultural Understanding with Japan

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The workshop of “Cross-Cultural Understanding with Japan” was very resourceful, participated by a good-mixture of European and Japanese people.

Here are a summary of highlights for those who couldn’t come and those who wish to know clues underlying the Japanese business:

Culture is like an iceberg. Eighty percent of the iceberg is under the sea and we don’t see it. So called “typical” Japanese culture, such as sushi, high-tech instruments, kimono, bowing, are all the tip of iceberg supported by the rituals, geography, history, values, etc. hidden under the water.
Major factors from which Japan is made — Geographic location and its historical consequences, climate, rice-growing culture and the peace that lasted for 700 years.
The Japanese trap — Unconscious bias by the Western managers visiting Japan
A significant difference in the meaning of silence and space between Europe and Japan. It was proven that thirty-seconds’ silence is too long and uncomfortable for the Europeans, while nothing in particular for the Japanese.
“Uchi- Soto“, the way the Japanese position you as a European business partner.
Relationship, not individuals, counts

It is worth noting that discussion by participants enriched the workshop, as well as eye-opening exercises.

Listening and observing others without judgement by one’s values is a good start for understanding of other cultures. In doing so it is natural that you may get upset or find someone strange. Such moment is a wonderful opportunity for you to know your own values. Think “Against what criteria am I upset? “

Working across cultures is not always easy but rewarding. Cultural diversity enables 1 + 1 be more than 3, 4 and more, and ultimately leads to the innovation.

Last but not the least, many thanks must go to the Swiss-Japanese Chamber of Commerce (SJCC) which invited us for the workshop and Sunstar SA for the nice seminar room and warm reception!

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Interested in our cross-cultural trainings, coaching and consulting to move forward business with Japan? Please click here.

Open Workshop for Cross-Cultural Understanding with Japan, Etoy, VD, 20 April

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sjcc_logo

【Unusual opportunity to know what’s inside a Japanese head】
I am delivering “Workshop for Cross-Cultural Understanding with Japan”, an open workshop of Swiss-Japanese Chamber of Commerce (SJCC).

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Are these your problems?

“The Japanese decision-making process is so mysterious!”
“I don’t know if I’m interacting well with my Japanese colleagues.”
“Why do the Japanese always do things in their own way?”
“How can I say ‘No’ to my Japanese customers without offending them?”
“Japanese customers don’t complain when they are not satisfied with our service, but they just never come back to us.”

If you say “Yes!” to one of the problems above, this workshop is for you. The workshop will enable you to learn about the internal drivers of your Japanese business partners and colleagues.

Topics discussed —

Why is culture in business so important?
The trap of “cultural bias”
Major factors underlying Japanese business culture
Five clues to increase productivity in working with the Japanese
Your personal action plan

For more detail and registration

Date: Thursday, 20 April
- 18:00 Workshop
- 20:00 Aperitif and Networking
Venue: Sunstar Suisse SA, Route de Pallax 11, 1163 Etoy, VD
- Off at Etoy station by SBB CFF, Google map

Fee
- SJCC Members CHF 100.-
- Non-SJCC CHF 150.-
- Special Offer: “Come with three, pay for two” — If two people participate from the same organisation, the third person will be free.

For more detail and registration

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Fresh & Hot from Japan, 16 to 20 January 2017

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Please enjoy fresh & hot news from Japan with comments by Europe-Japan Dynamics.

16 Jan. JAXA failed to launch a small size rocket, causes to be investigated

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on the 15th that it had failed launching of the small rocket which is the world’s smallest of the class created upon improvement of the rocket for atmospheric observation. JAXA said that it had canceled the ignition of the second rocket planned 180 seconds later of the launch, because JAXA couldn’t receive the data from the rocket after the launch from the Uchinoura outer space observatory locates in Kimotsuki-cho, Kagoshima-ken. The cause of the failure is not known at present and the agency will investigate it in detail.

Comments: Failure is always a means of leaning.

17 Jan.　Slight increase of rate of women general managers to be 4.1% of government officials

The Cabinet Office announced the ratio of woman administrator of public and private sectors. Regarding the national government officials, 23.9% of the section manager of the Ministries, 9.4% of the assistant manager of the Ministries and general manager of local organizations, 4.1% of department managers of the Ministries and 3.5% of those higher than deliberation official grade were women. <these figures were lower by 1.5-6.1 points compared to the aimed figure of 2020.

Comments: Japan is still behind of the world in utilizing resources of women workforce.

18 Jan. Relaying on robots for the care of the aged?, due to a serious labour shortage in the aged persons’ home

What kind of town is good if I spend the old age? The nature is rich, and convenient for shopping and above all a good medical and care services must be available — It was Kitakyushu-shi that shined in the first place in “the ranking of local cities where people wanted to live after 50 years old”, according to a magazine for the senior published in summer last year.

Comments: Care requires emotional energy. Could robot replace human beings for that?

19 Jan. Supporting IT talented people, a foundation of Masayoshi Son started recruiting

“The Masayoshi Son endowment foundation” which President Masayoshi Son of the SOFTBANK group established by his own fund started recruitment of people whom the foundtati9on will support as the leaders of the next generation. Those eligible must be under 25 years old, may in studying or returning benefits as a corporate manager. The foundation would support max. 100 people for their research, and study abroad and interchanging of each other.

Comments: Supporting one hundred people? wWhat a big idea it is!

20 Jan. Kirin to withdraw from Brazil, planning to sell its local subsidiary

A Japanese beer major Kirin Holdings Co., Ltd. examining the sale of the Brazilian subsidiary. An anticipated buyer is a Netherlands’ beer major Heineken. Kirin acquired a local major beer company six years ago, but a deficit continues due to intensifying competition in local markets. Kirin is a withdrawing from Brazil.

Comments: Kirin will focus on Asia.

All the news items are picked up from “Asahi Digital”, and summarized and translated by Europe-Japan Dynamics. The articles are not an official translation by the Asahi Newspaper.

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Japanese business culture for international students

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I delivered a class on Japanese business culture to a group of international students studying marketing in a course lead by Professor Masahito Toriyama at Graduate School of Management, Ritsumeikan University.

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In the class, I introduced a method of case exercise based in a real issue. This was a trouble between a Japanese client and an Indian information technology system developer.

Though the Japanese business culture was not a major theme of the students, they did good discussion on the questions associated with the case and reached excellent solutions; such as “I’ll put myself in the Japanese customer’s shoes”, “I’ll make it a habit to talk to my subordinates much more frequently so that our communication will go well.”, etc.

The students deepened their own thoughts through discussion. What a wonderful ability they have!

The real business is full of questions without one correct answer. This even is the case when people having different cultures work together, i.e. the international business. I found that the case exercise was useful to develop a mind-set to look into these questions and find creative solutions that will allow 1 + 1 = 3, 4, 5 … This is the power of discussion, or collective thinking. This attitude is essential for us to benefit from society where a large variety of people live and work together, or diversity in society.

Please find here for your information a power point file used in the class.

Note: The case used here is cited from “Case exercises for business communication, collection os the cases” by Kondoh,Kim et al. (Koko Publishing, 2013).

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Fresh & Hot from Japan, 5 to 9 December 2016

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Please enjoy fresh & hot news from Japan with comments by Europe-Japan Dynamics.

5 Dec. From filament to stamp, Panasonic switching the use of material of lamps due to switching of lighting to LED

Panasonic converted material (tungsten) for the filament of incandescent and fluorescent lamps into a stamp. Due to the spread of lighting by LED (light emitting diode), the use of the filament is decreasing. The company therefore has switched the use of processing technique of tungsten developed in-house to stamps. The stamps made from tungsten has advantages over existing materials of stamps, such as a long life and only a little pressure needed to use it. Panasonic plans to ship the material to stamp manufacturers before the end of this year.

Comments: Panasonic is flexible to search and find a new use of existing techniques in a competitive ways.

6 Dec. Automatic driving car carrying cars for export to a wharf, ”Intelligent Vehicle Towing” introduced by Nissan Oppama Factory

Nissan Motor Corp. introduced and showed to the press a system to carry newly manufactured cars from the factory to a dedicated wharf by an electric car (EV) of the automatic driving in its major Oppama Factory (Yokosuka-shi, Kanagawa-ken). Nissan plans to use this system to carry 1,000 cars per day by 2019, thus to improve efficiency of production and the shipment.

Comments: Automatic cars may be used more efficiently in private premises for limited purposes than in public roads, at least until technology and operational know-how will have been piled up.

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7 Dec. Monitoring teleworkers, Canon to start a support service

Canon announced that the company will launch a system to support “the telework” via the Internet, a style of working to work at homes. The system allows managers to watch employees working at home with a remote camera, and will be introduced to the market next February. The Government promoting the telecom as a part of “The reform of the way of working”, Canan and its competitors are developing the systems that facilitate the telework.

Comments: The system hits a thin line between private and work lives. Would teleworkers want to have a monitoring camera at home?

8 Dec. The East meets the West, Santa Clause in a shape of Japanese traditional doll

Hakata dolls (One of the Japanese traditional dolls developed in Fukuoka area, Kyushu region) of Santa Claus are on sale in the Christmas market held in front of the JR Hakata station (Fukuoka-shi ). Only three hundred dolls will be sold. People queued to but one.

Comments: The doll symbolizes adjustment of traditional craftsmanship to the modern life.

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9 Dec. Innovative drug development of iPS, budget of 6 Billion yen over 6 years to be approved by the Government

Japanese government is starting a new project to create induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from the cells of patients to support the innovative drug development. A committee in charge of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has approved an outline of the plan that will cost 6 billion yen over six years. The project is intended to support research to create the basis of a new medicine to be developed by pharmaceutical companies.

Comments: A long time and huge investment are needed for R&D of new medicine.

All the news items are picked up from “Asahi Digital”, and summarized and translated by Europe-Japan Dynamics. The articles are not an official translation by the Asahi Newspaper.

Fresh & Hot from Japan, 31 October to 4 November 2016

Please enjoy fresh & hot news from Japan with comments by Europe-Japan Dynamics.

31 Oct. Cleaning, cooking, and more, four tasks of hotel business taken by one person, hotel management reform by Hoshino Resort of inns

Hoshino Resort is known as revitalizing business of ryokans (Japanese style inns). A major strength of the company is “multi-tasking” of employees who take more than two roles, while, in other hotels, those in charge of the front desk takes tasks at the front desk and those in charge of cleaning do cleaning only. With the improvement of employee productivity, Hoshino Resort opened a ryokan in Tokyo last summer and intends to develop ryokan business overseas.

Comments: Multi-tasking reduced redundant time of employees. This management may be an interesting model of hotel business.

2 Nov. A major vendor suspended sales of some routers due to a possible abuse of the use for cyber attack

I-O Data Device Inc. (Kanazawa), one of the major Japanese computer peripheral manufacturers, suspended sales of some of its products, due to a possible abuse of use of its equipment for a new means of cyber attack, that utilizes the equipment used for IoT (the Internet of Things). There are a number of cyber attack cases recently in and outside Japan in which device for IoT is infected by virus and used for “DDos” attack.

Comments: IoT could be more vulnerable than human-to-human Internet. We need wisdom to prevent this new way of cyber attack.

3 Nov. Willingness of sending by family budget worsened for the first time in three months, said the Cabinet Office

According to the consumer behavior survey of October undertaken by the Cabinet Office, the consumer sentiment index for private households (seasonal adjustment level) that indicates willingness to spend by the family budget turned worse to be 42.3 points, down from the last month by 0.7 points for the first time in three months. The Cabinet Office concluded “the slow upward trend continued” and maintained its basic observation to be “the movement of the improvement is observed”.

Comments: Japanese economy is still fragile, while moving upwards.

4 Nov. “World Tsunami Awareness Day” is the 5th Nov., disaster drill involving 420,000 people undertaken in Wakayama

One day before the first “World Tsunami Awareness Day” on 5 Nov. established by the United Nations, a disaster drill was held in Wakayama prefecture, involving about 420,000 people who are mostly in public facilities, such as schools.

Comments: “World Tsunami Awareness Day” is a good idea to regularly alert us to be prepared for the disaster.

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All the news items are picked up from “Asahi Digital”, and summarized and translated by Europe-Japan Dynamics. The articles are not an official translation by the Asahi Newspaper.

Fresh & Hot from Japan, 3 to 7 October 2016

Please enjoy fresh & hot news from Japan with comments by Europe-Japan Dynamics.

3 Oct. Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi, professor emeritus of Tokyo Institute of Technology, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, announced that the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine of this year will be given to Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi (71), a professor emeritus of Tokyo Institute of Technology. The awarding reason was “the discovery of the structure of the automatic fuzzy” (autophagy action). Dr. Ohsumi clarified mechanism in which a cell broke down own part and recycled it as a nourishment source or its own renewal. He thus resolved a mystery of an essential life phenomenon common to various creatures.

Comments: It was original that Dr. Ohsumi looked at a destroying process, rather than creating process of a cell.

4 Oct. IMF raised Japanese growth rate expectation in increase 0.5% of this year

International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced latest World Economic Outlook on 4th. The organization raised the growth forecast from the one in July, taking into account the postponement of the consumption tax increase this summer, and the economic measures proposed by the Government raised. The IMF left the growth rate worldwide unchanged, due to the decrease of the growth forecast of industrialized countries upon slowdown of the US economy and the determination of the UK to exit from the European Union (EU), while the growth prospect of newly developing countries.

Comments: Hope that the growth of Japanese economy would last.

5 Oct.　Gundam from the small factory in town! Bipedalism Robo of “the world’s largest grade“

The engineers engaged in manufacturing in Osaka-shi made a humanoid robot made from aluminum of 4 meters tall and 300 kg in weight. One may control it in a cockpit in the body such as “Mobile Suit Gundam“. According to Mr. Hajime Sakamoto (49) who runs a robot production company “Hajime Institute ” (Nishiyodogawa-ku, Osaka-shi) and who is the head of the development of the robot, “The robot is one of the world’s largest” among those robots of the bipedalism.

Video: Mounting on the 4m robot.

Comments: The engineers are working to make their dream come true.

6 Oct.　CEATEC Japan, exhibitors compete over wireless communication and sensors towards IoT

Electronic parts vendors compete over wireless communication technologies and the sensor, which are indispensable for the IoT (the Internet of the things). Enormous volumes of sensors will be required for the IoT, and a large demand increase is expected. http://www.ceatec.com/ja

Comments: Fierce competition is an origin of innovation.

7 Oct. “Xperia ear”, a device on the ear to operate a smartphone by voice

Sony mobile communications will release “the Xperia ear” on November 18, which will connect a smartphone of the android operating system (the OS) with the wireless communications network. The device attached to the ear will allow phone calls and message exchanges without holding a smartphone by hand.

http://www.sonymobile.co.jp/product/smartproducts/

Comments: Sounds like an SF.

sony-xperia

All the news items are picked up from “Asahi Digital”, and summarized and translated by Europe-Japan Dynamics. The articles are not an official translation by the Asahi Newspaper.

What is it like for a French man to be President of a Japanese company? — From “Moshi moshi, Japan?”, 19 June. 2015

What did a French man find when he was a president of a Japanese company in the aerospace industry for 8 years?

At the age of 29 years old, Patrice was appointed to be the president of a Japanese company, that had been just acquired by a French company. Though he spoke Japanese already, he still had a number of findings in the Japanese business culture.

The Japanese are uniform. When “No necktie” is recommended, all do the same. (Tokyo)

A long time to sell to major Japanese companies

Our major clients are well-established and large Japanese companies. They were conservative and didn’t trust us as quick as European and American clients did. The Japanese clients asked us requested us various data and samples, that even included confidential information.

The CEO and factory managers of my parent company didn’t understand such Japanese business culture. My role was to educate them. To do so, I brought them to to meetings with Japanese customers.

What was a clue to success?

It is important to show commitment to clients. In my case, I always visited the customers with the Director of Sales of my company, rather than staying in the office. I did sals myself. This worked to the clients. In addition, the attitude of customers were softer to me than they were to my Japanese staff.

Very high quality requirements

Quality requirements of Japanese clients are much higher than the one by European and American companies. For example, even a smallest scratch on your product is unacceptable for the Japanese, even though it has nothing to do with its functions. This is because the Japanese are concerned about the root cause.

You must have a system in place to be prepared for a case something wrong happens. It is another way to show your commitment.

How to assess the satisfaction of Japanese customers

The Japanese customers do not complain, hence you can be profitable at a small scale. In contrast, the French complain and the Americans, cheat the system. For the Japanese, you must get a feel of dissatisfaction or satisfaction. If you don’t feel their dissatisfaction, the Japanese customers may just disappear.

How to manage the Japanese staff

I was 23 years old when I entered the company and became the president when I was 29. I spoke Japanese and my young colleagues took me around. I even participated in “Settai”, a dinner with clients. These experience helped me to manage the staff.

Japanese staff wait for a boss to tell them to do A, B, C, …. In addition, a close follow-up is needed. In contrast, the Europeans are independent and they take initiatives. You can let them go. The French needs much motivation but not being told.

Strong resistance to the change

In recruitment, I found that many people were afraid of working in a foreign-owned company, We offered high salary but it didn’t work well. We could hire only those who worked in other foreign companies before.

Japanese people are highly uniform in their working habit. A strong leadership counts to make any change.

Forthcoming meetings — “Moshi moshi, Japan?” will meet again in the autumn 2015. Planned dates are, 23 October, 20 November and 3 December. Will keep you posted.

Wish to know how to succeed in business with Japan?

Please ask Yoshiko KURISAKI for more –> yoshiko,kurisaki@gmail.com