Home | Business | Management | Organizational

Big in Japan

By: Jo-Rosie Haffenden Click author's name for more of his/her articles

As capitalism becomes ever more global and even more interdependent, individuals both seek and are expected by their corporations to make, more geographical transitions. There can be few contrasts as great as moving from Europe to live and work in the Japanese East.

Niall Murtagh is one Westerner who has successfully penetrated the mysterious working ways of the Japanese economy. He has written about his experiences in The Blue-Eyed Salaryman: from World Traveller to Lifer at Mitsubishi. Dr Tony Cockerill, co-founder of the Centre for High Performance Development, takes three themes from Murtagh’s book; the need to educate people in the full scale of the transition; the need for a cultural coach and the need for a career mentor; and points to actions which could make geographical transition more productive and successful.

Educating people in the full scale of the transition

To understand the differences that exists between people, we must explore many dimensions - such as the physical environment, history, culture, political economy, social behaviour and ethnicity. These dimensions are all inter-connected. Instead of the differences diminishing as the world gets smaller, many of them are in fact intensifying as we strive to preserve and invigorate our cultural identities.

One of the key differences between East and West is the different approach to capitalism. The political economy of Japan subtly influences many geographical transitions and profoundly affected Niall Murtagh in his journey.

Countries like Japan developed a very different form of capitalism from countries such as Britain and the US. In Britain and the US, shareholder capitalism is promoted. The firm’s basic purpose here, is the maximisation of returns to owners through the provision of goods and services to consumers. Significantly, shareholder capitalism prefers to limit governmental intervention in the economy. The philosophy, broadly speaking, believes that markets are best left to themselves.

Conversely, the state has a central role in the Japanese form of capitalism, better known as stakeholder capitalism. From the outset, Japanese firms tried to balance the needs of owners, employees and communities in the long term. In the early years, Japanese firms were supported by trade barriers that were put in place to protect fledgling businesses from more powerful foreign competitors. Shrewdly at this stage, Japan imposed no barriers in the opposite direction. Exports to the more open and advanced economies were seen as a key driver of growth.

Sometimes it is hard to see how shareholder and stakeholder capitalism could be more different. They are polar opposites in terms of the fundamental purpose and scope of the firm, the economic role of government and the openness of the home economy to trade. So, for the individual, moving from the shareholder to the stakeholder society or vice versa, it requires totally different ways of thinking. Time and again, Murtagh describes the mental somersaults he had to perform as a Westerner working in one of the original and most traditional Japanese conglomerates. Without understanding the two capitalist paradigms, he would have been lost.

Yet how many leaders prepare themselves or their staff effectively for this experience? How many describe the different variants of political economy that exist within capitalism? How many help their staff to think things through before they’re thrown in at the deep end?

It is clear that Niall Murtagh was not as ready as he could have been and it’s equally clear that Mitsubishi Electric’s Japanese executives were almost completely unprepared for doing business with the West. As well as needing more effective education to help workers with their geographical transition to a new political economy, the argument is equally valid for the other cultural, historical and environmental differences. At present, we simply do not brief geographically mobile people adequately. As a consequence, we limit personal satisfaction as well as corporate performance.

Providing a cultural coach

Murtagh is living proof of the value of cultural coaching. He experienced great difficulty in trying to find the best response to many work and life situations despite speaking good Japanese, attending a Japanese university and working with Mitsubishi Electric for several years. For example, he was asked to move his young family to Osaka, after being told he would be staying in Yokohama. If Murtagh has kept his Western cultural mindset, he could easily have become disenchanted. Fortunately, he had two Japanese coaches to help him cross the cultural divide – his Japanese wife and his father-in-law, a veteran salaryman in NHK. Together they helped him through difficult situations by explaining the logic from a Japanese perspective to reach a mutually agreeable solution.

But a cultural coach is an all too rare a luxury in contemporary business. A coach can help the parachuting newcomer to navigate an unfamiliar cultural territory, plot an unfamiliar course and understand why they are asked to do things that at first sight appear disagreeable to the Western mind. A small investment here would pay handsome dividends by preventing the costly failure of the newcomer becoming disillusioned at best and leaving altogether at worst.

Providing a career mentor

People from ethnic minority backgrounds often find it difficult to achieve the career success in large corporations that their capability and experience merit. Murtagh felt this too, but he does make it clear that for several years he had a Japanese boss who took a strong interest in his career, encouraged him to apply for promotion and strongly supported his application. During this period, Murtagh’s career advancement accelerated rapidly.

Murtagh’s experience is not untypical. Vast talent is left short of its potential through lack of merit-based career progression. Allocating indigenous career coaches to the geographically mobile could help solve this persistent problem.

A parachute – plus support

The lost productivity and satisfaction is far greater when geographically re-located workers are not properly prepared and supported. But, as corporations globalise, geographical transitioning is likely to increase rather than diminish. As the Japanese proverb says: “The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.”