Episode #102: How To Persuade Followers

Welcome back to this weekly edition every Monday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery and my new book Japan Business Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo.

Why the Cutting Edge?

In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan. We want to help advance everyone’s thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.

Before we get into this week’s topic, here is what caught my attention lately.

Here is some bad news for pollen allergy sufferers in Japan. The National Federation of Health Insurance Societies the Kenporen have proposed that prescription drugs to treat hay fever containing the same content as their nonprescription counterparts should be excluded form public medical insurance coverage. Hay fever patients who pay only ten to thirty percent of the costs of these drugs would need to fund the full cost from their own pockets. The savings would 560million dollars a year for public health costs. Nationally one in four people suffer from these allergies and in a big city like Tokyo the number is probably closer to half. In other news, the Government is going to increase subsidies for companies whose employees take paternity leave. The rate of staff taking the leave is only about six percent and far from the government’s goal of thirteen percent by twenty twenty. Japan ranked forty first in a UNICEF report on paternity leave based on legal entitlements. The reasons cited for why more men don’t take the leave were companies being short handed and a corporate culture that makes it hard for employees to request paternity leave. Finally, financial institutions are starting to implement measures to address issues related to the dementia amongst their aging customer base. Elderly people hold sixty percent of individual assets totally some sixteen trillion dollars. The number of aging dementia sufferers is projected to grow to seven point three million by twenty twenty five. The share of assets held by dementia sufferers is expected to top ten percent by twenty thirty. Banks are training their staff on how to support customers with dementia. They are also requiring that customers suspected of having dementia be accompanied by their family members when they visit the bank.

This is episode number #102 and we are talking about How To Persuade Followers Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. The tried and true leadership model of “do what I say or else” is a personal favourite of people who actually can’t lead. This is the military model, which works when the bullets fly and your death is a requirement to achieve the broader objective. This is a ridiculous model for business and yet it lingers on. Death is not imminent but following idiots probably does shorten our lives. Higher degrees, certification, specialisations, longevity, technical knowledge etc., are all relied on for authority, to convince others that we should be in charge. But should we be in charge?

Leaders and managers have different roles. Managers are there to manage the processes of the organization, to make sure what needs to be done is completed, in a timely fashion and correctly. Leaders do all of that too, but they have an additional role and that is to develop people. This is where the “my way or the highway” breaks down.

We respect knowledge and ability more than we respect position power, degrees or degrees of self-aggrandisement. The thing we respect most though is how much interest the boss has in helping me to grow in my career. How much sympathy and understanding has the boss for my personal situation at home, because of my aging parents requiring care or my marriage is hitting a rocky patch, or my kid is having problems, etc.

In the old days, there was a clear separation between the individual’s work life and private situation and the boss would never go there, as it was considered intrusive and none of their business. Times have changed and society seems more complex today. We want people to bring their whole selves to work. The need for staff input of ideas and creativity is greater than it has ever been in human history. Technological advances have plugged the entire advanced world into a 24/7 cycle of work.

Persuading people of the “why” is leading today, not just pointing out the “what” or the “how”. Apart from professional salespeople who move up into management, there are probably few leaders who are any good at persuading anyone of anything. They are usually poor presenters, especially the technically oriented types.

They are working off the old paradigm of “I am smarter than you, that is why I am the leader and so do what I say”. If we want our organisations to be powered by just the brains and experience of these few leaders that is fine. If we want to bring the entire power of our teams to the battle front line with our competitors, it is not sufficient.

Find out more when we come back from the break

Welcome back We need as many engaged brains as possible assembled and working on the problems facing us. The spark of creativity is not solely located in the leader’s brain. The youngest, newest employee may have keen insights and openness to new possibilities that the leaders who have moved far from the frontline cannot even recognise any more. Depending on the market, they may also be closer to the customer than their much older bosses.

The point is how to persuade our staff to think, to be creative, motivated, to come up with better ideas than our rivals. The issue is how to get them to engaged completely rather than simply working at a mediocre rate, collecting their pay and then switching on their brains as they hit the building exit.

The technical person who as leader gets a rush of blood to the head and starts telling the why will sometimes assume that having told the team the why, they are good to go. I wish it was that easy. One of the surprising things about leadership is that you have to keep telling your people the same things over and over again and you cannot assume they ever fully get it.

In our office, we start the day by getting everyone together and going through the Vision, Mission, Values, and on daily rotation, one of Dale Carnegie’s principles. Why do we do this everyday? Connecting the team to the WHY we are doing this work is the single most important job of the leader. Each person takes turn leading the session, so it is not reliant on my being there. The alternative, which you no doubt have seen, is to frame all of this stuff and hang it up on a wall so everyone can remain oblivions to it. Not much of an alternative really is it. Better to make it real and remind everyone everyday about the WHY.

So we need to make time available to explain the why to people, keep repeating it and to find ways to tap into the full power of the brains populating our organisation. Here is a new challenge for bosses. Drop the “I know everything, now do this” approach and take on the “what do you think” alternative instead. This is a radical switch for many leaders, but an absolutely important one. Asking questions will yield so many more dividends than telling everyone what to do and how to do it. If you can make the switch you will have more success, because you are able to out think the opposition. Even if they copy you, they will always be one step behind. They also miss out on the motivational aspect of team members seeing their ideas come to fruition. This builds teamwork and higher levels of engagement. Your rivals will have a very hard time trying to copy that, because you have created an ecosystem of success that is distinctly your own.

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You might also enjoy my other weekly shows. For podcasts, Mondays for the Cutting Edge Japan Business show podcast version, Tuesday for The Presentations Japan Series, Wednesdays for The Sales Japan Series, Thursdays for The Leadership Japan Series, and Fridays for The Japan Business Mastery Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Also on Fridays, I release my other TV show The Japan Business Mastery Show on YouTube.

In episode #103 we are talking about The Danger Zone When Presenting. Find out more about that next week.

So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

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