Episode #427: No Change Agent Leaders Needed In Japan

The following scenario will feel familiar to Japan old hands. The foreign enterprise hires the retired President of a local company to run their operation. After five years it begins to become obvious the enterprise is getting nowhere. The aging President is retired out of the company and HQ dispatches one of their local leaders to Japan to turn things around. The brief is to get the Japan business moving and produce results. To a hammer everything looks like a nail and the foreign change agent Hammer has just landed at Haneda Airport.

Things don’t look right to the Hammer. The way of working isn’t the same as back home. There seems to be plenty of institutionalised inefficiencies. After some perfunctory meetings with direct reports, the orders start to flow from the Hammer. Weeks go by and then the Hammer notices things which should be happening are not happening. Thinking back, there was no resistance to the Hammer’s directives at the Department Heads’ meeting. Everyone got their marching orders and knew what they needed to get cracking on. But they are not cracking on, in fact they are not doing what they should be doing.

When the Hammer starts questioning direct reports on why there is no sign of any progress, the excuses, complaints and assorted problems come tumbling out. The Hammer starts thinking about replacing his direct reports with people who will be more compliant to his will. All the while his boss back at HQ wants to know why, given the Hammer has been there three months, nothing has improved as yet? “What are you doing over there? We expect results”. None of this makes sense. He was a successful change agent back in the home territory, able to turn teams around and get the revenues flowing. After all, that is why he was picked for this job in the first place, he had a track record as a “change agent”.

As the Hammer starts to eliminate people who won’t toe the line, an unexpected turn of events occurs. His boss tells him the Board has received anonymous letters accusing him of destroying the company’s relationships with key clients and that he has been sexually harassing female staff. “What the hell are you doing over there?”, he is asked. This type of conversation is guaranteed to drain the blood from your face, weaken you at the knees and generate heart palpitations. Welcome to Japan, Hammer.

Just to place this scenario in context, imagine if a Japanese leader was sent to your branch as your boss and could only really communicate with the few Japanese speakers there. He can’t read or write in the local language. He has no knowledge of the business locally, doesn’t understand the customers and is constantly pushing hard for changes. Within short order he starts sacking your colleagues, because they have the temerity to say some of these changes are a bad idea and resist them. How would you react? What would you be thinking? What would be the water cooler discussions vibe?

Okay, back to the scenario. Good talent starts heading for the exits. They can see the train wreck coming, so they decide to jump out and because they are good, they have options. The mediocre and the hopeless have no options, so they stay.

The new policies upset clients and business starts to get lost. People who were shunted out or chose to leave had deep, longstanding relationships with clients and these cannot be replaced easily or quickly. The global employee annual satisfaction survey results are a horror show. Results are not coming. HQ recalls the Hammer and sends out Hammer Mark 2 to start again.

This time around, let’s start with understanding how the busines is constructed here. Let’sncover all the spider webs of relationships both within the organisation and externally. Use your relationship with HQ to get the resources or localisation requests met. Look for some quick wins for the teams. Before you even get on the plane for Nippon get some strong air cover at HQ to allow you to not make the mistakes of your recently departed predecessor.

Start seriously studying Japanese language, culture, history and business. Talk to the old timers here who have seen your like before, on how to avoid another train wreck. Hasten slowly but do hasten with changes that will make things better here without blowing up the operation or yourself. Conscript influencers from within the system to support the needed changes. But most of all really listen. Try to find out why things are being done the way they are, before slashing and burning processes and systems.

This scenario has been played out so many times and each generation discovers it anew for itself. Foreign business leaders come and go, but the Japanese market is still here, big, powerful and rich. So try and be the foreign leader who is a builder, rather than a wrecker.