Episode #144: Peter Drucker, Leadership And Japan

Peter Drucker has this great quote. “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion and under performance. Everything else requires leadership”. That is a very profound and pithy observation by Drucker. In this modern day and age, why do we still encounter these three horsemen of the apocalypse of organizational dis-function? You would think we would be better organized by now. Each horseman signals its own raft of challenges, magnified even further when operating in Japan.

Friction is a tricky one in Japan for foreign bosses, because so often it is subterranean. Power struggles, factions, proxies, turf, ego all come into play here but not so overtly that they are easy to spot. Influence is achieved through access to key people and decisions, more often than over the bodies of enemies. Apart from when bosses discipline subordinates, screaming abuse at colleagues isn’t acceptable in Japan. The problem here is getting the issues out on the table for resolution, more than anything else.

The age old remedy of out of office discussions is usually where the boss finds out what is really going on, as opposed to what was thought to be happening. Presuming you are able to achieve such a worthy goal, that is only half the battle, now what do you do about it.

The typical boss technique of getting two people in a room and then commanding them to sort it out may work in the West, but it won’t work here. Rather, we need to really dig out the issues and manage the resolution process. In particular, we need to pay careful attention to those spurious “yes” statements, which in Japan indicate I heard you, but that doesn’t mean I agree with you.

This ensures that the follow up is critically important to make sure that the solution is actually executed and everyone is doing what they said they would do.

Confusion is usually the result of unclear processes and unclear communication. The Japanese language is a big culprit, because in the hands of native speakers it is genius at leaving things muscularly vague. Having a process and having a common understanding of the process is not the same thing. In the same vein, common sense is not common and the unaccounted for action is often the project success killer. Now, you might believe that we should move directly from A to B, but that doesn’t guarantee that others will share that same view. They might think a little detour to Q is more appropriate. So, we need to spell out the process, in detail and we need to check for understanding. Expecting the next logical step to be logical to everyone else is too bold a step. Specifying, micro-managing the detail, checking back (ad nausium) are often the minimum requirements.

Underperformance is usually a factor of skill or motivation gaps. Skill gaps can generally be closed through providing quality training, mentoring and coaching. Motivation though is a lot harder subject. This is often a systemic problem, starting at the top. The senior leaders determine the culture of the organization. If the atmosphere is to defer to seniority by rank and age, then don’t expect too much innovation occurring anytime soon. If middle management only understand the two hammers of “what” and “how” and don’t have “why” in their explanation toolbox, expect employee passive compliance. It boils down to “why be creative, when you don’t care?”.

Latching on to the “why care” drivers is critical, if we want to move forward and succeed in the market. The latter by the way, is brimming with competitors. Three things drive engagement: firstly, the relationship with the immediate supervisor – so trust, and communication are paramount. Secondly, the belief by those at the bottom that those at the top actually know what they are doing. This definitely requires middle management to cascade down the top group’s “why”. Thirdly, pride in the organization necessitates a one-team approach, rather than a self-obsessed, internally oriented, power struggle capital of the universe approach. This is why we talk about leadership at all levels – we need the alignment and agreement on why we are doing it, what it is we need to do, how we need to do it and what success looks like.

As Drucker points out leaders need to lead, but often in Japan they just rotate through positions in large organisations every couple of years. They never take any significant decisions. They avoid as many initiatives as possible and by keeping their heads down, they anticipate a cushy retirement. This is why we love working in Japan – never a dull moment here.

Action Steps

1. Carefully investigate the causes behind issues between staff
2. Get agreement to correct the problem and then keep checking that what was agreed gets done
Communicate more often and more regularly the same key messages, don’t imagine people get it with just one pass by
3. Keep hammering away at the WHY