離職率を上げること

Many companies are struggling to find the qualified people they need, so they resort to retaining the people they have whether qualified or not. They fight to eliminate or at least reduce rates of attrition when it is increased attrition that can do the business the most good. Retention of the best is all that matters. Recently, the head of a large business unit of a major international company here in Japan told me that the company’s rate of attrition is of no particular concern to him, even though it is higher than industry average.

人材とは募集するものではなく、引き抜くものである

Don’t recruit. Poach. In a tight labor market, there is no percentage in tentativeness. If there is any time to go on the offense, it is now. I don’t know why recruiting firms call what they do a “search.” Who cares about a search? A search is easy, and often consists of little more than trawling through LinkedIn.

優秀な人材のみ雇用すること

You want to retain just the best in your organization. Why? Retention, per se, is no business objective. It is retaining the best that counts, even in the tightest of labor markets.

日本問題研究家にはなるべからず

日本の特異さを考えすぎることは実際良くあることで、あなたの将来、キャリアにも影響を及ぼしてしまう可能性もあります。本社の役員たちに日本のユニークさを説明することはお勧めしません。それはディナーパーティーや学生たちとの会話、友人との戦争の思い出話などにはうってつけかもしれませんが、本社役員たちが個人的に日本問題研究に興味がある場合を除き、専門家が扱うべきことです。一般の役員であれば、そのような会話にイラつきを感じ、退屈なものと感じると思います。

あなたの最大の敵は

Businesses can be their own worst enemies when business process supplants business thinking. The CEO of a large industrial American company in Japan told me of difficulties he faces in buying from a division of a large Japanese industrial company, not because of a lack of will to sell on their part, but rather unnecessary and burdensome bureaucratic processes that were designed to meet Japanese government procurement requirements, the division’s primary customer. Quality control processes at the Japanese seller company were impractical and far beyond what the American company required, while lead-times and costs were excessive. Adherence to process, no matter how inappropriate, dominated thinking.

[:en]Engagement Survey Use and Misuse[:ja]エンゲージメントサーベイの誤った使い方[:]

engagement survey

[:en]Leaders cannot engage people. People must engage themselves. All a leader can do is clear the way. Despite this, I often find overreaching conclusions from employee engagement surveys about leader’s capability that ought not be drawn, and decisions based on those conclusions that ought not be made. Engagement is either in the nature of a person or it is not. Some employees will never be engaged no matter what you say or do because the business you want is not what they want. That’s fine, but perhaps they should be in a different role or in a different company. Other employees are simply disengaged from life, not just from your […]

[:en]Institutionalize Confrontation[:ja]論争が行える環境を作ること[:]

confrontation

[:en]If you want to improve collaboration in your business, it should not be done by encouraging harmonious interaction. Rather, you must institutionalize confrontation. No healthy organization is ever in harmony; it is constructive disharmony that is the ideal state. Natural tension always exists between individuals and groups in any organizations, and there is no resolution of conflict without confrontation.

[:en]Work Less and Boost Productivity[:ja]勤務時間を減らして生産性を上げる[:]

meeting and productivity steven bleistein

[:en]If you want to increase productivity in your business, work less not more. A division of Microsoft Japan reduced the work week from five days to four, closing the office Fridays for everyone, and found productivity jumped forty percent! Yes, that’s right. Microsoft in Japan—not Microsoft in the United States or elsewhere. If Microsoft Japan can boost productivity in this way, so can you in your business.

jaJapanese