[:en]The Seller is God[:ja]売り手は神である[:]
[:en]When a salesperson tells me, “The way to make a customer happy is to treat them as God!” usually he or she means acquiescing to and fulfilling every demand and whim. Nothing could be further from the truth. No, the customer is not God, nor does the customer ever really want to be. Rather, it is the salesperson that can be a god to the customer if he or she does things right.
[:en]Blinkered by Targets[:ja]ターゲットばかりに固執することの危険性[:]
[:en]The best way to achieve performance targets is to ignore them. It’s improving performance form that counts.
[:en]Make Room For The Atheists[:ja]無神論者のための居場所も必要[:]
[:en] I despise the so-called evangelism that tends to accompany strategic change, particularly when the objective is to persuade people that the strategic direction that the business leaders have chosen is the righteous one to the exclusion of all others.
[:en]Labor Shortage is Never a Problem[:ja]労働力が不足していてもビジネスを成長させる方法[:]
[:en]There are two ways to grow your business. You can do the same thing, only more of it. Or you can increase the value of what you do. At the time that I write this, Japan has an unemployment rate of less than three percent, so the latter is, for many businesses, the best viable option.
[:en]Unconscious Hypocrisy[:ja]悪例となる態度を無意識に示してはいないか[:]
[:en]Most hypocrisy is committed unconsciously, and only with the best intentions by otherwise intelligent and capable leaders. A leader creates a corporate culture through his or her behavior, whether consciously or not. That is why unconscious hypocrisy can be such an insidious problem to resolve for those in leadership.
[:en]The Three Freedoms of Engagement[:ja]取り組みを促す3つの自由[:]
[:en]I don’t need to rely on the stock recommendations from prepackaged employee engagement surveys to gauge and improve a staff’s emotional commitment to the business, and neither do you. All I need to do is to gauge the degree of the three freedoms of employee engagement listed below, and that will tell me what I need to know.
[:en]Be Unfair and Play Favorites[:ja]公平であることなど忘れ、えこひいきすること[:]
[:en]Fairness is not about equity of treatment. It is about equity of opportunity to exercise one’s talents. You can play favorites and there is nothing wrong with doing so, as long as it is the excellent that you favor.
[:en]Conversation with Visa Japan Country Manager Seiji Yasubuchi[:ja]ビザ・ジャパンのカントリーマネージャー、安渕聖司氏から学んだこと[:]
[:en]On April 3rd, I conducted an onstage conversation with Visa Japan Country Manager, Seiji Yasubuchi, at the Tokyo American Club for the American and French Chambers of Commerce in Japan. We had a full house! Here are my takeaways from my discussion with Seiji.
[:en]Growth is a State of Mind, Not a Market[:ja]企業の成長とは市場の状況ではなく、気持ちの持ち方によりもたらされるものである[:]
[:en]Return on investment of overseas acquisitions made by Japanese companies, with some exceptions, is feeble by large and at times disastrous.
[:en]The World is Given, But The Frame is Yours[:ja]この世界をどう切り取るかは、あなた次第[:]
[:en]The world is given, but in photography, you frame the world as you want it. The photograph is your own. The leader of a business does much the same. You take the world as you want it. The frame is of your own choosing.