Japan’s Luddism Toward AI Is a Leadership Trust Problem, Not a Technological One
An employee at a Japanese financial services company was given a labor-intensive task — modify an enormous spreadsheet of data manually, using a mind-numbing repetitive process. It would have taken days. He chose instead to combine some AI and automation tools — available in the company for anyone to use — and completed the task […]
DISRUPT OR BE DISRUPTED: CEO Roundtable Discussion Summary
A few years ago, I stood up at an Economist Corporate Network event in Tokyo, surrounded by executives from some of the best-known companies in the world. And the entire session was about one thing: how to avoid being disrupted. I couldn’t sit still for that. So I said it out loud: somewhere in Tokyo, […]
The Tyranny of KPIs
A sales team had inventory. A customer wanted to buy it. The company needed the revenue. The salespeople said no. Not because they couldn’t sell. Not because the product wasn’t available. They refused to sell because the transaction would have made their sales forecast look inaccurate — and they were being evaluated on forecast accuracy. […]
No Country for Old Men – An Homage
A CEO client of mine was fired. No performance issue. His results were outstanding. A regional VP sat down with him, said it was to talk about the future, and then told him he was out. The reason: “to make room for new blood and reduce headcount.” He found out later he wasn’t alone. Same […]
The Black Ships in the Harbor Again
This week, Softbank Group CEO Masayoshi Son stood in a Tokyo hotel ballroom and told Japan’s top executives that AI is coming for them. He invoked the Black Ships from Japanese history — U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival in Japan in 1853 with a squadron of four gunships — as a metaphor for a […]
Succession as a Discipline, Not an Event: What Toyota’s CEO Transition Gets Right
In February, Toyota announced that its next CEO would be Kenta Kon. He’s the company’s CFO, and for eight years he was the personal secretary to chairman Akio Toyoda. Some of the coverage outside Japan framed this as a family story. Akio Toyoda’s son, Daisuke, the founder’s great-grandson, was given a role at Toyota’s Motomachi […]
Uncertainty as Your Strategic Weapon
Japanese automobile manufacturer Suzuki just announced they are targeting Africa as their next major growth market. They’re calling it “the next India.” They entered India in 1983. At the time, the consensus said India was too poor, too complex, too far from the kind of premium market that serious companies were supposed to chase. The […]
Defy the Head Office, Deliver Customers Bad News, and Survive
A technology company CEO I know recently told me a story I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. His company was facing a crisis. Supply chain constraints — driven in large part by the AI-fueled explosion in chip demand — had caused component prices to triple. In some cases, product simply wasn’t available at […]
RAPID CULTURE CHANGE: CEO Roundtable Discussion Summary
Last week I presented some of the most provocative ideas from my book, Rapid Culture Change, at my CEO Roundtable here in Tokyo. The talk opens with a trick: I read out a list of dysfunctions that sound unmistakably Japanese — and then I tell the room they actually describe a French utility. It’s designed […]
Strategic Resilience Is Not Just a Supply Chain Problem
Japan’s government just designated 17 priority sectors for long-term protected investment — AI, semiconductors, quantum technology, shipbuilding, defense, and more. The headlines call it a return to Japan Inc. But what Japan is actually doing — whether its policymakers fully realize it or not — is attempting to build strategic resilience into the national economy. […]
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