[:en]The Ethics of Symbolism[:ja]象徴主義の倫理[:]

[:en]There is nothing inherently wrong with symbolism. It is only symbolism that masquerades inaction that is unethical and destructive.
[:en]Ideology is No Ersatz for Strategy[:ja]イデオロギーは戦略の代わりになり得るものではない[:]

[:en] A friend of mine recently observed that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s strategy to deter a Chinese seizure of the disputed Senkaku Islands makes no sense.
[:en]The Anatomy of Misogyny[:ja]女性差別を分析すると[:]

[:en]The other week, Tokyo Medical University was revealed to have been deliberately boosting entrance test scores of male students to give them an advantage and to limit the number of female students since 2006. The motivation? Women shorten or halt their careers after becoming mothers, exacerbating staff shortage problems at hospitals. There is no real […]
[:en]Make Your Own Economy[:ja]景気は自分で作り出すもの[:]

[:en]Are you allowing the economy to dictate your results, or are you making your own economy? In 1995, in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake in which five thousand people lost their lives, an American businessman told me that he had been advised to lower his expectations for the Japan market because Japanese consumers had […]
[:en]Conversation with IHG/ANA Hotels CEO Hans Heijligers[:ja]IHG・ANAホテルズCEOハンス・ハイリガーズ氏から学んだこと[:]

[:en]On June 25th, I conducted an on-stage conversation with IHG/ANA Hotels Group Japan CEO, Hans Heijligers for both the American and French Chambers of Commerce at the Tokyo American Club. Here are my takeaways from that conversation.
[:en]Change Discipline, Not Management[:]

[:en]The currency of discipline is choice, and that choice is yours to make. Change management is ostensibly a practice to help people in an organization make a transition as a result of a disruptive organization change. However, disruption need not be disruptive if disruption is part of your discipline.
[: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 […]
[: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.
Labor Shortage is Never a Problem 労働力が不足していてもビジネスを成長させる方法

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 […]
[: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.