The Unwanted Truth
A highly successful Japanese CEO I know who had just taken a new role leading a deeply troubled company in Japan asked me, “What are the top three things I need to do to turn around a business?” “There’s only one,” I told him. “You need to be brutally honest.”
Sales is a Noble Profession
In a small Tokyo sales office of a Kansai-based company, the sales manager in charge habitually turns away sales people from other companies who call unannounced as a matter of course. It doesn’t matter what they have to offer or whom they would like to meet. He is uninterested. The office is small enough that […]
Perpetual Leadership Bench
When it comes to identifying their own successor, Japan CEO’s whom I know often find themselves in exile in a land of no good options. Yet it does not have to be so. What do I mean by “no good options?”
Takeaways: Conversation with Suntory Beverage and Food CEO Makiko Ono
On December 9th, I conducted and onstage conversation with Suntory Beverage and Food CEO Makiko Ono for the French and Australia New Zealand Chambers of Commerce in Japan. Below are my takeaways.
Benevolent Dictatorship
Understanding the rationale for change alone when accountability is lacking is never enough. As leader, you will find yourself having to do the work of your staff in their stead. By accountability, I mean a leader ensures there are rewards for the right behaviors and good results, and penalties if there are not.
Do the Right Thing
A CEO client of mine lamented a crisis. Union members were protesting vocally in front of one of the business’s retail stores, and a concomitant social media pressure campaign was simultaneously underway, garnering a degree of public sympathy online. An executive at the company had decided to lay off a non-performing sixty-year-old manager. The manager […]
The Post-Distributor Age
We are living in a post-distributor age. Gone are the days of cajoling distributors in representing your products to customers—often poorly. The best businesses of today make it easy, comfortable, and fast for customers to buy actually what the want and how they want it. A friend of mine in Australia told me how he […]
Engagement Survey Use and Misuse
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 […]
Dramatic Strategic Change Manifesto
CEOs often ask me how best to lead dramatic, strategic change knowing full well the kind of concerns, resistance, and doubt that such change can evoke in some staff. Below I list some of what advise.
Takeaways: A Conversation with Domino’s Pizza Japan CEO Martin Steenks
On October 9th, I conducted a conversation with Domino’s Pizza Japan CEO Martin Steenks for the American, Australia New Zealand, and Netherlands Chambers of Commerce in Japan. My takeaways are below.
English 
Japanese