All the Future in Your Hands.
This week, I was privileged to give lectures to two Japanese leading companies. The one belongs to trading companies sector, while another to banking sector. I really love to accept this kind of offers from Japanese leading companies, because I can experience the reality of Japan’s business world face to face by giving lectures and speeches to so-called “salarymen and –women”. While these lectures, I usually don’t hesitate to tell them the very hardcore of truths which global and Japanese leadership have hidden from the public. Otherwise, they can’t move forward based on appropriate analysis of authentic stories on what really happened in the world. In this regard, I’m extremely proud of being “unique” in this education industry for employees.
While I was giving the lectures both in Harumi/Tokyo and Tenri/Osaka, I strongly felt the Japanese type of “middle income crisis” has worsened the situation. For example, I just told a case of typical SME in the western part of Japan to managers of the Japanese semi-megabank, and let them discuss how they can assist its young CEO, who is said to be obviously unwillingly to succeed to her father’s position. The bank’s leadership proudly proclaims that the corporation focusses on the “retail” customers, which actually means rich owners of Japanese SMEs. Since it has been so, I expected the managers would enthusiastically discuss how they could help the poor female CEO to get rid of her dilemma.
To my great surprise, they just rushed to the opposite direction: The managers around 40s began to criticize her and just make a list of “issues” they found remarkable in this case. No solution, and no compassion and sympathy to the poor CEO indeed. Of course, these managers don’t have any evil intent per se. Instead of that, they simply don’t know what “company” as such is and how to run it. For them, to work in the office means to play a role of living cash dispenser. Being trapped of extremely complicated financial regulations, they actually don’ have any more room to innovate. The best solution for their careers is, therefore, to do nothing and calmly stay seated without giving strategic solutions to companies.
This type of typical corporate culture in Japanese big corporates unfortunately reflects the esteemed trading company I mentioned beforehand: The managers, who had the opportunity to listen to my lecture this time, were obviously proud of having been the “salesmen of Japanese economy” to the global market. Nevertheless, they seem not to know which direction the global economy is currently heading to: By connecting the people directly with each other in the internet, any kind of “middlemen” are to be completely eliminated. This is also the case for Japansese “Shousya” or trading companies. From now on, they can’t be too creative and innovative to move forward. Only being accepted as notable innovators by the public and customers, they can’t be regarded as an indispensable part of the market and economy. They are now urged to go beyond the noble lie called “Shale gas and oil revolution”, given by US and rebuild up their innovative cultures based on the untold reality of Japanese and global histories.
Having said all these things, I honestly don’t mean the managers are intellectually incompetent. Originally, they are descendants of legendary Japanese business innovators, who succeeded to reconstruct Japan from mountains of rubble after the WWII. What they urgently need is only the moment of the truth, when they automatically become aware of their born mission to be innovative to lead the Japanese economy. In this regard, Japan’s default in the very near future is essential. Otherwise, life in idleness would be continuing in postmodern Japan, and Japan as a civilization would come to an end in the idleness caused by timelessness (“Kairos”). To enhance preparedness for the moment of the truth, I’ll accelerate to tell the real stories in the Japanese society and economy. Yes, this is my life-long mission to lead to “Pax Japonica”.
