Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way.
This week, I and my colleague in charge held meetings with METI and MOF, two of the most influential ministries in the Government of Japan. The reason why I held these meetings was quite simple: I wanted to show them how significant to be get involved in B20 process much deeper than they ever had done. From now on, I skip MOFA, which I once belonged to, because its guys don’t have any sense on what economy and business are.
During the meetings, I was totally disappointed to find out METI’s and MOF’s counterparts, who are usually known as “best and brightest” in the Japanese society, never understand the distinction between “domestic/nation-statewide” and “global”. From their viewpoint I shared when I was a member of MOFA till 2005, something “global” always tries to invade Japan’s system, where they are willing to fight against the cultural and economic invasion. They never think of the necessity even the Japanese can and shall make intellectual contributions to make frameworks for the better world in the future. To do so, they urgently need to get connected to those who have been settings frameworks for the world behind the door. “B20” which I belong to is one of tools they make use of for such a purpose.
As soon as the meetings ended, I got in touch with both Accenture team and World SME Forum. “Accenture”, because the global consulting firm obviously lead the discussion in terms of SME & Entrepreneurship in the B20 process. “World SME Forum”, because it will soon upload an online platform where ambitious SMEs from all over the world can be registered to get crowd funding globally. They are indeed “game changers”, which the ordinary Japanese leadership never knows, while I, as an active member of B20, know them quite well and can contact them whenever I need. My counterparts of both of Accenture in Paris and WSF immediately responded to the eMail I had sent them on behalf of the GOJ.
The point is METI’s guys still think of whom they should instruct to meet them. I’m terribly afraid that they can never understand how essential it is to communicate with each other in an accelerated manner in the digitalized world. Nevertheless, an old proverb says, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”. I’ll never give up to push the Japanese bureaucrats into the genuine global context. Of course, this is only for the better world in our common future.
