My Interview in Japan’s Shukan Diayamondo
Michael Fitzgerald who writes for The Economist, The New York Times and other thought-leading publications just published in Japan’s Shukan Diayamondo an interview he did with me about Connection Cultures. Michael posted the pre-translation English version on his Archimedes’ Hot Tub blog.
When I worked for Morgan Stanley in the late 1990s, I spent some time in Japan analyzing the market to determine if it made sense to build or buy a Japanese investment trust business. I concluded that Japanese stock brokers’ culture was so different from Morgan Stanley’s that any acquisition would unwise. From my brief exposure to Japan it seemed to me that employee engagement was low, at least in the securities business. It may have been different in the automotive and other industries. Does anyone have any experience working in Japan and would share their thoughts with us about employee engagement in the country?
Michael Lee Stallard is the President of
My experience in the automotive components industry was very positive.
Eight years ago, I set-up and ran for five years an operation assembling systems in Osaka.
The direct employees and admin staff were mainly contract and part-time workers and we had full-time, permanent staff as engineers, salesmen and production and quality managers.
The whole team was highly committed and flexible - solving several production and engineering problems and delivering excellent quality.
Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom a couple of years ago dictated that production be shifted to China and the team was disbanded.
I would gladly repeat the experience of working with a Japanese manufacturing and design team.
David,
Thanks for visiting my blog. Your observation is consistent with Maryann Keller’s. She is an excellent automotive analyst on Wall Street and author of the book “Collision.” It seems like the philosophy behind the Toyota Production System pervades the automotive sector in Japan. Keller wrote in her book that it forged “a sense of community among all of the employees.” The securities business in Japan is not like that, or at least it wasn’t. The book “House of Nomura” describes a culture that is not so engaging.