Last year I spent about half my time in Japan. We have a Japanese customer that I have been working with very closely so that has been taking up all my time. Its definitely an experience working with this customer.
After my experiences in Japan, I think Japan has a major challenge ahead if it wants to be competitive with the US. Here is what I think Japan has going for it:
- Training level is very high for the average worker. Even an job as a McDonald cashier is given 2 weeks of training before allowed to interface with customers. This is evident even to the average tourist that visits Japan. Service is great and standardized.
- Pay scale is flat. President of a company doesn't make more than 10x of the normal employee. IE in theory this should allow them to keep their expenses low.
- Workforce that is very hard working and dedicated. I think this is a cultural thing and is implanted in pretty early.. if you work hard you will be successful is the message droned in from a young age.
With these positive points I think Japan was able to get to #2 spot in the world economy during the 70s and 80s. Heck If anyone remembers Back to the Future part 2? Where Marty Mc fly gets fired from his Japanese boss? IE the US was going to get taken over by the Japanese. That was the perception a decade ago but after working with them I see some major flaws.What do they have going against them you ask?
- There are too many do nothing middle managers that love to start fires to justify their existence. (this is a byproduct of aging demographics and the obsession with process and quality)
- Because the society values conformity unique ideas are not allowed to grow and yield fruit.
- Companies over there are not designed to respond quickly
I know I'm painting a picture with very broad strokes here, but this is just my opinion after all.
Prime example of the 3 factors above is SONY.
They OWNED the portable music player market for years. The were the standard of excellence for TV's and other electronic. The Sony Viao series was always using new tech and was the cutting edge of its days.
What happened?
They had everything going for them in the 90's. In the 2000s they effectively lost the advantage. Apple came and took over the portable music market and computing. Why? Because they came in with fresh ideas and innovation. Mean while Sony tried to force the consumer to what SONY felt was the way the market should go. Ultimately SONY has forever lost that market because it could not get over its own rules and procedures. The very thing (highly refined process that increased quality of their products) is what killed and is still killing Japan. ( A prime example of this is the Japanese farmer making $100 strawberries.. yes you heard me right.. $100 for a single strawberry. I'm sure it is a good strawberry but there is a point of diminishing returns like most luxury goods)
The problem I see at my customer is the same. This obsession to get things perfect does not go well with being the 1st to market. You have to make a judgement call on issues and look to see how probable a problem may be and how to deal with it. This is especially true with new innovations. You cannot micromanage innovation because there are way too many unknowns but that is what they ask for. If you can micromanage innovations it means your not really innovating, rather it means your refining. I understand the customers urge to be included in the loops, but their input really does not help the situation at all. There are way too many times where they don't fully understand the problem and they go down the wrong path in a panic state. When they go down the wrong path that leads to more questions that the middle managers make, and so on and so forth.. in the mean time the real problem doesn't get solved but a lot of paper has been generated to pacify the middle managers.
All this running around did it really solve the problem? NO it did not.
I would say it probably distracted more than anything. I see this way to much at Japanese companies. The average worker in Japan is probably much higher caliber but they spin their wheels pacifying their bosses concerns. Now I understand that managing expectations is important as well but it would be interesting to see if some one has quantified how much of this goes on with in a Japanese company and how much this reporting is sapping the productivity of the company. Now I know this goes on in US companies as well but there is a key difference when the middle management layer gets too big then the company will start to down size and cut jobs. This makes the company concentrate on being productive and really get back to what is important. In Japan this does happen.
Anyway at this rate Japan will probably not be able to compete with Korea and China. I think this is more of the cause of the economy lagging for the past decade more than anything else. The fast growth is now over and now they must innovate, but in order to innovate they may have to give up some values that they covet.
There maybe still some time to change, but like a lot of thing in Japan things are very resistant to change.
Sorry for the downer entry but I hope to have more positive things to blog about soon. I got about 6 months worth of experience to blog about so stay tuned.
