corporate culture? the thing that had most significant on me was encountering my role model, Richard Sheridan. Since then, I have been able to treat the members of my company with the firm intention to change the culture of the company. I believe that I have been able to convey this message of determination to all members. What are your current issues? We always have issues, big and small. The current issue is that our business is doing well and we are adding more and more members to expand our business. There are about 7 to 8 new members per month. All colleagues who had joined after April last year have been working remotely from the start. the main issue here was regarding how to maintain the corporate culture under such circumstances. We are implementing certain measures such as 1 on 1 meetings, virtual office and zatsudan which have all been key to our OKR results. However, we feel it is still not enough and we are aware that we still have yet to fully clear this issue. If you have any good ideas, I would be grateful if you could share them with me. What is the biggest joy for you? Spending time with my family. My wife and I got married in 2013. It was thanks to her that I was able to get over that difficult time that year. Without her, I don't think I would have been able to come this far today. Why do you make the connection between culture and company performance? "Culture eats strategy for breakfast" is a quote by Drucker. No matter how good the product or strategy is, it is the people who implement it. If the people's way of thinking, or culture, is not good, I think the business cannot continue. Why did you determine to the end at the worst time? It was easy to run away. I think it was the presence of my family that helped me. "Can I confidently tell that person about what I am doing?" I asked myself that question. What are some ways to help people who are not good at self-disclosure to be able to understand each other through small talk? Rather than asking for self-disclosure, I recommend that the person leading it first disclose it. The members can see what you are doing. I think it's important to create an environment where it's okay to disclose yourself first. After that, for those who are not good at self-disclosure and do not understand the meaning and benefits of self-disclosure, it would be good if you could tell them about it many times in different ways. As you can see in my materials, I often use the "Seven Stages of Teamwork" and Daniel Kim's successful cycle model of organizations to convey the meaning and benefits of this. What exactly was the first thing you worked on? It was the in-house get-together that I talked about a few moments ago. But I failed. Is it possible to change the culture of an organization from the bottom up? I know it's not easy, but if you have any advice on how to make it happen, I'd appreciate it. It may take more time, but I think it is possible. I think it is very important to get the management and managers involved in the process. There is always resistance to change. I think it is important to share the reason why change is necessary. I don't think there is any definitive way to do that. It is a gradual process, so why don't we start with our own team to improve the relationship within the team? What are you doing to promote communication within the company while continuing to work remotely? We are doing various initiatives such as Weekly Morning Meeting which is regularly held once a week, 1on1, Virtual Office for members, and making chatting a Key Result of OKR. Can you give us some concrete examples of Stage7 "Create new value"? We believe that Level 7 is a state of psychological safety within team members, where team members can frankly exchange opinions with each other, resulting in creative outcomes. Even among us, we are not completely successful, but some of our teams are able to achieve this level. Were any of your colleagues reluctant to participate in the weekly meetings? Yes, they were. Some members didn't participate because they were busy with projects or didn't feel the team building was meaningful. Do you have any future plans to further develop or change what you're doing at your company? Yes, we do. As the external and internal environments change. I think it is necessary to respond flexibly to those changes. Would you say the issues that you faced at the start are typical for many Japanese companies? I don't think they are exactly the same, but I think there are many companies that have similar issues. In Japan, there is a seniority system and a lifetime employment system, and the mobility of human resources is low. I think this often makes it difficult to change the culture or to change things. I think the issue of communication within the company has become a problem for many companies because of the need for remote work due to covid-19. The remote work rate in Japan is 25%, which is low compared to other countries. Regarding your Furu Furu Relay talk, you mentioned that this involved praising individual members in order to create stronger bonds. Is the concept of publicly praising colleagues a common thing in Japanese companies? I don't think it is common. I don't think praise is a common practice in Japanese culture. In general, people are not very good at expressing their feelings. I think that is partly because we are modest, but also because it is difficult to know what we are thinking. I think that should be kaizen based on the fact that we create value as a team. What would you say is something that you think all Japanese companies should adopt from your current system? I feel that Japanese companies have a strong hierarchical organizational structure. This leads to a decline in competitiveness in a rapidly changing business environment. In order to solve this problem, I think that we should take initiatives such as holding workshops for all members to become a stronger as a team, and making information within the organization extremely transparent. While I know that you mentioned that we can't simply copy and paste a specific type of company culture between multiple companies, I'd like to ask...how can your ideas be applied to other companies overseas? I believe that the same kind of efforts will have different effects. However, what is the purpose of the corporate culture? What is the purpose of that? I think it is important to communicate this to the members of the company. Also, you will not know what kind of effect it will have until you try it. I think it is important to try it out first. You mentioned in your slide "build" that you were able to create an environment of psychological safety in your company. Do you feel that psychological safety is a big issue in Japanese companies? I think it is a big problem and I also feel that not considering it as a big issue is a problem as well. In order to grow as an individual and as an organization, I think it is very important to have an environment where people can honestly give feedback to each other. This can be considered as psychological safety. I think it is possible to continue a business without it, but I recognize that the growth potential is completely different. What accomplishment gave you the greatest amount of joy when you were changing your company's corporate culture? I would say that I experienced the greatest amount of joy when I came to work one day and I saw that things were different from before. When my company's corporate culture was still all wrong, no one really communicated with each other. But one day, I saw that my colleagues were frequently collaborating with each other and I could tell that they were experiencing joy while they were working. And in turn, this also made me feel this wonderful sense of joy and pride. what's one thing that we should avoid when applying what you presented to our companies?/ What's one possible problem that we should be careful of when trying to use what you've presented to us to change our own companies' cultures? You should avoid keeping the purpose of the event to yourself. Make sure it's clear to your colleagues. Because if you don't tell the purpose of the event to your colleagues they won't be able to feel motivated to attend the events. What if my colleagues feel that online team building activities are a waste of time? Why don't you start with something that anyone can easily participate in? For example, the chatting workshop called Zatsudan is a very easy way to start. Japan has a pretty negative reputation regarding work-related stress. There are many articles that cover this and how colleagues in the country are far more stressed than other countries. Why do you think this is so? I'm not really sure if I have a concrete answer but in my opinion, Long standing Japanese companies don't usually have a good corporate culture and still have established hierarchies and also employ a seniority or lifetime employee system. In addition to that, the ability to transfer to other companies is also limited. Why do you think seniority systems and hierarchies are the main causes of the stress? The colleagues don't feel psychologically safe because of these things. For example, they're unable to speak openly about their company. If an employee starts demonstrating extreme signs of stress or burnout, how will your company handle this? First, we will provide a period of paid time off in order for them to recover. In addition to that, we will also provide the required therapy to the employee to help them. I am concerned about how long this kind of company culture might last. I think people might get tired of it or it might lose its effectiveness over time. I understand where you're coming from but we can continue to adapt our corporate culture. It's important to firmly state our purpose and goals to our colleagues. By doing this, it will allow us to employ different kinds of tactics and plan different kinds of events that will encourage colleagues to keep attending them. What separates (a) from (b/others)? Almost ALL Japanese companies HAVE a set hierarchy in their company but we do not. That is one of the MAIN DIFFERENCES. We have culture of praise instead. What are the most important advantages your methods can provide? THAT you'll be able to provide an environment of psychological safety in your company. If we provide this to our colleagues, they'll be able to better collaborate WITH each other which will also provide substantial improvements in terms of work performance which will benefit everyone in your company in the end. What are some potential problems or obstacles one can expect when they first try to implement your ideas? your colleagues will be confused by the new activities so you should firmly state the purpose of your activities and clearly tell them that. What if, even after firmly stating my purpose, my colleagues are STILL reluctant to participate? Why don't you start with something that anyone can easily participate in? For example, the chatting workshop called Zatsudan is a very easy way to start. Do you think I'd be able to apply what you talked about to an American company? For example, we hold a company-wide Zatsudan once a week but you should try to adjust the scheduling and frequency to best suit your own company's needs. What if my colleagues feel that online team building activities are a waste of time? I'm not really sure if I have a concrete answer but, in my opinion, I feel that you should FIRMLY STATE the purpose of the team building event. Clearly tell them what the goal and purpose is and try to continue transforming your company's corporate culture. What do you think is an important lesson to take away from your previous mistakes? I think the most important thing is to find the determination to follow through with everything until the very end. We have to find the resolve in ourself to change the corporate culture. What do you think Japanese companies should focus on when creating a healthy business culture? I think that Japanese companies should focus on cementing strong relationships among its colleagues through the concept of "Joy." What do you think we should focus on implementing first to promote a healthy business culture/ what would be the easiest first step? For example, we should be willing to share any important or relevant information such as financial information with colleagues. I believe this would be a good first step. How do you do your zatudan event? In our weekly event. we make the group about 4-5 people.We have a 30-minute chat time to chat. The rule is that we don't talk about work.It's not a strict rule either.The goal is to get to know each other. When we started this chatting, everyone was very nervous.The conversation was not very lively.After about three months, we all started to talk a little more. Q&A⽤のスクリプトもかなり準備して たけど、運営側がバタバタしていたこ ともあり、質問は1つのみだったw
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