Oh, Hang It!

I worked in Japan for twelve years, amongst Japanese, in Japanese.

One coworker explained it to me thus: "In the east we carefully walk all ten steps to get to the point of decision; our unity and cohesiveness is our strength-- It takes us longer to get there, but when we do get to market, out went most bugs along the way.

"In the west you take about three steps forward and impulsively decide, 'Oh hang it-- let's just get it to market! We're losing money!' Out rolls the product or the software. The sales people are surprised and untrained. The repair and returns people are caught without parts or manuals. The product literature and advertising is hasty and shallow. But worst," he concluded, "mostly you spend the rest of your time issuing patches or fixing bugs or taking returns."

In trying to adapt kaizen to America (with a whole other host of other focused disciplines native to Japan), the cultural differences are so pronounced I've often thought, "Oh hang it-- just get the blasted company to market! I'm losing money!"

Oh, to be in the land of Wa again.

Cheers
Lee

Unforseen Green Wolverine Overseen

I really dislike raining on other's parades. I do. But I just had to reply to some nutjob's postulate, "Recession is Ripe with Opportunities for Lean & Green Thinkers." The concept of forcing the look to the green side makes me seethe. As follows,

"Sorry, but I dispute your postulate. My slant is based on experiences from a variety of international businesses operating under firm governmental control and/or socially-mandated "advantages." This includes operations in East Germany, Japan, the Koreas, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Canada, and many other 'beneficently-socialist' locales.

"Any mandate-- geared by public perception, government or other external force-- will fail. Human nature guarantees it. The only viable and sustainable concept will be (and forever ONLY will be) because something makes financial sense (cents) to the principal-- the business owner or the consumer. Social mandates of any sort are doomed to fail.

"The Lean Enterprise or the Green Enterprise, by definition, must become what we can do cheaper, faster, and better... with 'greenness' a side benefit. It operates under the same principle as assigning the laziest to do a task-- knowing they'll find the easiest way to accomplish something. We all fit that description when it comes to taking out extra bundles of hard-won cash from our wallet to buy that snazzy new lightbulb or zippy electric car... the majority will seek an easier, cheaper, faster, simpler way to get the same thing. Social responsibility is a secondary impulse, and the harder the economy, the 'lesser' the social responsibility matters.

"So stop beating the drum for more green eggheads-- because 97.991242321% of the population will never accept their more expensive, more complicated, more frustrating inventions... irrespective of jackbooted government-sanctioned thugs (with or without machine guns). More money in our pocket gives us the OPTION of going green, but poverty (especially when caused or abetted by a corrupt state that steals our money whilst forcing 'green') guarantees we'll always seek the cheaper (and often more destructive) option.

"Cheers, Lee"

Lest you missed it, I repeat,

Cheers,
Lee

Air: Necessary, But Unseen

"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." --Anatole France, Nobel Prize-winning author

I have two ears and one mouth. I try to use them in that proportion.

But when I was in my 20s, it wasn't that way. It was with some pride that I was the first foreigner-- ever-- to work at Omron Japan, a huge company (http://omron.com/index2.html). I was surrounded by (it seemed all) 25,000 Japanese co-workers, and for a very long time I felt like the lightning rod in a fishbowl with an electric eel... with electric toasters soon to fall in with me.

As the days ticked by, I remember crescendos of panic-- perhaps the same emotions that grip all college graduates when they enter the real world: "What if I can't produce something of value right away? How can I show how I'm brilliant? Where should I look to uncover some lost revenue, or suggest a better process, or make changes to so I can show immediate worth? I gotta get going!"

At some point, my boss and the man responsible for my hire, Tsutomu Narita (later named President of Omron Electronics in 1999, photo insert), saw my struggles and took me aside with a sage smile.

"Richan, I want you to forget your western expectations of greatness. Yes, I expect great things out of you. But until two years have passed, you have only one job: 'Be like air-- necessary but unseen.'"

Like air? Unseen? Two years? Oh, the humanity.

I sputtered and protested that I wanted to do great stuff, that I was a brilliant engineer, that I was hired because he saw some existing value in me, etc.

But in the end I agreed to be malleable. Very humbled, I quietly studied Omron's product line.

And I learned I also had two eyes and one mouth.

I studied companies like Gould, Square D, and Cutler-Hammer. Then I studied switches, and then timers, then counters, then programmable logic controllers (PLCs). I studied pricing, markets, and marketing schemes. I took notes, clipped articles, made comparison charts, sales charts, and corporate charts. I studied the Wall Street Journal for competitor information and press releases. I studied London's Financial Times, and Singapore's Straits Times, etc.

In short, I kept a very low profile, proving 'oxygen' to company internal functions (like evaluating advertisements written in horrible English), but I kept quietly learning the basics of my industry before I began to reach upward. I was 'breathable' insofar as I was always available for questions from co-workers, whilst I quietly kept gathering information, per Mr. Narita's advice.

Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.

And eventually it happened. Slowly I became an expert in competitors' tactics. In due course I was included in meetings all around the company, becoming consultant for all kinds of new products. I found I was at the right hand of product division managers, and spent about 25% of my time at the R&D facility counseling engineers and project managers of every stripe.

After my tenure spent steeping in the basics, my suggestions carried weight.

I was able to eventually make those great quantum leaps into the unknown... based squarely on the good footing obtained by quietly reading a dry catalog. It was because of this "planting and growing cycle" that I became a key player in pushing sales to over US$3.6Billion by the time I left... billions still accredited to me to this very day.

But that's the story. Few care to hear the details. Fewer still can understand them.

Another place? Another time? Another galaxy far, far away? Yes. Antiquated, irrelevant ethics? I think not.

My story can be told in simplest terms, in the words of the great Marvin J. Ashton,
"Listen... or thy tongue will keep thee deaf."

Cheers!