“I would never say that the Japanese are not creative or even less creative, but their orientation and their approach is not blue sky. They have a great deal of difficulty with blue-sky thinking.”

“Look at Japan, it’s the home of more than 50 global headquarters. More than double that of either the U.S. or the U.K. This is not a country that can’t innovate or be creative. But the Japanese pull it out through kaizen and that, for me as a foreigner, has been the biggest lesson that I’ve learnt – providing the template and the formula and then ‘kaizening’ it from there.”


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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
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