Things to Embrace

Chris Berthelsen — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:00:33 +0000

“Well, things to embrace. I’ve talked a lot about the challenges, but the people are pretty reliable so rates of sickness are just not an issue here, where as some of my counterparts in other countries might have to monitor that. I have an extremely trustworthy team so you don’t have to worry too much about someone fiddling their expenses or things like that. We have a pretty efficient team who work hard and don’t take enough holidays – all that is a joy. It goes back to the long service, but I think that most of them know their job pretty well. Well, they know the way that they’ve always done their job so you don’t have to worry too much about quality control, but the corollary is that if you want to change the way that things are done it’s difficult. That goes back to the change management.”

****************************************************
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.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

Foreigners and Change Management

Chris Berthelsen — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:00:55 +0000

“Foreigners may have an edge on the change management roles because it is recognized that it is difficult for an internal person to be the nail that sticks up. Sometimes it’s just easier to find people who are willing to come in and go through the learning curve of the organization – there are more foreigners who enjoy that. I love learning a new organization but I haven’t met too many Japanese colleagues that welcome that challenge (C: why is that?) Well, mid-career hires are still very rare. It’s become a phenomenon only in the last five years or so. This is because it is ingrained into people that you work for a company, you are a company man, it’s your security, you have to support yourself so you take the secure path and you are loyal. This is a socio-cultural based thing. In the west, people will change careers up to five times. That’s a normal career path but it’s still very unusual for a Japanese person to change careers more than once or twice….if that often.

I don’t think that it’s any easier for us to come in, I just think that we’re more willing. It’s possibly easier for an organization to imagine a foreigner going into that kind of role and being successful, because there is a motivation to do it for the challenge. Japanese nationals who also have that quality would probably get the job – and there are a number of those around as well. But, if you have the skill set, you’ve got the motivation, and you’ve got the cultural understanding then that’s a plus.”

Managing for Creativity in Japan » change management

Things to Embrace

Foreigners and Change Management