“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.”

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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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