Leadership: your four lessons from Japan's decline

Published: 2011-05-02   There are 4 comments ... please add yours below

Nature has recently dealt the Japanese a deathly blow – and our hearts go out to them. However, as with most of us, the harder blows are often self-inflicted. In the 1980s, Japan was still the coming economic power – as China is today. Journalists wrote breathlessly of Japan’s super-reliable manufacturing, its highly valued banks and growing position in the world. All exemplified by its zaibatsu buying operations and assets across the globe. More recently, in contrast, the Japanese narrative is one of stagnation and decline – the home of compromised leadership and inability to change. So, if you’re currently a successful leader (of a team or business), how do you ensure this continues and doesn’t stagnate? Here are four things to do.

1. Remain open to different ideas. New leaders, like expanding nations, get ahead by seeing things differently – as Japan did decades ago with cars and electronics. This allowed them to set new benchmarks and conquer global markets. But don’t let successful ideas become sacred truths. The power of good ideas is in their timeliness and novelty – not eternal applicability. So in your day-to-day leadership, continue to search, learn and improve.
2. Generate and test lots of options. Long-term success isn’t about immediate perfection but making a start then delivering daily “betterment” – as the Japanese called it and others copied. For Japan, the focus was in industrial manufacturing, for Taiwan things like computer chips and for India today outsourced services and frugal engineering. So, as a leader, what are you daily trying to improve in each aspect of your hard and soft leadership skills?
3. Move from copying to creating. After WWII, Japan was notorious for flaunting international copyright and patent laws. China follows suit today. However, over the decades Japan changed its tune, as it moved from mass-producing cheap radios to breaking new ground in robotics. As a leader, what are you contributing to your company in terms of Intellectual Property – the ways of doing things? What is becoming the basis of your leadership advantage? What will you be remembered for?
4. Build your team and particularly succession. Japan’s population is decreasing and the same will happen in China in a few decades as a result of their one-child policy*. It’s also happening in parts of Europe but interestingly not in the US, where both birth rate and immigration remain strong. So, as a leader, what are you doing to ensure your operations will have sufficient staff and future leaders, not only to continue existing activities but to find and hone new ones. Transforming things today and still tomorrow?

There is an old saying that every person is an island. Well, why not an island nation? And if so, surely we can learn from national successes and failures. Next step? As president of the wonderful country of YOU (population of one), you need to formulate and implement policies that avoid Japan’s mistakes of recent decades – keeping your leadership relevant and competitive. The alternative? Sadly, to lose your edge and future potential! In the meantime, our thoughts are with the Japanese in this period of recovery from their huge natural disaster.

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®