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Global Adaptation of Japanese Management Practices: What You May Be Able To Adopt —Professor Mayumi Otsubo Professor Otsubo lead a seminar at UNUM Corp., Portland, Maine on May 7, 1993. He began his seminar with 10 items that distinguish Japanese Management Practices, and then went into some detail about each of them. He speaks almost entirely from a manufacturing perspective, but it is not hard to see how many of his points apply just as well to service. His address: Mayumi Otsubo, Professor of Management, University of Shizuoka, 395 Yata, Shizuoka City, Shizuoka, Japan 422. 1.
Market First - From the beginning, the Japanese are export minded. - They learn from their markets and their customer, and how the market is changing. - As Romans do in Rome—localize products. An example is Ford built a single car for world export, the so called world car. It didn’t work. McDonald’s and Coke, however, taste slightly different in Japan than in the U.S. They succeeded; with localization comes a loss of your identity. It is also necessary to learn how to manage people in different cultures. He suggests that the Japanese are struggling with how to manage white collar, information workers.
- Learning—information and know-how accumulation. - Stability and Flexibility especially with customers, suppliers, employees and investors. In down times Japanese companies avoid layoffs and contract terminations. They use this time to send employees out to talk to customers, train or re-train them, clean the physical plant, and so on. The government supplies funds for training during slow economic times. - The Japanese spend much more time up front with a potential customer or supplier before making a commitment. 3.
Training and Education - Communication Plaza Concept—while this is fading in Japan, employees meet with the executive informally over lunch or dinner to listen to each other. 4.
Get-in-Touch, Learning From Facts - Genbutso Genba (facts, figures and check)—Develop theories and check with the facts, learn from facts, see it and touch it. - Learn from competitors—Americans are creative, but would be smart to do more copying. Japanese are world class at copying and improving upon an idea, but would be smart to develop their creativity. 5. Effort Evaluation - Process versus Results—this seems to be the key difference between Americans and Japanese. Americans are more results oriented, Japans focus on process improvements. Once they learn how to do something, they work on small improvements—they evaluate effort not results. Because Americans are process averse, they depend on manuals to tell what the results should be. - Blue collar workers like the rewards in a process environment, i.e., for their effort not the result, especially in a service environment. - The down side of the process focus is to squelch creativity. Overall, the two cultures should learn from each other, and become more like each other. Neither completely process nor completely results focused. 6.
Customer First and Shareholder Last
- American entrepreneurs follow more closely the Japanese ranking. - The Japanese firm is organized for the employee. It is a more human orientation. Here we build an organization, and find employees to fill it. [I heard from another source, the right hand person to the CEO is the CFO in American firms. In Japanese firms the right hand person is the VP of Human Resources—ed.] 7. Team Work - The Japanese and Americans see two different meanings behind these words. In Japan team work means to help others, here it means functional maximization, that is to improve results. - This leads to a difference in the roles on the team. In Japan the team leader is always asking team members to help more, here the team leader is responsible for results. 8. Flexibility - General management transfers to any department, it is fuzzy and easy to adopt. Americans tend to specialize, which leads to rigidity and difficulty in changing. - Japanese take the long range view, and ask How long can you wait? This can also lead to a lack of decisiveness. 9. Quality First, Cost Last - This is the proper ranking of quality in the organization: 1. Quality - Profit is the result of the pursuit of quality—as quality improves, costs go down. - Quality includes products, services, machines, layout, policy, planning and organization. 10. Learn From the Best - Always look at someone better. The problem is when you get to the top, you have to become more creative—this is Japan’s challenge. - Short comings of Japans practices are: - Lack of Decisiveness: they are not transparent. Decisions sometimes take too long and they loose their timing. - Individual Ability Ignored: miss creative opportunities. - Miss Strategic Opportunities: too much delay and time. [Following this presentation, Professor Otsubo took questions from the audience:] More on Process and Results. Must have a good mix of process and results. In an organization, some departments must focus on process and others on results. Example, accounting must be process focused, while finance is results focused. Quality can save costs because you don’t need as many supervisors, and less people to fix problems. America and Japan are Closing the Quality Gap. One insight into Japanese thinking…If the Yen is trading at 110 to the Dollar, Americans will focus on being profitable at that rate. The Japanese will look ahead, can we still be profitable at 80? Long Term Changes in Japanese Management. Japan will become more results focused, and more creative. They will not change the focus on a human organization. After all, the organization must provide for human welfare and happiness. Demographics. Japanese population over the age 65 is growing twice as fast as the group under 15. The shrinking population will drive more women into management after the year 2006. Japanese industry will focus on more automation and high value added. Maybe more foreign labor, but more likely to do more work in China and Russia. Training. Like the U.S., many Japans workers are not well educated—their focus is on practical training such as reading, machine operation, and problem solving methods. Japan will focus on teaching their workers how to change—cross training and so on. A key difference in education between the U.S. and Japan is that here we get our education, and then go to a corporation to work. In Japan, one gets a job, and then gets their education. He thinks Japan ought to have more business schools given the new global focus. Managing Knowledge Workers and Professionals. This is something he has been struggling with, but some of his thoughts are to eliminate controls—provide targets and a framework and ask them to put forward their best efforts. Management by results not process. [Sounds like the American paradigm is actually a plus here—Ed.] Success in Japan. Focus on niche marketing. Take the time to build long term relationships. Hoshin Kanri (process management). Improvement of management quality means corporate policies must be: 1. Written and Formalized [Our sincere thanks to Professor Otsubo for providing us with his insights and observations. While one culture cannot simply adopt another culture, there is a great deal we can learn from one another—Ed.] |