Blogs and Articles from Third Way Forum Membrs

・Time seems to pass much faster since we are physically confined due to COVID-19.

・Some neurologist suggests that the less variety of events happening every day the faster time seems to pass. As many people go out less and meet less people, time passes faster than usual for them.

・In addition to physical confinement, we also experience information confinement. When you go to a bookstore, you can walk around and get exposed to all sorts of books. But today if you go to an online bookstore, the books you see on the scree are the books selected by algorism based on your past purchase. Likewise, news feed is also pushed by algorism and you are mainly exposed to the articles of your interests.

・It is very important to be exposed to diversity of opinions and different views and to have critical thinking skills in order to make sound judgement as a leader. But the confinement caused by COVID-19 and algorism may be making it more challenging these days.

・When you think of Japanese employees, so many of them seem to be confined within their company throughout their career. The range of experiences, knowledge and perspectives they have are pretty limited. As a very important first step to solve many issues of the Japanese companies, we must find a way to destroy the confined mentality of Japanese company workers.

・The generalist talent management system of many Japanese companies has been mass-producing so-called professionals of nothing, who are just company employees circulating around from one job to another within the same company without ever developing really professional skills.

・Maybe some kind of voucher system may be an interesting idea. If an employee acquires professional skills/knowledge outside the company, it should be credited and there should be some reward.

・In old Japan, the 7th,8th century, tax was paid either by rice or labor. Maybe the government could reduce tax for those who are providing more labor (value-adding labor) in order to solve labor shortage.

・Now most Japanese companies have to do some serious transformation and innovation but many leaders are saying that they are not ready. They need to get rid of this perfectionist/risk-averse mentality and start doing something different and new. As Hans Solo said in Star Wars “You are never ready. You know when you are ready enough!”