Blogs and Articles from Third Way Forum Membrs
Aug 4, 2022
Discussion#4 Managing wellness at work in the face of existential challenges threatening our society.
Blogs from The Third Way Working Group
- In the face of existential challenges such as pandemic, military tension and inflation etc, is there any difference between how the Japanese are handling themselves and how other people overseas are handling themselves?
- In some cases, the Japanese seem to move very slowly like in the case of today’s pandemic. While the West has already moved on and made the mental shift from pandemic to endemic, the Japanese still seem to stick to the crisis mindset. But it looks like the Japanese government is also slowly guiding the public to endemic as the government does not react with as high alert as before despite the record high Covid patient numbers in Japan right now.
- In some cases such as destruction after the world war two or natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunami, the Japanese have often shown a great deal of momentum to achieve a very quick recovery. Why are the Japanese sometimes slow and sometimes fast to take decisive actions?
- We think that the Japanese tend to show a very quick response with resilience when what to do is certain such as recovery from disaster. But when the situation is uncertain without any clear goal, such as the pandemic, the on-going globalization, the never-ending low birthrate etc, the Japanese seem to be very slow to respond and they tend to go back to the old customary ways of doing things.
- Regarding the fear and anxiety of most Japanese people in the business world, it seems most people are not afraid of pandemic, military tension, earthquakes etc so much. What they are most afraid of is possible extra workload and possible human relationship issues at work that could happen any time anywhere more often than before due to the labor shortage, the shrinking market and increasing peer pressure coming from other worried and anxious people at the workplace.
- The business challenge is getting bigger, the workload is increasing, bosses and colleagues are more and more stressed, and the VUCA world is showing more and more uncertainties for the future. If you work in a traditional Japanese workplace where people can not easily clarify uncertainties with others due to the Japanese tendencies of unclear communications and conflict avoidance, you will feel a big sense of helplessness and also hopelessness.
- If a mouse trapped in a cage is given electric shock everywhere it runs, after a while, the mouse will give up and stops running away. Maybe many Japanese feel like this mouse and that’s why they have a feeling of “Shoganai” and live like Zombie.
- What can corporate leaders do then? The most important first step is that the leaders should show “hope” to their people. The typical controlling management style with a lot of spread sheets and slides don’t work. You need to provide hope, a hope that people can find it’s possible to achieve.
- The 2nd step is that the leader should encourage the people to challenge a lot of new things to achieve the hope by proclaiming that he/she should take all the blames and responsibilities in case of failure. In this way, people can challenge themselves without worrying about the risk of failure.
- The 3rd step is that the leader should not try to be a hero saving the world alone and should instead give a chance for everybody to be a hero by showing vulnerability and asking for help. This will encourage people to take initiatives to help rather than just doing what was old.
- Such an intangible thing as “Hope” now seems to be a very crucial factor for the engagement of the Japanese people at many companies.
- In some cases, the Japanese seem to move very slowly like in the case of today’s pandemic. While the West has already moved on and made the mental shift from pandemic to endemic, the Japanese still seem to stick to the crisis mindset. But it looks like the Japanese government is also slowly guiding the public to endemic as the government does not react with as high alert as before despite the record high Covid patient numbers in Japan right now.
- In some cases such as destruction after the world war two or natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunami, the Japanese have often shown a great deal of momentum to achieve a very quick recovery. Why are the Japanese sometimes slow and sometimes fast to take decisive actions?
- We think that the Japanese tend to show a very quick response with resilience when what to do is certain such as recovery from disaster. But when the situation is uncertain without any clear goal, such as the pandemic, the on-going globalization, the never-ending low birthrate etc, the Japanese seem to be very slow to respond and they tend to go back to the old customary ways of doing things.
- Regarding the fear and anxiety of most Japanese people in the business world, it seems most people are not afraid of pandemic, military tension, earthquakes etc so much. What they are most afraid of is possible extra workload and possible human relationship issues at work that could happen any time anywhere more often than before due to the labor shortage, the shrinking market and increasing peer pressure coming from other worried and anxious people at the workplace.
- The business challenge is getting bigger, the workload is increasing, bosses and colleagues are more and more stressed, and the VUCA world is showing more and more uncertainties for the future. If you work in a traditional Japanese workplace where people can not easily clarify uncertainties with others due to the Japanese tendencies of unclear communications and conflict avoidance, you will feel a big sense of helplessness and also hopelessness.
- If a mouse trapped in a cage is given electric shock everywhere it runs, after a while, the mouse will give up and stops running away. Maybe many Japanese feel like this mouse and that’s why they have a feeling of “Shoganai” and live like Zombie.
- What can corporate leaders do then? The most important first step is that the leaders should show “hope” to their people. The typical controlling management style with a lot of spread sheets and slides don’t work. You need to provide hope, a hope that people can find it’s possible to achieve.
- The 2nd step is that the leader should encourage the people to challenge a lot of new things to achieve the hope by proclaiming that he/she should take all the blames and responsibilities in case of failure. In this way, people can challenge themselves without worrying about the risk of failure.
- The 3rd step is that the leader should not try to be a hero saving the world alone and should instead give a chance for everybody to be a hero by showing vulnerability and asking for help. This will encourage people to take initiatives to help rather than just doing what was old.
- Such an intangible thing as “Hope” now seems to be a very crucial factor for the engagement of the Japanese people at many companies.
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