Archive for the ‘ Work ’ Category

Completed Three Years

One of my old senior staff, H, said to me, “Continue three years anyway, so it will be something.” Here, I have just completed three years working for this Indian venture company, and, yeah, may I say it is definitely something to me. I don’t know what exactly it means to me, though.

This is my forth contract with the company. I sign for one year contract every year end. Foreign staff in the company basically works for a few years contract, and I always tell the company that I am comfortable not to sign for more than one year, because in this way, I can always be conscious. I keep questioning how much working for the company and living in India still means to me. Am I still in? I haven’t had an answer of “No”, yet to myself, so I am still here.

In another sense, the company is also safe as they can let me off in one year if I am not performing. It’s simpler. There are many things to do out there. There are many interests. So even though I am quite deep into my job, I try to be flexible and not stick to what I have. Knowing that I could have done many other things out of this company, I choose my work. This way, my decision is more highlighted. I can go anywhere, but I choose to be here.

Everytime my family calls me, they say “So, have you started thinking to come back?” I laugh. I keep telling them I will never come back. But they don’t believe me. But I am serious. I don’t have intention to go back to Japan, nor get a work there and make happy kids. I say to my mother, “When you get old, just come to India so I will take care of you.” They think I am joking, but I am not joking at all. I guess I just want to be away, for a long time.

Now I don’t have time to think through my life plan or whatever. There’s an exciting work and good friends. I wake up and list up works to do on the way to the office, and I sleep after taking memos of ideas on my pillow. I claim my stress and anger to people and share nice dine together. What else do I ask for? Maybe a happy holiday? Anyway, one more year to go. It’s a frontier.

*By the way, my company is hiring Japanese staff now. Check it out:

http://www.i-osmosis.jp/staff/

2010
04/20
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Love of Sales

Sales is like the smell of the fresh cookies from the oven in front of a Cookieman shop. To make the effect doubly sure, they pass a piece of cookie to my hand for free. It’s a killer, a bad boy. I can’t resist opening the zipper (of my purse).

In another words, sales is like talking about the amazing trip to Swaziland I went last month. I can’t wait to tell everyone how great it was. The amazing view of the mountains, lakes. Beautiful and nice people. Unbelievably delicious cuisine. I would save my hundred pictures in my iPod and show anyone at any opportunity. Next day, some of my friends google about Swaziland, and in the next holiday, they say “I also booked a ticket to Swaziland because you said it’s amazing.”

My colleague was recently studying a successful car brand’s promotional blog. Primary, the purpose was to learn their logical flow line of the users. After she learnt something, she called up a meeting and said, “Ai san, I am shocked. What was lack was my love to our service. I should have been expressing how we love our service more.”

In the car brand’s blog, people talks about how and how much they like the brand’s car. Users, designers, engineers; they talk about their favoritism of the car from all possible directions. So she realized she has forgotten to talk out her love about our service; that’s the base of the sales.

Pureness is the place to come back anytime when we are trapped in a business labyrinth. “We have a good product that we believe other people also love it. That’s why we want to talk about it to make people understand how good it is. If they use it and became happier, we are also happy.”

Here’s the matter for marketing staff. Believing we work for a good product is the single real motivation of ours. When we find any tiny evidence that our product is not good enough to recommend to people, our identity and existence value breaks down at the moment. We don’t want to be a liar. A service and sales should be as close as a cookie and the cookie smell.

2010
03/11
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Upgrading Me

I am from Aichi, where TOYOTA dominates the economy. In Aichi, you can see everyone drive TOYOTA cars on the street, because they are not allowed to buy other brands’ cars. Pretty high percent of people have a friend or relatives who work for TOYOTA in a way (even if they are not TOYOTA employees, they work for affiliate or outsourcing companies of TOYOTA).

For example, if I buy a non-TOYOTA car, it put my relative who works as a sales manager in TOYOTA in a hard position in the company. It’s somewhat like he has a Christian in his family in Edo era of Japan in which everyone has to be Buddhist by the government rule. It’s a crime. It’s out of the law. We don’t want to ruin our happy family life. Besides, TOYOTA should be doing good to keep the Aichi economy and, actually TOYOTA makes good cars for sure. So, why not?

There, people buy a new car more than five times in their life. Typically, one family has three cars for father, mother, and a grown-up child. You can tell the financial status of the family if you check the garage. Upper middleclass family buy high speck cars, middle class family have compact cars, and lower middle class family have minicars which TOYOTA doesn’t produce.

So, that means, we don’t have choices. If I live in TOYOTA Corolla life style, I buy the same TOYOTA corolla every ten years. Also, if one gets used to driving one type of car, they want the same type of car for convenience and safety reason. For this cycle, TOYOTA does model changes very frequently for the loyal customers’ satisfaction in changing and not-changing. No one wants to buy the exact same car, but they don’t want to buy a total different car, either. If there’s the same, but much evolved car, it’s worth to buy.

Imagine you love your wife. You don’t want any other woman. This woman is actually from outer space and gets old much faster than you and she has to replace her appearance (this situation is not realistic, though). Isn’t it nice to have the same her with the same identity and charm, but a bit younger, little cuter, having nicer body, knowing more variety of recipes and techniques? It’s like that, in my understanding.

Upgrade is the basic biology of a car company. They know their husbands very well. If they don’t do model change, but launch new cars with different names often instead, they kind of give the clients the opportunities to change the car brand itself, which shouldn’t be the case. To be a beloved wife forever, just as we are, we have to be changing or upgrading ourselves every now and then. “I am still me who you loved, but am just a bit better than before.” Maybe that’s the way for a brand or even for myself.

2010
03/04
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Cure for Motivation

My uncle was a successful businessman. One day, when we went to a seaside restaurant together, I found my uncle staring at two fishermen collecting clams in the sea. I asked him what he is watching. He told me that he is observing why one fisherman is collecting more clams than another. There must have been a difference in skills or actions between the two fishermen, so he wanted to find out.

We were in silence for a while watching the fishermen, and I asked “But why do you want to know?” He answered, “Because curiosity is the key of life, so I force myself to ask ‘why’ as deep as possible when I find any small problem.” He started his career as a low man in totem poll and became a director of TOYOTA without being helped by any connections. I can see why.

On the shore, I asked again. If so, how about the people who don’t have any curiosity or don’t have hunger for knowing? Is there any way this person can ask for a better life? He said, “I see many young people like that in my company. No cure for no motivation. You have nothing to do with them, and I don’t know what to do, either.”

He was a hungry man. Since I was brown in a public worker’s family, this uncle was the icon of the adult business world for me. Patience, sociality, connections, hierarchy, power, and continuous effort. You need a socialized surface and a sensitive depth at the same time. I can’t take that, but I found him an attractive man with the shade of all those history of life.

Motivation is a talent, unfortunately, especially for work and study. I wouldn’t say it’s a nature, otherwise our day-to-day effort to cultivate our own ability and interest means nothing. But if you have a drive, you have a drive. If not, you don’t. You can’t help it or anyone else can help you to have higher motivation or interest.

The young staff in my company keeps high motivation of their work. They have their own measure to judge their work performance, and the standard is naturally very high. Because they set higher goal than their actual ability, they keep trying and studying themselves, and finally get the skills without anyone teaching. For this kind of staff, only you should do is monitoring their work and give small necessary advices and a direction.

But for the students or staff who don’t have motive, there’s not much way to help. You would try using attractions; either producing pleasure or fear. But you will find it won’t really work and you will have spent your energy for nothing after all. We tend to overestimate the effect of education and training. But honestly, it’s pretty much depended on the student or staff’s talent.

The uncle has passed away last year for cancer. I sometimes remember him to question myself how much I am hungry.

2010
01/26
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Indian way, Japanese way

People who are in any business between India and Japan must have their original theory to cope with the culture difference of these two countries. Here’s one of the good ones I’ve heard; “Indians learn from their successes, and Japanese learn from their failures.” This explains the Indian optimism and Japanese pessimism very well.

What I like in Indian way of business is its optimism and flexibility. I suppose many Indian people who work with Japanese have experienced to be tired of the Japanese negative thinking and over-prudence behavior. On the other hand, Japanese people often experience to be scared of Indian way of flexible and occasional decision making. But if we could mix both ways well, this can be the strongest combination in the business world.

At work, I try to think how my natural Japanese conservativeness can contribute our projects without hindering the Indian force and speed. I sense that Indian staff takes the similar effort in the opposite way, too. There’s always a slight difficulty to explain the concepts of cultural difference each other, but it cannot be a big deal as long as we try to benefit from the differences. The important thing is that there’s no right or wrong in this kind of situations.

I also have my own theory; “In culture difference, the difference stands out more when the situation or relationship is bad.” When people criticize, they need a reason to blame something, so culture gap can be an obvious, easy-to-find reason anyone can come up with without thinking through. But this doesn’t happen in a good mood. If we are in good mood, each person’s nature and personality stand out much more than the culture gap.

Nationality acts very small in peace. Some is careful, others are not. Some are critical and others accept. Some are hard-working and others need frequent breaks. Some jokes all the time, and some cannot be funny. In everyday work, we find these kinds of details of each person more than their difference of cultural background.

So if you find yourself arguing about culture gaps in business in negative tone, I think you should calm down and start thinking to find a way to benefit from the complication. Anyway there’s nothing we can do to solve the culture gap. So just don’t be bothered. Or, if you can’t take it, just quietly go home.

2009
10/28
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Describe your character

This is a common question you are asked in interviews or self-introduction, “Describe your character in short words.”

I often say my strength is being positive, and my weakness is thoughtlessness. One of my friends said it’s a good one as it has unity. A positive person can be thoughtless. But I am not sure if companies or organization want that kind of unity in their staffs’ characters. They surely want a thoughtful positive person.

However, as some says, no people are perfect. So I think my thoughtlessness should be acceptable. I just need a careful person around me and warn or question me. I started thinking this way after working in a company with more than 150 people.

When I was working in a much smaller group, there was some pressure on me that I should be perfect, or my lack affects the entire group. But now I think in this way – other people can cover my lack and may have better idea. If you know who is strong in what, you can just ask them. Build a better network is being more important than making myself a better person. This is a big change in my way of thinking in the past two years.

In a company, there can be many mannerists; one could be mean, one could speak too much, one work very slowly, self-centered, etc. etc. At the same time, the ones can be very speedy, patient, and skilled in particular fields. It seems to me that people are working very peacefully accepting each other’s character. I don’t want to imagine how people working with me describe me in this way, though.

This atmosphere is a little different from Japan; where people care of their characters or background quite a lot at work place. Being a nice person is sometimes much more important than working efficient. Being nice take lots of effort; we can use the energy for other parts of the work.

Do I not get self-improvement in this way of thiking? Maybe so.

2009
03/27
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