The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Have The 3Es In Place Or Get Off The Stage     Not everyone should be a presenter. We don’t need higher levels of boredom or disinterest than we have already. A big “No thank you” to those conspiring to waste our precious time. This does not mean that only a few super talented individuals can be presenters. We can all learn to become competent and become better presenters. This is “nurture” not “nature” in action. The key point is your motivation, why are you doing this?   Dale Carnegie pioneered business public speaking when he launched his first course in 1912. He proffered the 3Es as a solid requirement before we contemplate being a speaker and it still applies today. Those Es are “earned the right”, “ excited” and “eager” to present.   We have earned the right to speak to others about our subject because we have studied the subject and we have relevant experience. It is not limited to our direct experience, because we could be drawing on the experience of others. We should be a subject matter expert with

HQ Invariably Gets It Wrong About Japan   One of the dubious delights of running an international business in Japan is dealing with the Mother Ship or it’s Regional Hub spin off. Trying to explain Japan to those who don’t know Japan, has always proven tremendously character building for me. Having left the corporate treadmill to work for myself, I mistakenly thought I had kissed goodbye to all that pathetic nonsense. Alas, the long arm of Japan ignorance continues to reach out and challenge me. Today, I live the frustration vicariously through my clients here in Japan, who have to deal with their own version of hell - HQ or Regional Hub know nothings located outside Japan.   Joint ventures and partnerships are a fun feast. Japan is low on the detailed contractual side of the equation. The basic idea in Japan is we don’t need reams of lawyer speak, because the venture will be a success or won’t be a success, based on how well we can trust each other and work collaboratively. If it doesn't work out then we shou

Go Ahead, Motivate Me  “Motivate me” must be one of the saddest requests a leader can receive. The request may not be so bluntly articulated, but the underlying assumption that the boss is there to motivate the staff seems to linger. “If only I had a better boss, I would be better”. “If only this company got its act together, I could get mine together”. “If only these other staff weren’t so hopeless, I would do better here – these people are holding me back”. The search for salvation located in the responsibility of others is a big fail. Many religions offer salvation, but they all seem to require something from us to deserve that salvation. The world of mammon is no different.   Motivation, loyalty, accountability, effort, responsibility, engagement – probably every boss is expecting these from their staff. They are all outcomes from inputs. Inputs from both the boss side and the staff side. We know what level of staff motivation we want as leaders, but how do we achieve it?   Some favoured leader methodolog

Atarashi San And The Big Japan Breakthrough Ever heard that a training course changed somebody's life? "It was good", "I enjoyed it", “I learnt something new”, maybe.  Warren Buffett, the famous American billionaire investor is a huge Dale Carnegie fan and often mentions in TV interviews how the Dale Carnegie course changed his life.  Being in Japan, it is great to hear a leading local businessman like Mr. Masami Atarashi say the very same thing. He is very well known in Japan and spends his time writing, adding to the 40 books he has already published and giving public speeches as well as training to executives.  Previously he headed up Johnson & Johnson, Philips, and Hallmark in Japan as President.  Last Thursday evening, he gave a brilliant talk at our graduate party on being successful in business in Japan. He also shared with me how the course impacted him, "The Dale Carnegie Course changed my life. When I was asked to make a speech to an audience or to a customer etc., I trembled with fear and I was

Buyers Behaving Badly   The customer is Kamisama (God) in sales. We hear this a lot in Japan across all industries and sectors. Sometimes however, the buyer can more like an Oni (Devil) when they deal with salespeople. Bad behavior is bad behavior regardless of the source, but when you are trying to sell a company on your product or service, do you just have to suck it up? Actually no!   Unless you are in a very small market segment, where there are only a limited number of buyers, then as salespeople we have choices. If the former is the case, then I suggest changing industries and getting out of that negative bad behavior environment. Life is short and good salespeople have highly transferable skills. If you know what you are doing, you can probably work in almost any business, as long as there is no requirement for highly technical knowledge.   The Japan winner of the worst sales environment is the pharmaceutical industry selling to doctors. Unlike the rest of the advanced world, where patients use the int

What Successful Women Presenters Do Well   I attend lot of events in Tokyo and probably the vast majority of business audiences that I see here have a 70/30 male female ratio. For any presenter understanding your audience is a key part of the preparation and delivery. I have noticed a few commonalities amongst the most successful women presenters in this male dominated environment here in Japan. Here is what I have seen work well for businesswomen when speaking in public.   Confidence is the overwhelming positive first impression. This is communicated in a number of ways. The voice is strong and clear. Even relatively soft female voices can become powerful enough, through using the microphone technology available today, so there is no excuse for letting a weak voice derail the presentation.   Funnily enough, many macho male businessmen seem clueless about how to use microphones. You see them actually wave off the offer of the microphone, because they have a fear or distaste of it. Now if your voice is strong

The Death Valley of Sales   Sales cannot run like a manufacturing production line. We are not making industrial cheese here. This is more like an artisanal pursuit, closer to art than science. Yet, every sales force on the planet has targets which are usually uniform. Each month, the sales team has to deliver a specified amount of revenue, rolling up into a pre-determined annual target. The construct may be logical, but sales is far from logical, as it is steeped in emotion, luck and magic.   Having said that though, sales is also a numbers game and to some extent pseudo-scientific. There are accepted algorithms which apply. You call a certain number of people, speak to a lesser number, meet a few and from that residual group, you conclude an agreement. There are ratios, which when calculated over time, apply as averages linking activity with results. So we call 100 people, speak to 80, see 20, strike a deal with 5. In this construct, to make one sale, on average we need to call 20 people.   With this type o

Unpacking Donald Trump’s Persuasion Power     Donald Trump breaks many of the rules of presenting but he gets the key stuff right. Love him or loath him as a contender for the Republican Party Presidential race nomination, he continues to perform strongly in the polls, against the expectations of the vast majority of American political experts. So, he must be doing something right, as he is proving to be very persuasive with the audiences who flock to hear him speak. Are there any lessons here for us, when we come to give our own presentations?   He is authentic when he speaks. There is no speech writer grinding away in the background polishing his prose to within an inch of its life. None of those semi-invisible prompters on the left and right to drip feed the polished input. He does have some notes to keep him on track, but he barely refers to them. He digresses, goes off on tangents, gets sidetracked, but the audience understands this is the price for the speaker being non-scripted. He keeps their attentio

PM Abe Deletes Soft Skills Development   On June 8th this year Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura told Japanese universities to take “active steps to abolish (social science and humanities departments) or convert them to serve areas that better meet society’s needs”. There was no wiggle room on interpreting the message – he clearly said do what we say or we will cut your funding. So far 26 have gotten the message and have complied with the new policy position of the Japanese government.   The justification was that this was needed “in light of the decrease of the university age population, the demand for human resources and the function of national universities”. Abenomics declares that the role of national universities is to produce “human resources that match the needs of society by accurately grasping changes in industrial structure and employment needs”. Abe himself declared in May last year in his OECD speech that “rather than deepening academic research that is highly theoretical, we will conduct more

It is rare to see a presentation completed well, be it inside the organization, to the client or to a larger audience. The energy often drops away, the voice gradually fades out and there is no clear signal that this is the end. The narrative arc seems to go missing in action at the final stage and the subsequent silence becomes strained. It sometimes reminds me of classical music performances, when I am not sure if this is the time to applaud or not.   First and last impressions are critical in business and in life, so why leave these to random chance? We need to strategise how we will end, how we will ensure our key messages linger in the minds of the listeners and how we will have the audience firmly enthralled, as our permanent fan base.   Endings are critical pieces of the presentation puzzle and usually that means two endings not just one. These days, it is rare that we don’t go straight into some form of Q&A session, once the main body of the talk has been completed. So we need an ending for the pr

That Vital Two Second Window    How long does it take on average to form a first impression?  My students tell me two seconds.  Wow.  What does this mean for the speaker?  It could be in the boardroom, at the networking event or at the pitch to the client. Regardless of the location, one thing is sure – everyone is a critic.      Think back to the last time you saw someone present – be it an update, a project submission, an overview or a fully fledged speech.  Were you indulging in a little mental aside, “I hope this is good”, as you swiveled around in your chair to view the speaker?  Did the speaker get right into it or was there some logistical finessing of the laptop, the lapel mike or the notes sitting on the rostrum?  Was the speaker looking at the audience, up at the huge screen behind or down at the laptop?  Did we have some good old hand mike thumping to see if it was working properly?  If there were any such diversions, then our two seconds have come and gone completely.   What would help us to maxim

Chaos, Mistakes and Idea Popping   Doing more, better, faster with less, screams out for innovation.  This could be at the incremental level – a kaizen approach of continuous improvement or it could be breakthrough leaps that forge new businesses.  Either way, there is a dynamic in play here between processes and people that is critical for our success.  How much scope can we allow in the creative process?  At the practical level, this is really asking how many and how huge are the mistakes you will tolerate to achieve idea popping?   Managers manage processes. Leader also manage processes, but they also have an important role to build people with ideas.  In any workplace there will be some degree of compliance required around regulations, laws, safety concerns etc.  If these are overly tight, then there is usually not a great deal of tolerance for errors.  If it is a complete laissez-faire environment, with no controls, then we will wind up in court and possibly in jail.  Somewhere between compliance and cha

Market Yourself In Under One Minute     Meeting new business contacts, expanding personal networks, promoting a reliable, trustworthy “Brand You” are the basics of business.  By the way, even if our job title doesn’t explicitly mention “sales and marketing” we are all in sales and marketing.  In modern commerce, even professionals in non-traditional sales roles like accountants, lawyers, dentists, engineers, architects, analysts, consultants all need to pitch their expertise to get new clients.  This may not have been the case in the past, but this is the “new black” of the professions.  When we try to influence a decision – buy my widget, use my service, fund this project, open a new market or even where shall we go for lunch - these are all sales and marketing efforts to get others to follow our ideas.  Don’t miss this change and instead master the process, such that you get the business and not your competition.   By the way, first impressions are so critical.  When I ask my class participants during sales

Negotiating With Mr. and Ms. Huge Pain   Sadly, not everyone is like us – wonderful, charming, amusing, attractive.  Despite our best efforts to be a role model of perfection, setting them a good example, others persist in being a major pain.  Here are 12 selective tips on negotiating with the difficult amongst us.   1. Have a positive attitude Sounds like a motherhood statement but deciding to see the negotiation as a learning experience in the real laboratory of life, as a means to enhance our win-win negotiating skills, changes the starting point of the discussion in our favour.   2. Meet on mutual ground Try to meet, rather than engage in a protracted email war or discuss complex issues over the phone.  Face to face is best and preferably on neutral ground for both of you.  Away from the workspace is often best, such as over coffee or lunch, away from the office.   3. Clearly define and agree on the issue Sometimes we are arguing about different things under the same banner.  By defining the issue in comm

Play Nice At Work     The New York Times recently carried an article about the growth at work of rudeness and bad behaviour over the last twenty years.  Christine Porath, the author, noted, “How we treat one another at work matters.  Insensitive interactions have a way of whittling away at people’s health, performance and soul”.  These interactions release hormones called glucocorticoids leading to potential health problems.   The more interesting part of the research on this topic looked at why we are uncivil and more than half said they felt overloaded with their work and 40% said they have no time to be nice.  Nearly half linked career progression to using their position power and being nice was seen as weak. Boss’s attitudes were enlightening.  Twenty-five percent believe they will be less leader-like if they are nice at work.  Nearly 40% feared they would be taken advantage of if they weren’t projecting a tough manner.    There seems to be no shortage of bosses who can only muster position power, know i

Become A Rockstar Coach   A consistent issue our clients raise with us concerns effective coaching. Becoming a leader is usually the result of demonstrating your own ability to get results.  We promote the performers in the hope some of the pixie dust will get sprinkled around. The outcomes are often underwhelming.  For the organization to grow, it needs talent to be fostered right throughout the whole organization.  The natural owners of that fostering effort are the leaders.   Coaching fails because of the poor quality of the process being applied.  In many cases there is no real process at all.  Here is a 7 step process which will vastly improve the coaching outcomes.   1.     Identify Opportunities The need may be obvious or circumstances may reveal a need. For busy leaders, selecting who to coach is a critical decision.  The staff with the most untapped potential are probably the most attractive candidates.  You can’t do everything at once, so start with the option that will create the most value.  We wi

Our Habits Define Our Success   We are all the product of our habits.  What we do regularly defines our level of success.  Bad habits, good habits are all the same, in terms of the production of results, so the input point not the process, becomes very interesting for those wanting to succeed.  How do we ensure that we are adding good habits and eliminating bad habits?    Part of the input process is selection of priorities.  Going to the gym rather than the sports bar is a choice.  Eating that donut rather than an apple is a choice.  Discipline is a famed part of military life and various slacker generations are recommended compulsory military service as a way to fly straight.  Where does this military discipline come from?  Regular habits are a big part.  Doing specific things at the precise same time, in the same way without variation instills habits.  Doing things that must be done, regardless of how you feel about wanting to do them, instills disciplines, which become habits.  You don’t have to join the

Hip Hop Rapper Advice for PM Abe     Vince Staples, American Hip Hop Rapper, was recently quoted in a Financial Times interview, “You have to paint the picture because everyone doesn’t come from the same background”.  Having just attended the Japan Summit 2015 at the Okura Hotel Ball Room run by the Economist and sitting there listening to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Minister for National Strategic Zones Shigeru Ishiba and Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy Akira Amari, I was struck by the lack of picture painting and storytelling in their presentations.   By the way, Abe has improved since I last saw him live.  Whether it was some coaching before the Olympic bid or thereafter, the man is much better.  More animated, using bigger gestures, more eye contact, using those see through glass prompters to help engage the audience rather than looking down at a page of notes. He had humour, pauses for clarity and some voice modulation.  Hey Japan, take note, it is possible to be better at public speaking!   I can