Folks who hear me speak Japanese often marvel at my “knack for foreign languages.” Truth is I don’t have a knack. I’ll admit that I always did okay in English at school and had a decent grasp of grammatical concepts from an early age, so maybe I’m slightly smarter than the average bear when it comes to learning languages. But that’s not much to brag about.

It also doesn’t hurt that I come from a long line of Irish talkers; both my parents were articulate, and raised us to speak standard, grammatically correct American “Midwestern” English. In this sense I’m carrying on the great Sullivan tradition of talking.

The Navy provided the conditions that made it possible to learn Japanese, by sending me to Japan at the tender age of nineteen. My eventual fluency in Japanese was a product of sheer effort backed by some powerful primordial motivations:  I wanted to talk to all the beautiful Japanese ladies (yes all of ‘em), most of whom didn’t speak  a lick of English.

I was discharged from the Navy in Japan in 1979. In April 1980 I enrolled at Waseda University’s one-year, intensive Japanese language program. That year at Waseda was a turning point. It was the year I learned to carry on a basic conversation (however clumsily) in Japanese. It was also the year it dawned on me that learning a foreign language didn’t assure effective communication would happen. I learned the hard way that if you don’t understand the values, assumptions, thought process and culture behind the language you’re studying, then it’s better if you don’t speak the language at all.

The idea of distinguishing the spoken word from the concept of “communication” might sound odd, maybe even cryptic to someone with limited experience with other cultures. To simplify the concept let’s use driving a car as an analogy.

We can all agree that a car is essentially a transportation tool to get you from point A to point B. You can learn the mechanics and technique of driving that car — how to start the engine, put it in gear, turn left or right, press the brake to stop, etc. This would be analogous to learning the grammar and vocabulary of a foreign language. Problem is, if you don’t understand the “rules of the road” then how would you know that a red light means “stop”? Or which side of the road you’re supposed to drive on?

Extending the analogy, by learning and using a foreign language without knowledge of the cultural “rules of the road”, your language ability ceases to be a tool, and now becomes a dangerous weapon. And that’s exactly where my development was at that point in time: unbeknownst to me I was “driving the car” on the wrong side of the road, and in doing so, running through red lights and over my Japanese hosts, rather than building meaningful connections as I should have. It took several years of hard-knocks to figured it out.

Again and again I stumbled onto clues that something was missing in my communication repertoire. Wasn’t sure at the time exactly what it was, but I had the foresight to enroll at International Christian University in Mitaka Tokyo, where for the next 4 years I would continue studying the Japanese language, and eventually major in communications with an emphasis on Intercultural studies.

I stumbled onto  cross-cultural communication when I signed up for a class in my sophomore year entitled, appropriately, “Introduction to Intercultural Communication”. Taught by a stodgy American professor, I showed up the first day of class thinking we would be studying the finer points of Japanese culture. Imagine my surprise when the professor announced that we were going to focus on American culture.

I immediately decided to drop the course, but politely waited until the end of class, after which I approached the professor to ask when he’d be offering a class on Japanese culture.

The professor couldn’t answer my question but gave me great advice that stuck with me all these years. He said, “if you really want to learn to communicate with other cultures, you have to understand your own culture first. That way you have a baseline for comparison and are better equipped to deal with any culture.” Then he added, “Unfortunately most people don’t understand their own culture. Focusing on self-understanding is the best place to start.”

I took his advice to heart and didn’t drop the course. And it proved to be a humbling experience, because I realized for the first time that I had been unconsciously projecting my values onto my Japanese hosts since I had arrived in Japan. To quote Rick Pery, “oops.”

Here’s a Zen parable that beautifully sums up the notion of knowing oneself:

Two tadpoles are swimming in a pond. Suddenly one turns into a frog and leaves the pond. Upon the frog’s return to the water, the tadpole sees the frog and asks, “Where did you go?”

“I went to a dry place, ” answers the frog.

“What is ‘dry’?” asks the tadpole.

“Dry is where there is no water,” says the frog.

“And what is ‘water’?” asks the tadpole.

“You don’t know what ‘water’ is?” the frog says in disbelief. “It’s all around you! Can’t you see it?”

The moral of the story: Values so permeate our cultures that we take them for granted; so immersed are we that our values are invisible. Without self-awareness, tt’s impossible to connect with others.

In concrete terms I had been assuming that just because I, as an American, valued individualism, freedom, self-expression, equality, logic, and truth, that my Japanese counterparts–and every other culture in the world for that matter–naturally shared these values.

How wrong I was!

This “introduction” to my own culture proved to be a major turning point in my life. But it was more than that. Once the light bulb clicked on my worldview suddenly had a panoramic vantage point. The notion that something as abstract and “invisible” as a cultural value had so much power in connecting (and driving apart) people was an epiphany. And it kindled a passion for cultural anthropology, eventually leading to the profession that I’ve spent the last thirty-plus years practicing.

Learning a foreign language was indeed a game-changer for me. But only because it forced me to look at myself through the filters of another culture and “see” my own values. Unfortunately it took too many head-on collisions to realize I was driving on the wrong side of the road, evidence that maybe, just maybe, I’m not smarter than the average bear?

Copyright © Tim Sullivan 2012

On 12/27,  HAAS Charter School students, teacher Tom Brennan, and our good friends from Center Stage dance studio volunteered their time to spend the day at Kilauea Military Camp with Japanese middle school children from the disaster areas in Japan. Our guests traveled to Hawaii via the “Rainbow for Japan Kids” initiative, a program created by Japan America Society of Hawaii to bring hope and joy to young victims of the Japan disaster.

The HAAS kids were awesome as usual, ditto for the Center Stage dance instructors and students who showed us how to “top rock” and “freeze”.

These wonderful young kids have stumbled onto a powerful truth that no one teaches in college cultural anthropology courses: that hip-hop has the power to bring cultures together, especially when it’s expressed through dance.

The videos and pictures below tell the story. The first clip features dance instructor Tunji Johnson and Center Stage student Rylie “Kid Frenzy” Cabalse showing our guests how to dance with passion.

Here’s another great clip of Tunji entertaining the crowd with a beautiful dance solo:

And of course, the pictures…

Did we mention there was bowling too?

A big mahalo to Japan America Society of Hawaii, Tom Brennan and his students at HAAS Charter School, and all the wonderful folks from Center Stage who volunteered to spend the day with our special guests.

Copyright © Tim Sullivan 2012

THE THEORY OF PROVIDED CONDITIONS

 “If you want to create a certain result, you must first create the conditions that will absolutely force that result to occur.”

Kazuma Tateishi, Founder of Omron

I first became aware of the Theory of Provided Conditions through a fortuitous connection made years ago with two American mentors, both extremely wise and contrarian management consultants, both of whom were preaching a management approach that “taps into the power of the human mind”. They called it “mind technologies”.

That’s where I learned about the theoretical side of management. But the cornerstone of my belief in “provided-conditions theory” comes from real-life experiences working in and comparing Japanese and American-run organizations. I was trained to manage by these principles long before I even knew there was a name for it. And I saw firsthand its effectiveness in producing results in Japanese-run factories.

On the flip side, I was surprised, disappointed and greatly intrigued to learn that provided-conditions philosophy engendered such strong resistance from American managers, a  bias that tends to be prohibitive to developing a continuous improvement culture. So I started digging.

Keep in mind that the resistance from American organizations wasn’t always overt, so it took some time to figure out that there even was resistance. People have a knack for subtly dragging their feet in inconspicuous, unthreatening ways, all the time smiling and agreeing with you. I was naive to believe them! (The litmus test happens when something goes wrong: does that person take responsibility?)

This all happened after I entered corporate America for the first time in the early 90s, right after spending several years engaged exclusively with Japanese transplants. Suddenly surrounded by Americans, I remember discussing provided-conditions  theory with whoever would listen, and getting mixed reviews. Some Americans  flat-out rejected the assumption that responsibility should “roll uphill” based on the personal-responsibility rap. (Their honesty was refreshing!)

Yet others expressed enthusiastic support for the notion of responsibility rolling upward, some even went as far as saying: “If my department isn’t producing results, then I’ll man up and take the hit.” Or something to that effect.

Sounds good when you say it. Problem is rarely do you see an American manager man up and take the hit. He’s usually too busy covering his ass with excuses and finger pointing, deflecting blame any way he can.

Taking value judgments out of the picture, this defensive behavior is quite natural and predictable under the fear-inducing conditions the American manager has been provided by those above him. Truth is people at all levels are scared, usually about the wrong things. (They should be more scared of their company not being competitive than whether their boss likes them.) The reality is that no matter how nice and civil everyone behaves at work, someone above you has the power to terminate you tomorrow. Everyone is so nice until the day they decide you’re expendable, when they send a security guard to coldly escort you out the door.

Sound like an exaggeration? Sadly I’ve seen this happen to good people over the years, too often for bogus political reasons. And equally too often the folks at the top who were making critical strategic mistakes stayed employed, some were even rewarded for failure. Their trick to pulling this off was their ability to deflect blame rather than “take the hit”.

No surprise that an environment of fear creates conditions that rig the system against effectively employing The Theory of Provided Conditions. Ironically, if you accept the premise that provided conditions influence human behavior and outputs, the resulting defensive behavior of American employees is a logical output of the fearful conditions provided from above. The difference is that TOPC assumes that responsibility rolls uphill, while in corporate America it tends to roll the other way, usually in the form of blame and punishment.

This is why the idea of finding cultural variances that would allow a “provided-conditions” philosophy to work in Japan but not in the U.S. intrigues me. In the final analysis, it comes down to the values, assumptions and beliefs we hold near and dear in our respective cultures. All our outputs flow from this “spiritual” place.

At the top of my list of game-changing assumptions, is how our respective cultures characterize basic human nature.

Are People Basically Good?

In the previous post I alluded to the notion that, short of serious infractions such as sabotage, fighting or stealing, elite Japanese manufacturers generally don’t punish their operators. They start with the assumption that their employees have good intentions and are trying their best.

Acknowledging that “some folks just don’t care”, I agree with the Japanese that most normal, healthy human beings want to connect with quality, whether it’s at work, home or socially.

But it’s just an assumption, nothing more. What matters in a for-profit organization is the outputs the assumption does or doesn’t produce. Hence my bias toward believing in the basic goodness of people comes not from a place of idealism, but from the results I’ve seen flow from this assumption.

Problem is that too many American workplaces start with the opposite assumption, which goes a long way in explaining why they employ primarily punitive strategies to manage their staff, certainly the hourly employees. To use an extreme example, Henry Ford’s very early production line management method employed brutes to bully the line workers, all toward the goal of maximizing productivity, meaning that sometimes bathroom breaks, etc. were denied. Not to say that Henry Ford invented the approach, it’s been with mankind since forever. But American culture back then certainly allowed it to evolve (in the name of “efficiency”). In fairness we adjusted when things got out of hand–thanks to the power of unions–so conditions have absolutely improved for the worker historically. And yet a strain of that punitive bias still lingers in many American companies.

Lingering Spiritual Legacies

Digging deeper, the differences in assumptions about basic human nature can be observed in our ancient spiritual legacies as well, traditions that affect the way we behave even in modern times. Here’s a telling personal experience to paint the picture:

Years ago I was driving in the Chicago area with my Japanese wife. Suddenly a guy cut me off. I managed to avoid an accident but boy was I ticked. Naturally I screamed some choice expletives at my object of scorn. “You #$%&@ jerk!” 

I still clearly remember my wife turning to me in shock and saying, “Why are you yelling at him?”

I thought it was self-evident: “The jerk cut me off!”

“He didn’t do it on purpose!” she said.

“Yes, I think he did!” I said with no clue what the guy’s intentions were. My frustration was further exacerbated by the appearance of my wife taking his side. (A glimpse at my immature side for sure.)

Of course my wife didn’t know the guy’s intentions either. Like me, she was making a knee-jerk assumption, the kind you make before you’re even conscious of it. I mention this because it’s the unconscious human responses that reveal most about one’s culture and personal character, the cultural “default mode” if you will. That’s why this particular example is so telling. Both of us were defaulting to the implicit values and assumptions taught and perpetuated in our respective cultures. The exchange really made me think and reflect.

The point here isn’t about who was right and who was wrong; we’ll never know the answer. What’s interesting is that I had already convicted the man for his “sin” of intentionally driving into my lane. Meanwhile my wife was giving him the benefit of the doubt, assuming, as we both should have, that it was just an innocent human mistake.

So it begs the question: why might our raw, unfiltered reactions to this incident be so different?

Aside from the cultural dimension, it could be the idiosyncrasies of our respective personalities. It could also be our different interpretations of the situation as a driver versus passenger. It could be related to our genders. Likely it’s all of the above. But the crux of the analysis really boils down to our different cultural assumptions about human nature. Was the guy trying to “do good” or wasn’t he?

Digging even deeper, the West has Christianity, a religion that says we’re all born with original sin, or, said another way, we’re flawed and “guilty” from day one of our existence. Christianity’s “corrective action” in dealing with our original-sin-stained souls is performed through the ritual of baptism, a tradition designed to purify and save us.

Japanese Shinto in contrast, is a religion that believes all children are born pure–and then of course it all goes downhill from there! Shinto indeed has the tradition of baptism, but it’s all about chasing away evil spirits before they infect the child, not erasing an inherited sin. Hence, the assumption in the minds of the ancient Japanese is that humans were born “good”. This strand of DNA lingers today in Japan (except when it comes to their politicians).

It’s fascinating that these unconscious ancient cultural assumptions feed our behavior in every facet of our lives, when we’re driving our cars, disciplining our children, even working in our factories.

Thankfully the punitive brutes and thugs of yesteryear’s production lines are gone. Our laws and unions got rid of them (or in some cases just dressed them up in business suits). In place of overt physical and psychological intimidation, we now have a more subtle “corrective action” system to make everything look civilized, while upholding the ultimate priority of protecting the company from potential lawsuits.

The punitive argument in corporate America goes something like this:

1)    The individual is responsible for his or her own actions.

2)    If the worker makes a mistake, it’s the employee’s fault, no one else.

3)    In the spirit of “fairness”, the guilty party must bear responsibility, a principle that too often implies punitive consequences.

This thought-process makes sense in an individualistic society that embraces the myth of self-sufficiency and self-determination. And it is deemed fair as long as (in principle) everyone is consistently held to the same standards and rules.

A good portion of corporate America is great at pretending it’s upholding the fairness ideal. Problem is that it is applied selectively. A great example is the 3-strike “rule”: it is generally only applied to operators on the production line; rarely if ever do you see a 3-strikes policy being used in the white-collar world.

The legal argument for having standards is understandable. It’s smart to document performance issues to avoid future lawsuits on wrongful termination, discrimination, etc. But to make this all legal and legit, 2 classes (really 3) of employees were created: hourly versus salaried versus executives.

Keep in mind that each class has its own set of standards and rules, with the top of the pecking order getting the cushiest terms and benefits, and in extreme instances some even get rewarded for failure (for example, the golden parachute severance package, and even more disgusting, the big banks that got bailed out by the government giving bonuses to their incompetent executives who ran the economy into the ground).

But getting back to our concrete example, why is it that only the hourly folks get only three chances to screw up? Someone please explain how this is fair?

The word “write-up” is now out of style of course. As mentioned in the previous post, to give it a softer, gentler spin, some HR departments have substituted the descriptor “write-up” with the euphemism “Corrective Action”. They fool only themselves.

What many managers in corporate America don’t seem to grasp, is that making folks “take responsibility” does not have to mean punishment. More effective options exist. In the story in my last post, I had my subordinate take responsibility for his mistake by inviting him to help solve the problem with us. And he was so happy to oblige, instantly becoming a productive member of our improvement team. Had I chosen to punish him instead, it surely would have created a resentful employee motivated to protect himself at all costs, rather than express his natural desire to do good in the world.

Tying it all together, one’s approach to managing people ultimately flows from a simple, fundamental assumption that hinges on the question, Are people basically good or bad?

I choose to believe the former. And in fairness, some of my compatriots share my belief. Just not enough of them. Yet.

This post may sound like the ramblings of a clueless Polyanna to the uninitiated. My only response is that my conviction is based on hands-on experience not pie-in-the-sky theory. I’ve had the privilege to work intimately in two cultural management systems, and know firsthand what works in building continuous-improvement cultures.

Acknowledging that there’s a time and place for punitive discipline, I submit that punitive measures should be the exception, a last resort after all positive avenues have been exhausted. Corporate America would do well to reconsider the wisdom of an exclusively punitive approach to discipline, and consider instead a more humane, collaborative way of tapping into people’s natural desire to connect with quality.

Copyright © Tim Sullivan 2011

“If you want to create a certain result, you must create the conditions that will absolutely force that result to occur.

Kazuma Tateishi, Founder of Omron

One of my most memorable experiences in a Japanese-run factory happened several months after I arrived in the Deep South from Kanagawa, Japan some 24 years ago. The plant was brand-spanking new, thanks to the multi-million dollar investment the Japanese parent company made to gain a foothold into the U.S. automotive market.

Walking into the plant one morning, our Japanese Manufacturing Engineer (Mr. “Tanaka”) approached me in a tizzy. He said he just received a complaint from the customer that we had shipped a defective part, and that they expected us to identify the root cause and issue a corrective action report.

Tanaka-san grabbed my sleeve and dragged me out to the assembly line where the part in question was made. He wanted me to interpret.

It’s worth mentioning that Tanaka-san had worked over 30 years  in the trenches of a noisy stamping plant. No surprise he was hard of hearing and consequently yelled everything he said. So I knew I had to tread carefully in facilitating the interaction that was about to happen.

As we approached the line operator, Tanaka-san barked, “Tim-san, tell her the customer found a defect, and ask if she’s ever noticed any weak, non-conforming welds?”

I interpreted.

“I only make quality parts,” said the operator. “That defect didn’t come from me!”

I interpreted.

Mr. Tanaka said, “She seems like she’s afraid of something.”

I agreed, but didn’t mention that his loud demeanor might have something to do with it. Then I added, “She thinks you’re blaming her.”

Well this took Mr. Tanaka by surprise. He turned to me and yelled, “I would never blame her. If anyone is to blame it’s me, because my responsibility is to make sure our operators have stable processes that always make good parts.”

Now imagine the look on the operator’s face after I interpreted, as the poor lady wondered why Tanaka-san was screaming this kind of message: the incongruence of the words and demeanor must’ve blown her mind.

Truth is Tanaka-san’s thought-process was a revelation to me too, so I was as stunned as the operator. But as my experience and insights into Japanese management grew deeper over the years, I came to realize that this thought-process permeates Japanese manufacturing culture in general, certainly in the elite Japanese companies. It would take several more years before I learned that a Japanese business legend, Kazuma Tateishi, had actually coined a term for this way of thinking. He called it “the Theory of Provided Conditions.”

A Business Leader with a Social Conscience

Kazuma Tateishi, founder of Omron, is one of my heroes. One reason is because he was one of Japan’s rare leaders who had the will, talent and intellect to build revive his company from the devastation of postwar Japan.

The other reason is he believed that the corporate enterprise was a public servant for the community at large. (Don’t dismiss this as pie-in-the-sky altruism; Tateishi also believed that, in the long run, “those who serve society best will win.”)

And Tateishi put his money where his mouth is: he built a new company, Omron Taiyo in Kyushu, that he staffed entirely with severely handicapped people. Out of respect for these special-needs employees, he held them to the same standards and operational goals that he did with employees in all his other divisions. To his delight, they consistently exceeded his assigned targets and turned a profit within just a year. In Tateishi’s own words:

“…the creation of this company has allowed handicapped persons to become taxpaying, productive members of society. Here is a prime example of ‘the company as public service.’ Moreover, successfully overcoming the risks of creating a “social service factory,” which no other large or medium-sized company had been willing to accept, was just the sort of challenge that Omron, with our venture spirit, likes to take on.”

Putting aside Tateishi’s commendable public service philosophy, what impresses me most from a business standpoint is his cerebral, strategic approach to management and leadership.

Big-Business Disease

In the early 1980s Tateishi was worried about his growing company succumbing to what he called “big-business disease”. As Omron’s divisions grew and widened their scope of activities, so did his division managers’ responsibilities. Tateishi’s remedy for big-business disease was predicated on The Theory of Provided Conditions, the belief that if management wants to create a certain result, then they must first create the conditions that make that result inevitable.

To achieve these ends Tateishi restructured. He selected a small number of managers to lead his divisions, then put them into a structure that forced them to take responsibility–whether they liked it or not! He assigned each of them the same responsibilities as those of the President of a medium-sized company, including Profit and Loss, the balance sheet, cash flow, research and development, and so on. Omron’s corporate restructuring hence created the conditions whereby Tateishi’s divisions had no choice but to become venture businesses.

Confucian Leadership

This is not to say that Tateishi invented the Theory of Provided Conditions, but he certainly crystallized a fundamental management concept that many Japanese managers employ today without even thinking about it. But the approach is only made possible if one embraces certain assumptions about the nature of people and the role of leaders in an organization.

When I was first introduced to Tateishi’s legacy (and specifically his book The Eternal Venture Spirit), and got to the part about the Theory of Provided Conditions, the light bulbs started clicking on. Suddenly the experience with Mr. Tanaka and the operator made perfect sense. Behind Tanaka-san’s approach were some very big, unspoken cultural assumptions. To wit:

1)    People are basically good; they want to do quality work

2)    Blaming operators is counterproductive as fear only motivates people to hide their mistakes

3)    Continuous improvement is impossible when mistakes are hidden

4)    People who make products are human, not perfect

5)    The customer expects perfection

6)    Responsibility rolls uphill

7)    It is management’s job to provide the conditions that ensure imperfect people make only perfect parts all the time.

The problem with these assumptions is they don’t necessarily crossover into other cultures, certainly not individualistic cultures like America that believe “the individual is responsible for his own actions”. No doubt the proverbial troops in the trenches in even the most culturally American organization would gladly embrace the above thinking, but you’d be lucky to find takers in middle management, where everyone knows “the shit rolls downhill” and it’s every man for himself.

It sounds cynical but corporate America provides conditions conducive to hiding mistakes, covering one’s ass, which naturally leads to finger-pointing.

Here’s a case in point: When I was hired as plant manager to run an American factory, I immediately located my desk on the shop floor because I knew that’s where the money was made and lost. A couple weeks into the gig I remember my 1^st shift supervisor approaching my desk, handing me a piece of paper and saying, “Tim, when you get a chance would you please sign this?”

I looked at the document. Written across the top in capital letters was “CORRECTIVE ACTION.”

As I read on, it soon became apparent that the document was what we used to call an “employee write up”–except it was disguised as an improvement tool. (Someone apparently had taken a Total Quality Management course and decided that if you change the words from “Write Up” to “Corrective Action” then your systems will produce zero defects and beautiful rainbows!”)

Continuing the conversation, I went into detective mode, “What’s the purpose of this document?”

“Well, the operator passed a defect that made it to the customer. It’s his first incident, but we have to record his mistake. We have a 3-strikes policy so he has two more chances before he’s terminated”

“So if I sign this document does this mean the problem is solved and that no more defective parts will reach the customer?”

She stammered, “Um, I don’t think so…”

“Then why do I need to sign this?”

“Because it’s HR’s policy to document all operator mistakes.”

“Do you think that’s fair?” I asked. “No one documents my mistakes. I’ve made a lot more than three, and I’ve only been here a couple weeks.”

“Well, it’s our policy…”

“The way I see it, if the operator failed to make a good part in a process that management established, then management has to accept most of the responsibility when the process fails.”

Now she was really confused. Apparently it had never occurred to her that perhaps management had a hand in making the defect.

Suddenly I had a flash of inspiration: I scratched out the operator’s name on the CORRECTIVE ACTION, and wrote mine.

“You’re going to write yourself up?”

I was tempted to say, “I thought it was a ‘corrective action’!”–but held my tongue.

I continued: “Look, the operator makes $20,000 a year at best. Folks in management make a lot more so we have to accept a lot more responsibility. If my subordinate makes a mistake then I own the mistake too.” Then I added, with tongue in cheek, “And since this person also works for you, maybe I should also put your name on this Corrective Action too!”

As you might imagine she didn’t like that idea.

“Introduce me to the operator, I want to meet him,” I said.

So together we walked through the plant to the operator’s workstation. As I approached the operator with the dreaded corrective action in hand, his face turned white. (Didn’t know it at the time, but my predecessor’s nickname was “Saddam Hussein.”) The poor operator was certain I was there to punish him.

First I introduced myself and he did the same. Then I apologized for not providing a stable process that made consistent quality parts, and tore up the Corrective Action sheet. It totally blew his mind.

“I’m not going to write you up. But in return I need you to be part of the improvement team to fix this problem so it never happens again. Since you run the job everyday, you’re the most knowledgeable person about this process. We need your help if we’re going to fix it. Would you please help us?”

The operator was thrilled to be part of the solution. He joined my new improvement team and immediately became a contributor.

Working together on this project we grew closer and I learned that the operator had immigrated to the U.S., and that not only was he an engineer in his home country, he was also a carpenter and welder. He eventually became a full-time member of our improvement team, and evolved into one of our most valuable employees.

It’s worth summarizing the moral of this story: if you take a punitive approach to managing employees you create fear; if employees are afraid, they hide their mistakes, it’s only human nature. And if they hide their mistakes then the problems will never get to the surface where they can be rectified. Continuous improvement is impossible unless you drive fear out of the organization (what TQM guru Edwards Deming articulated in his 8th Principal–”drive fear out of the organization.”)

This story also highlights one of the biggest obstacles in creating a continuous improvement culture in corporate America. Japanese culture has Confucianism, a legacy that supports the notion of responsibility rolling uphill (if not in reality then in principle). Unfortunately most Americans are familiar with the adage that “the shit rolls downhill”. In an American factory environment, it means the poor operator on the production line ends up holding the bag of shit.

Teaching any American organization to roll responsibility uphill is one of the toughest nuts to crack from a cross-cultural point of view. It is so counter to America’s “individual responsibility” paradigm, so threatening to American managers, that few leaders are willing to step to the plate and say “it’s my fault now let’s fix it”.

Over a four-year period running the American plant, I managed to win over some converts who appreciated and embraced the shit-rolls-uphill philosophy. But overall it was no match for an individualistic culture that places priority on covering one’s ass, over fixing problems for the long-term greater good.

Still, I believe some American companies have the right values and leaders in place to make The Theory of Provided Conditions work for them. In future posts I’ll examine and analyze the basic elements of this philosophy so organizations can decide for themselves if TOPC will work for them.

Copyright © Tim Sullivan 2011

On the tail-end of our recent trip to Japan we stopped by Kinomiya Jinja in Atami to check out the local kami, as the deities Isotakeru, Yamatotakeru and Okuninushi are rumored to live there.

Here’s what Yamatotakeru apparently looks like (an artist’s conception, I can only assume):

Our shrine visit was also a chance to reminisce about my first son’s fake baptism into the Shinto religion there 25 years ago. Ah the memories!

Of course we had to purify ourselves prior to entering the Shrine complex. Here’s Japanese dad showing us how it’s done.

Wandering around the complex we stumbled onto a 2,000-year-old Camphor tree (it’s kind of hard to miss). It’s said to be a  ”power spot”, and that your life gets extended a year every time you walk around the trunk. Of course I don’t believe in these silly superstitions. But I did ten laps just in case.

Then out came our camera for video footage of this amazing, sacred old grandpa of a tree. Check out what a 2,000-year-old Camphor tree looks like in the clip below. And if you’re interested in what a Shinto Shrine courtyard looks like, there’s a bonus clip below.

The courtyard of Kinomiya Jinja:

Copyright © Tim Sullivan 2011

• They all bowed their heads and greeted us with “ohayo gozaimasu” (Good morning!)
• They expressed concern for our safety (“Watch where you’re walking and be careful!”)
• They warned us when cars approached from the rear
• They even had a matt placed on the road to designate the entrance to the construction area!

All that and some nice shots looking down into Atami City.

Check out the clip:

Meanwhile someone was washing my windows, wiping down my exterior, checking my oil, filling my tires and pumping my gas. Three minutes later my car was cleaner than it had ever been inside and out. When I pulled out of the station to enter the street, two attendants ran in front of my car, blocked traffic both ways so I could get out, then bowed and thanked me as I drove away.

That was the old days. Looks like full service stations in Japan are going the way of the betamax format. But they still have a few full-service relics left. The bad news is the service has dropped somewhat–you’ll notice in the video below that we were handed a towel to clean the windows and interior ourselves. And yet, it’s still way ahead of what you get in the U.S.  For what you pay in Japan it better be!

Check it out for yourself:

In the town of Kannami at the foot of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Japan (right across the street from Izunitta train station on the Izu-Hakona railway) is a cool little coffee shop called Irodori. Rather than paint a picture with words, thought a video tour would work best. The coffee was delicious, the tiramisu to die for, but the Japanese decor pulled it all together. Check it out as well as the pictures below:

A rare shot of Mount Fuji on a clear day from the town of Kannami in Shizuoka Japan.

The entrance to Irodori, basically an old, traditional Japanese house converted to a coffee shop. Interestingly, kids aren’t allowed in, but I understand why: kids and paper shoji doors are a baaaaad combination!

You have to remove your shoes before entering Irodori Cafe, consistent with the idea of going into someone’s home. Note that this is not typical of your run-of-the-mill Japanese coffee shop (pun intended), a nice touch that just adds more charm and warmth to the shop’s ambience.

You gotta love Japanese understated elegance, an aesthetic concept described in Japanese as shibui.

For more information in English on Irodori click here.

Copyright © Tim Sullivan 2011

Check it out:

Copyright © Tim Sullivan 2011