2 time Olympic Champion, Yuzuru Hanyu, held press conference in Beijing on Feb/15/2022. “I am the king of the Olympics. I have two consecutive gold medals, and I am very proud of this achievement,” he said. “I am a figure skater who has two consecutive titles. I am going to live my life that way.”
His comment to declare to be proud of his past achievements is broadly and favorably welcomed by Japanese media and fans.
However, what happen if Japanese business person mentions his/her past achievements as prides in the same way? What happen if he/she says “I achieve to graduate of XXX university, which is one of my great win in my life. I am going to live my life praising the achievements,” or “I successfully build XXX business in Japan and developed XXX million dollars sales from scratch. I am going to live my life praising the achievements”?
From my 25+ years career experiences in Japan and globally, Japanese professionals and media surely shows unpleasant faces by criticizing “he/she is the bragging person from the past,” or “he/she says past success, because they are not happy now.”
Why, in Japan, people do not evaluate people who did best efforts in their life and deliver great results in their past life such as entering first-class universities or graduate schools, achieving 3 digits millions or even trillion dollars sales at established corporations or successfully growing his/her venture business or business? Why business professional are only evaluated by promotion and positions such as executive officers, surviving internal politics, instead of raising trillions dollars sales at established large corporations? Instead, those people are heavily criticized? Why those people are treated “unhappy person now” or “unsuccessful person now or in the future?” Why Japanese people only review their resume (rirekisho) for employment interviews, but criticize their proud of past great success? Why Japanese does not evaluate talents in business skills, in grade scores, or in IQ, instead always admit talents only in sports, music, or arts? Why kids who do homework hard and get good scores are not praised in front of other classmates by teachers? On the contrary, those students are badly told or bullied by other classmates or even teachers? Why only young kids who plays football or violin well can obtain praises?
I have been wondering long years about this question. Even me, I have to hesitate not to openly raise this issue as question, or even me, I am heavily criticized by people who achieve less success in academic or in professionals. Tough culture, even I love Japanese people and culture, and I am proud of being Japanese and represent of Japan at MIT/Harvard or at global tech ventures.
There are mainly 3 reasons:
First, Japan aimed all middle-class society in 1960s-80s by “convoy system”. Walk with the slowest or least developed students. Thusly, highest grades or IQ people are regarded to demotivate slowest development students, teachers and schools thought.
Second, Japan education focus on knowledge, but action nor realization. Japan business is good at hardware or framework, but poor at soft skills. Only knowledge-oriented education are evaluated in both schools and companies. I always hear Japanese managers from potential business partners say, “I already know it”, but they do never say “I will do it” or “I can do it.” Thusly, they do not evaluate other business professionals past achievements, meaning realization of something new. By criticizing, they believe they can keep their small prides. They believe they have rights to criticize those high achievers because of convoy system.
This hard or framework oriented society in Japan is proved by IMD country ranking (out of 64 countries): Japan is good at creating hardware mechanisms such as broadband 1st, number of Internet users 10th, scientific infrastructure 8th, and institutional framework 21st. On the other hand, software skill oriented education and evaluation are almost at the bottom of the world such as Adequacy of policy response 46th, Decision-making speed 64th, Digital human resources 62nd, International experience 64th, Entrepreneurs spirits 63rd, investment incentives from overseas 50th, efficiency of Small and Middle size business Entities 64th, etc. Japan’s overall ranking is 31st out of 64th with high hard and frame oriented index and very weak soft skills oriented index.
Third, Japan has “culture of shame and sin” that does not only tolerate challenges and failures, but also uniqueness and differences from others in homogenous society. Thusly those high achievers, great scores, IQs or gifted people face toughness to live in Japan homogeneous society, however, Japan still enjoy 3rd largest GDP country despite their poor country competition rank issued by IMD. Japan thinks they are safe to get rid of those uniqueness, talented or high achievers from their societies.
Thusly smartest people already start to move out of Japan. Thusly talented high school students think to enter American, European, or even Asian (China or Singapore) first class universities directly from high schools. Lots of classmates at MIT and Harvard, and lots of country managers professionals who understands English and global competition targets their children to learn at first class foreign universities. Many of them graduate from Tokyo University and study at MIT or Harvard, but they told me “they never want to send their precious kids to University of Tokyo.”
Hope means people believe tomorrow would be better than today.
I try do my best for Japan’s third opening of a country, after the first of end of samurai era and the second after defeat of World War 2 and both of them Japan successfully rebuild to open to global world, for a while without giving up by having hope. In that sense, I think that Japan should utilize global soft skills oriented human resources, including myself, who have been evaluated for their achievements in terms of soft skills in the world’s entrepreneurial and venture environments, and I will not give up appealing to change and rebuild Japan.
.
Published on 2022/2/16. Updated on 3/4, 4/30