‘Beautiful’ Resume

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‘Hitotsubashi Business Review’  (in Japanese) is a quarterly magazine read broadly by business people in Japan. Edited by Hitotsubashi University Institute of Innovation Research (Director, Professor Seiichiro Yonekura),  the magazine’s fall issue recently organized a special feature on ‘the 10th anniversary’ of the magazine.  It was my honor to write some of my thoughts to congratulate, together with Mr. Fujio Mitarai, Chairman and CEO, Canon; Professor Ikujiro Nonaka; and Mr. Takuya Iwasaki, Editor in Chief, ‘Diamond Harvard Business Review.

The title of my article is “‘Beautiful’ Resume ("'Utsukushii' Rirekisyo no Jidai")” (in Japanese) . The wording was quoted from a book by Ms. Michi Kaifu  ‘Paradise and Closed Country ? Japan, a Forgotten Great Power (in Japanese, original title ‘Paradise Sakoku- Wasurerareta Taikoku Nippon)’  (Ref.1) (in Japanese). 

Besides the book, Ms. Kaifu is sending out messages actively from Silicon Valley through her blog (in Japanese). What this title means is explained in her book, and by the way, her book is one of my recommended readings because it is filled with good catchy words reaching to the core issues of Japan. 

I borrowed this wording because I thought by this expression Ms. Kaifu beautifully described almost the same idea as what I have been saying, i.e. “build your career by seeing yourself better in the global world through spending some time and competition with peers outside”- you can see your strength and weakness self better and more objectively.

How to build such ‘beautiful’ resumes ? is also the core message of my book with Professor Yoko Ishikura ‘How to Build a Global Career (Sekaikyu Kyaria no Tsukurikara)’.

And examples of how to start this kind of career are to ‘Take a Leave of Absence from School’ , one of my major messages, or the ‘Asian Youths Exchange Program’ in Okinawa.

Our current system of one track career, being promoted step by step within the same organization, starting a career right after university graduation, employment being informally decided at junior year in collage ? the society which take these facts for granted and ‘norm’ should be regarded as ‘outrageous (tondemo)’ career in global and flattening world.  Working lifetime for the same organization must be a choice for ‘the employees’.  However, in government offices and big companies, this single career remains the standard for most people.  Even in universities, where more autonomy and mobility is expected, we see quite a number of ‘Four Lines Biography Professors (yongyo kyojyu, i.e. professors who need only 4 lines for their academic resume staying and being promoted in the same institution)’ (Ref.1) (in Japanese)

Why is it that I (originally in the field of science, an MD) was asked to write for such a ‘business’ magazine?  To be frank I hesitated a bit when I thought about the readers of this magazine, but on the other hand was also pleased.  Perhaps the idea came from Professor Yonekura.  It may be because my philosophy is that whether in business, education, health services, or government, the basics is always ‘B to B’ for all, and ‘how much you are able to see and feel the change’.  In short, my ‘B to B’ is ‘Back to Basics’. The person who continuously emphasizes this principle of ‘Back to Basics’ in business and innovation is Peter Drucker, whom you all know very well.

 

Meeting of Enthusiastic Youths Who Heard Their ‘Inner Voice’ and Jumped on to Action

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Considering how difficult it is to find jobs today, the future of youths seem to be quite unpromising.  There are, however, a small number of grown ups and entrepreneurs working actively to support young people.  The ‘Fresh Career Course’ by Pasona (Ref.1,2)(in Japanese) designed to support new graduates is one of those examples.  I think these actions are wonderful.  I, too, participate as one of the supporting members for such right and compassionate actions.

On the other hand, there are increasing number of young people who have found what they really want to do through ‘on the site experiences’, in search for ways to reach the goals, and stepping forward towards the goal with great effort.  I wish to support them sincerely in my own capacity as I have introduced to you more than several times in my site (Ref.1,2).  
 
Two days ago I had guests at my office who gathered in spite of the heavy rain we had that day; Ms. Kanae Doi of Human Rights Watch, Mr. Shigeyuki Jo  (in Japanese) of Joe’s Lab, Mr. Yuske Matsuda and Mr. Kota Fukazawa, working hard to get on track their recently founded ‘Learning For All’ (in Japanese) (a group set up in preparation of the Japanese version of ‘Teach For America’ which I have introduced to you in this site 2 years ago ), Mr. Naoto Miyahira  of Soket and his colleague (Dr. Arai of D-Lab Japan).  My intention was to introduce them to each other to have them tell their ‘stories (monogatari)’ so that they may ‘connect’ and ‘expand horizontally’ as they see fit.  I am quite positive that many future-looking enprepreneurial activities will emerge and expand through them.

Youths hear their ‘inner voice’ through their ‘first hand experience’ and then be awakened, filled with passion.  Good examples include Mr. Saisyo and Miyoshi, students of Waseda University (on leave) and their colleagues who are currently working hard in Bagladesh (I have introduced them to you a number of times here (Ref.1) ), senior students who responded to my message of ‘Take Leave of Absence from School’, suspended their job hunting activities, took leave of absence from school and went to Moscow or is going to Ghana next week.

These students have much stronger ‘gut’ or ‘deep inner' feeling of the essence of important matters than most of the grown ups who always respond with ‘Reasons Why Something Cannot Be Done’.

We, the grown ups, should support and encourage those youths, but never interfere or obstract their paths.  This world is changing in a great speed.  The future of the young generation is the top priority for human resource development and the future of Japan.

 

Hayman Island, ADC Leadership Retreat -2

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Please click here for the photos.

The 2nd day at Hayman Island was beautiful.  We should be outdoors in such day.

However, the program was quite packed.  I was scheduled to be at the ‘Kailis Oration’ (Session 6) (cf. the program).  This opening session of Day 2 was again hosted by Nik Gowing.  It was an exciting session starting with questions raised by Bjorn Stigson, the photos linked above which I appear are of this panel (also included are the 2 photos of Nick Stern (facing backwards), myself, and Bjorn Stigson after the panel).

Clyde Prestowitz, whom I met in Tokyo a few weeks ago, is also participating in various discussions starting today.

For lunch session, I joined session 9.5, a panel surrounded by beautiful greens.  Somehow the discussion focused on the issues of Australia.  My colleague William Saito was also on the panel with me.  Chris Selth said that there were few targets for VC, was quite critical in that sense pointing out how dependent Australia was on its rich natural resources for its economic growth…. Then followed the plenary lecture by Richard Wilkinson  (right after session11).  I think that producing such type of academics as Dr. Wilkinson represents one of the strengths of British academic community.
 
Another session was ‘Cybersecurity’ (session 12.2) hosted by Nik Gowing.  William Saito did a very good job here.

On the 3rd day, 29th, I was especially impressed, among many, by Stephan Bungay in session 16.3, and Bror Saxberg of Kaplan (I felt that the power of the US lies in the fact of having quite a volume of extraordinary, brilliant and ‘crazy’ people like him) in session 17.3 ‘Education futures’ whom I have introduced to you in my last report , and my old friend Jeff West (another brilliant and ‘crazy’) in session 20.3.   These sessions were all very moving and thought provoking.

There were of course many other sessions that I would have liked to join, but as you see from the program, doing so was not easy.

My last appearance in the afternoon was with William Saito at ‘Japan -Perspectives on Change’ (session 19.3).  Australia, the host country, has just gone through the federal election which ended in an unexpected result and people here were talking about it excitedly.  On the other hand our story is; ‘Japan?  Well, we had 5 prime ministers in these 4 years.  Maybe the 6th is coming soon?’ ? isn’t this a bit sad?  I tried to include many comparisons and metaphors to make my points of Japan clearly understandable to non-Japanese intellects; perhaps, I somewhat succeeded since after the session I was told by several people that my discussion was ‘very persuasive, clear, and easy to understand’.  I do think that the current (and even the last 50 years') situation of Japan is difficult to understand if we do not present them in a sound logical manner, focusing to the basic issues and from outside perspective.
 
The closing ceremony ended by a very moving speech by Michael Roux, the host.

We enjoyed a nice dinner reception in the evening.

I would say that this 3 days’ retreat was a very nice event of a good size which made it possible to share much more intimate time, even more than the World Economic Forum in Davos (which I posted for many years), with truly wonderful participants to exchange different and common views and share new ideas. I was able to see my old friends, make new friends, see ‘great’ people such as those whom I have introduced to you in my report postings ‘1, 2’ and Gita Wirjawan  (Ref.1) of Indonesia.  I learned a lot from each of them.  Also, I was lucky enough to be asked to join in many good sessions in earlier phase (opening panels of day 1 and day 2) so many new friends noticed me from early of this three days Retreat  I sincerely thank Michael Roux for his invitation and thoughtsfullness.

 

The Economist, Sarcastic But Honest: ‘Food For ‘Zombies’, ‘The Civil Service Serves Itself’

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I would say that ‘The Economist’ competes for the 1st or 2nd position as the most widely read weekly magazines in economy.  This magazine even picks up the issues of its home country, Great Britain with plenty of sarcasms, to report to its people and the world what they need to know.  This precisely is the most important and basic mission of journalism, the foundation for its credibility.  The Economist has its own ‘unique, cool’ style in writings, titles, figures and charts which makes it so special and unsurpassable.

Those, I think, are the reasons why The Economist or Financial Times are so highly evaluated, being read by business people throughout the world.  In short, their works are professional.

Japanese journalism is quite different here.  Basically it is rather on the establishment side as you see for example by the system of members only ‘Press Club (Kishya Kurabu)’ and their reports are in large part targeted to Japanese only, i.e. mere 2% of the population of the whole world.  It is a matter of course then that journalism of the ‘global age’ will not develop in such circumstance. I doubt that they (Japanese journalists) have such ambition to be global in the first place.

I have recently introduced to you in my blog one of the articles of The Economist and here I would like to call your attention to a good sarcasm in the article (1) and another in the ‘On-line’ edition (2).

Please refer to the original for the full text but:
In (1), the subtitle is striking; ‘Food for zombies’(click here for Japanese translation of the article). They write how Japanese government endlessly supports not well performing big companies, and new enterprises hardly emerging, so many no-good companies survive, thus only to become ‘zombies’. This is a keen observation which I totally agree.
In (2), the title is; ‘The civil service serves itself’ describing the irresponsible current mechanism and governance of Japanese bureaucrats or civil servants; they enjoy ‘Descent from Heaven (Amakudari).’ Spending huge amounts of public money for themselves.

The world is noticing the reality of Japan.  What will become of our national credibility?

These days politics seems to be occupied with nothing but their struggles within the party.  Our country is having 5 prime ministers in 4 years – an outrageous nation (Tondemo Kokka) – are we going to have the 6th prime minister beginning later this month?

What has become of the elites of ‘intellect’ of this nation (Ref.1); ‘legislators, governments, industries’ and ‘academics’, I wonder?

Don’t they care any more about the people of Japan?

Does Japan now have to head for the crises ?

L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship, Astronaut Naoko Yamazaki Wins Special Award

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On August 23th I left Okinawa AYEPO 2010 closing ceremony for Tokyo where I headed directly to the L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship Award Ceremony.

As I always say, shining women are the hope of Japan.

Again this year 4 bright and young women scientists were awarded this honor.? Also this year, a special award was given to astronaut Naoko Yamazaki? (Ref.1). The ceremony was even more highlighted by her presence.? The stage was very beautifully set up and the program moved smoothly, which is very much the ‘L’Oreal style’, as I always say.? I was asked to make a toast, which I of course happily accepted.?

Every year beginning 1998, in collaboration of UNESCO, 5 wonderful women scientists are awarded one each from the 5 continents of the world?(Ref.1). This fellowship award, by the way, started in Japan five years ago to encourage the young women scientists.

I spent wonderful time with wonderful people just as I did two year ago at the award ceremony of 2008.

Quite a number of people gathered include Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, former Director General of UNESCO, former (Ms Bando) and current (Ms. Okajima) Directors of the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office (3 successive directors since this post was founded are all women).

The future of Japan lies in how quickly we can create and expand the places for women to participate actively?(Ref.1,2).?

I would say that the major barrier is the ‘men-centered chauvinistic’ mindset and social structure, the society? where ‘herbivorous (soshokukei) men’ are dominating and taking charge.? I also suspect they (men) are scared of revealing how they actually are.? However, it is clear that in this transition from ‘vertically’ to ‘horizontally’ expanding global age, the time of ‘social titles’ with little real content or value to the world has ended long time ago.

?

Professor Michael Sandel Visits Japan; What is its Impact?

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Professor Michael Sandel of Harvard University, known and loved by ‘Heated Class： Justice (Hakunetsu Kyoshitsu Justice)’ , a lecture series broadcasted by NHK television, is visiting Japan now.  Right after  his arrival Dr. Sandel gave his lecture at the Yasuda Auditorium of University of Tokyo.  Applications for the seats, as I understand, were more than 10 times of the capacity of the hall?  This class is scheduled to be on air at NHK today (August 26th).  I am sure that it will be broadcasted again sometime in the future.  So please, by all means, watch and hear it.

Professor Sandel is scheduled to give a lecture also on 27th at some other place in Tokyo and I was invited for it but had to be excused because of my other appointments ? such a pity!  (I will write a separate column on this later, though…)  So, I introduced the organizers several young people to be there in my place.  I am sure that this will be a very good experience for them.

I have reported on this class in my blog of May 16th  and 19th in which I have made several comments about what I thought was particularly good about Dr. Sandel lecture series ? the way he organized the whole session.

Now, students in Tokyo who were lucky enough to have had a chance to attend those classes ‘live’ will naturally compare them to the lectures they hear every day, their own faculties.

And for students to be given such opportunities to attend many classes of various professors beyond one’s own universities even across national borders, for the classes to be opened to students and teachers as much as possible, are the forces which will work to improve the quality of education.  For naturally, everybody will choose what they feel to be better, and teachers will, by witnessing those wonderful lectures and classes, follow the models as their objectives.

In Global Age these good lectures will be ‘open’, thanks to the digital technologies, to public through ‘OCW’, ‘You Tube’, and eventually accumulate ‘global reputations’ leading to the ‘global standards’.  Please note that the evaluations of education and faculties will not be limited only within universities or countries.

Such education based on the concept of ‘open classes’ of the ‘global’ age is provided at Hitotsubashi Business School.  This is something ‘tuff’ to do for faculties but apparently is good for students – they will be encouraged to put much work in their learning which, in return, would lead to the good reputation of the university in both ‘domestic and international’ arena.

‘Impact factors, citations’ of the research outputs are not the only index important in evaluating universities.  Quality of education can also be evaluated globally.  Students need and want this.
 
Of course, the lectures of Professor Sandel can be viewed On-line.

China Ranks 2nd, Japan Goes Down to the 3rd in the World in GDP; From the Article of The Economist

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GDP of Japan which used to be the 2nd largest in the world fell to 3rd after China.

This news itself is not so much to worry about because GDP is strongly affected by the size of the population. China with population 10 times larger than Japan to overtake her (Japan’s) position of the 2nd in the world ranking of the GDP was something that was predicted for a long time the only question being ‘when’.

What truly matters is the GDP per capita.  Japan has fallen off the position of the 2nd in GDP per capita the world and has keeping places somewhere around 18th or so for quite a while.  This is not surprising, since, to begin with, Japan’s GDP has not grown in the least for these 15 years.  I suspect that Japan is the only nation in the OECD (in Japanese) that has not achieved any growth in GDP for these 15 years.

Up to date no signs of growth are observed in Japan, and few in the world expects little sign of change from Japan, thus no investments come to Japan.  Changes in other OECD nations are obvious since the 2008 ‘Lehman Shock’ but Japan is still lingering in that terrible situation of ‘no economic growth, increasing its dept only.’ 

The Economist, as always, is pointing out the important issues clearly in its article of August 19th ‘Watching China whizz by’ (Click here for Japanese translation of the article).　Views of Professor Ishikura, one of my friends, appear in the article, too.  As I say, larger corporations can not make decisions or is late when they do.  As the article points out, big companies are basically all the same in their conducts, our government does not dare to let incompetent companies down so it makes many ‘Zombie companies’ surviving.  This will discourage new enterprises to emerge.  Don’t they realize that the market and business of the world has changed drastically?   We are now in the age of ‘Demand-driven、Open and Disruptive Innovation.’

Anyway, as you see in the chart in The Economist the rate of growth of economy in China is extraordinary.

Not knowing your partners, not having multitudes of networks of friends of long time in growing developing nations can constitute big handicaps for our future growth.  Just to give you an idea, for example, the estimated growth rate of the whole Africa is 5.6%.  What are your business strategies?

Youths in Action – A New Project By Grameen and Japanese Youths

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As I have reported to you several times in this website, the very first project run by Japanese kicked off by the initiatives of Mr. Saisyo and other students of Waseda University (they are currently on the leave of absence of course) and Grameen Bank, Bangladesh.

The name of the project is “‘The Dragon Cherry Blossoms‘ of the poorest country in Asia” (in Japanese) e-education program.

As you see in the blog of Mr. Saisyo (in Japanese), the Asahi Shinbun newspaper published an article on this in Japan.  A series of coverage is also scheduled to appear on ‘Soto Koto’ magazine.  The first report （in Japanese） was already published.  Do you see how hard they are working?  I am very pleased.  Please support them in any way you can.

They have taken the students of the village on a bus to see the Dhaka University campus ? a 7 hours travel.  I think this sort of ideas and actions will never occur  unless you actually live at the place and think locally.  According to the e-mail and photos from Mr. Saisho （in Japanese）;

“Yesterday, I took the village high school students to a study tour to Dhaka University.  This idea came because I saw the students having hard time trying to imagine themselves ‘entering Dhaka University’.  ‘We might as well take them to the place! ‘ that was the concept of this plan.”
“ ‘It was my lifetime experience!!!’ was their reaction.  The tour was a huge success.”

Was Saisyo-kun’s report.

What kind of experience was this to the village children, parents, or villagers?  Of course this will, I would say, eventually affect the way Dr. Yunus and the people at the Grameen Bank see Japanese young students and people.

This is a good example of the basic concept of Citizen Diplomacy.  Universities, not to speak of companies, have responsibilities to support and encourage such youths.  This sort of activities of private sector will be a good brand toward the future. Sucn activites of private sector are indeed ‘social enterprises’, the ‘strategic investments’.  We don’t necessarily have to depend on governments.  After all, how could we depend on grown up people who almost automatically respond by excuses saying ‘A good idea, but not possible to do because,,,’ , ‘we don’t have budgets….’, or rely to that never changing education policies? We should rather think and come up with ideas on how to support these activities by the youth.  The last thing we need to do is to discourage the ambitions of the youths (Ref.1).

 

Japan-Korea Exchange, Happy Gatherings

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Speech by President Lee on August 15th was for about 20 minutes.  Regarding the relations with North Korea the President expressed 3 strategic steps of partnerships based on ‘Peace’, ‘Economy’, and ‘Korean Reunion’.  I would like to read it if English and/or Japanese translations of the full text were available.

During my stay at Seoul, I was given lots of opportunities to meet people.  To my lecture at the Seoul National University, my old and new colleagues in nephrology, the science of kidney, gathered on the occasion and Dr. Narry Kim (Ref.1,2) a L’Oreal Prize Laureate of the year 2008 kindly came to the confenerce.

In the evening of 13th, the day I arrived at Seoul, I had dinner with Dr. Ju (Ref.1) whom I have introduced to you before.  Dr. Sumio Ishida, the specialist of the history of medicine in Korea (Dr. Ishida has many writings on the history of medical educations in The Netherlands and Korea) and Professor Lee, Heung-Ki (who studies history of hospitals in Korea at the Seoul University) (Dr. Lee’s photo is uploaded at the top of the previous column posting) also gathered and we all celebrated the happy reunion.  Dr. Ju is now 89 years old, but he is still very clear-headed; a truly wonderful person.
 
In the evening of August 15th, we invited a Korean female sophomore student of Waseda University who is currently spending her summer vacation with her family in Seoul.  She used to live in Japan until 5 years old because of her parents’ work and her Japanese is impressive.  Her older brother is studying in Canada.  She is very focused about her career goal and told me that she chose Waseda because of that goal.  She was selected to be a recipient of the scholarship (in Japanese) offered this July by the alumna of Waseda University  (in Japanese). I was very delighted to learn this good news.  I would like to see more and more of such mutual exchanges of young students to take place.

In the morning of 16th, the last day, I came across by chance with Dr. Tsutomu Nakada (in Japanese)(Ref.1) at the Executive Lounge of the Hotel.  I talk to him once in a while over a telephone but he happened to arrive at Seoul the day before yesterday and was leaving for Japan today.  What a coincidence!  This kind of unexpected encounter is apparently one of the hidden pleasures of traveling.  We enjoyed a brief catch ups.

Lunch was with Dr. Han Seung-Soo.  Dr. Han had been appointed to a series of ministers of the Government of Korea, is well known in international arena, was President of the 56th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (on the very morning of his inauguration ceremony the September 11 happened in NYC….), was a Professor of the Seoul National University.

Dr. Han Seung-Soo published a book ‘Beyond the Shadow of 9/11’  which records one year of his experience as the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations.  This book is a very impressive work which I highly recommend especially to those who seek careers in diplomacy or United Nation and other international istitutions.

Japan and Korea are neighbors.  We share and have long history of deep relations in various fields such as economy, politics, and culture….for over 1,500 years.  We are the most important partner to each other in this globalizing world.  To perceive whatever issue as ‘two neighbor nations in a big framework of the world that is changing dramatically’ and to think accordingly is crucially necessary and important.

This was also one of main messages of my lecture at the Seoul National University which I have reported to you in my previous posting.

From Seoul

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I came to Seoul on 13th.

I was invited to give a special lecture on August 14th in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Kidney Group at the Seoul National University (Ref.1)  Medical Research Center.  Such invitation must be accepted by all means.  This kind of gathering is very important.

This year happens to be the 100th year of Japan’s annexation of Korea.  14th being the last day of ‘Independence, Liberation’ in light of the Declaration of Surrender of Japan that took place in August 15th, 65 years ago,  Korean people celebrate August 15th annually as ‘Restoration of the Light Day’ (Gwangbokjeol) 

In my lecture on 14th, I included some comments about these two days (14th and 15th).  I also stressed especially, as always, the importance of human resource development which is the challenge of the global age, expressed further my views, introduced the works of Dr Gozo Sato (Ref.1) in the field of medical education in modern Korea, and concluded with some thoughts on our responsibilities as University Faculties.

I think my lecture was well accepted since many people told me that they were happy to have learned to see things in broader perspectives.  I was also fortunate enough to see several of my old friends.

So here I will post the text of my lecture and Power Points (part1 and part2) for your reference.  Please take a look.