219: Yes Boss, Whatever You Say

<p>As leaders in Japan, one of our biggest fears is ignorance.  We may come up with a genius idea that is actually rubbish.  The age, stage and power hierarchy here ensures no one wants to stand out by “speaking truth to power”.  Subordinates learn quickly that taking personal responsibility for anything is a risky business.  Better to make it a group decision, so that the blame evaporates and never settles on any one person in particular.  There are plenty of parents of success in Japan and also plenty of orphans, when it comes to failure. </p> <p> </p> <p>Take a look at what happened with the original Olympic Stadium design for Tokyo for 2020.  It was almost impossible to locate anyone who was responsible.  The current excitement about the toxicity and design of the Toyosu site for the new fish and vegetable markets is another textbook case study where no one seems responsible.</p> <p> </p> <p>So the odds are stacked up against anyone reporting potential bad news to a powerful boss.  In the Japanese context, it is much better to be a “Yes Man” and blend in with the office shrubbery as much as possible.  As the boss though, we need people around us who can speak back to us and tell us we are not considering all the negative ramifications of our genius decision.</p> <p> </p> <p>This sounds simple in theory.  However, if you have built a career on getting things done, despite everyone around you telling you it can’t be done and then you go and do it, your ego gets pretty puffed up. </p> <p> </p> <p>You become a powerful advocate for your own opinion, you are ace at debate, you can wrangle with the best of them to get your way.  Hasn’t that been your formula for your massive success so far?  Why change what is working? This is especially true in Japan, where you have to push like crazy to get anything new introduced or to change anything to make it better.</p> <p> </p> <p>Here is where we run into trouble of our own making.  We have browbeaten the troops reporting to us to genuflect when the genius boss is speaking