Thing is, with hiring policies like these, there’s still a lot of change needed.  Are these numbers caps or targets? With a policy of hiring to find a job rather than hiring to fill a job, HR is only perpetuating the problems which have led to an overabundance of products, product lines, and people.  Once again, we see a clear example of process trumping principle.

Imagine an executive, constrained by fiduciary duty, who knows that a soon-to-be-laid-off colleague is about to buy an expensive house. Should he warn his friend?

What do you think? I found myself in such a situation this afternoon with 3 Japanese managers on one side of a meeting table and an American consultant and myself on the other. Months of preparation had been put into creating a growth strategy, and two presentations to “top management” later there is still no clear message on how they wish us to procede. We peppered them with questions, each answer a few words shorter than the one before. Eventually it was just a blank stare and a sigh.

The analogy places myself and the consultant as the “soon-to-be-laid-off colleague” of course, but in this situation we have at least an inkling of what is going on. There is important information that is not being shared, perhaps importantly so. But all this inaction and vagueness simply wastes everyone’s time.

When an employee must inevitably be asked to leave, the sooner you tell them, the greater the favor you’re doing for them. No? Of course, being a permanent employee in a Japanese company means the chances of being laid-off are close to zero. Unfortunately with so much difficulty instituting change, that also means the profits will be close to zero too.

Behold, the X-rated version of the 3 o’clock company exercise! The right shirt shows the front – the text is exactly what the female voice recites before delving into each move; the left shirt is the back. I made a few trial runs with iron-on print paper and ultimately made a custom order through CustomInk – a fantastic service! The final CustomInk order is what you’re seeing.

I gave out a few prints to colleagues, followed by (albeit nervous) laughter; my crush actually had the audacity to ask which position was my favorite (it’s not on there :).

Leave a comment if you’re interested in purchasing one and (given enough demand) I may make another order.

UPDATE: Photos lost after the server move, sorry!

So I mentioned a meeting with a Sony VP in the CTO office, we’ll call him Mr. X, someone I’d met during my first interview rounds a few years back. We’d kept in touch, mostly through greetings at company functions. Being annoyed with how things were progressing after months of hearing about “impending changes”, the final straw was watching an exchange of emails regarding introducing university researchers to certain departments evaporate due to the Sony contact’s department being shutdown. I drafted up an outline I wanted to share with Mr. X regarding university relations, which quickly expanded into what I feel is the biggest issue that needs change:

• University Relations
  • numerous divisions discussing with same professors makes us look very uncoordinated and unprofessional
  • sprouting and dying groups within Sony common; need secure interface for university dialog
  • difficulty in establishing connection as Sony engineer
• Nurturing hires, especially foreigners of Western mentality
  • mentality towards hiring:
    • Japan: hire, find a job
    • U.S.: hire for the job
  • mentality towards universities
    • Japanese: difficult to enter, easy to exit
    • U.S.: easy to enter, difficult to exit
    • thus, western university graduates generally place greater stake in what they studied
      • many view their time as having an idea of what they want to pursue
      • Jcorp’s expectation for new hire to scrap university education, do what is demanded just doesn’t jive
  • mentality towards work
    • Japanese: work towards 60/65, retire in hands that created you
    • U.S.: work towards 40, retire in hands you created
  • bosses, managers, consistently not knowing new hire’s background
  • doesn’t it make sense for new hire to at least meet those he may be working with?
  • Why is this important?
    • Idei wants to run Sony more like an American operation? Hire like an American company
• Innovation
  • internal groups coming from Europe and US trying to sell ideas; response: “neat, but our hands are full”
  • “pay 5-6 year engineering dues, then you can project manage” mentality

There are too many threads for each topic above to cover fully, along with some serious generalizations which I am quite aware of, but suffice to say I was at least happy to hear Mr.X acknowledge that the hiring process within Sony is ridiculous. Hiring some 400+ new employees to join every April regardless of actual need and without any real filtering of relevant skillsets for the division they may join is a blatant example of procedure over principle. Also pointed out was that there are definitely not enough non-Japanese within the HQ of a company that has operations on a global scale, and Mr.X claims to have received comments as such from colleagues at Nokia and Samsung. Even Matsushita’s “entering class” is apparently 2/3 non-Japanese this year (mostly Chinese, in case you were wondering). With foreigners making up no more than 2% of HQ, it’s no wonder Sony’s relationships with universities and R&D on an international scale pale in comparison to such efforts as Intel’s opening of research centers in Japan. There are numerous reasons, not least of which is the Granovetter theory on the strength of weak ties; by increasing your international employee pool, especially in HQ, you’ll undoubtedly increase your avenues for growth in ideas, resources, connections to pioneering people, etc. Influencing any organization, culture, or body of thought ultimately must begin from the ground up. In this case, the hiring process.

We covered a lot of other ground, touching on issues such as COLA policies (of which there is basically none), innovation process issues, and what Sony should do regarding the audio compression wars. So what’s next? Good question. Mr.X said he would look into creating a voice for non-Japanese to speak with when they have things to say regarding company issues. Whether this is through some comments box or an actual steering committee, we shall see.

If foreign students tell everyone how they hate this country once they go home, we should ask to what purpose we are hosting them to begin with.

courtesy of Japan Today. Could anyone be any more irrational? This kind of “thinking” needs to stop. I know the U.S. is no saint, but spreading this kind of nonsense must not happen through a top-five newspaper such as the Nihon Keizai. No wonder it takes so long to initiate change in this country….

Update: Aha. Perhaps this article from the NYT is a connection :) A little slow on the newsbites this morning. There’s a reason for that, which will become clear later today.

Update 2 — from the NYT article:

“I want to go back to China,” she said. “It’s too hard in Japan. I can’t see a future here.”

Companies in Japan which contribute to the national social insurance (Shakai Hoken) program, which is almost all of them, are required once a year to subject their employees to a medical check rendered by a local contractor. For newcomers to Japan these checks are almost quaintly primitive, both in testing technique and as an invasion of privacy. At least, that’s how we feel as we line up our urine samples next to our colleagues’ in a converted meeting-cum-samples room! An army barracks in Samawa probably offers more privacy…

Probably the worst part of a yearly checkup, though, is the barium drink in preparation for a TB chest X-ray. The drink tastes foul, stains your lips white, and is probably really bad for your health. But, when confronted with all your Japanese work colleagues meekly gulping the stuff down, you don’t really feel like bucking the system.

So it comes of some interest that researchers at Oxford University in the UK have announced that the Japanese as a nation have a 300% higher rate of cancer caused by excessive exposure to preventive X-rays than do people in other countries. The researchers said that 3.2% of all Japanese cancer patients appear to have contracted the disease because of excessive X-ray exposure. This figure was found by testing cancer patients up to 25 years of age and assessing likely causes.

From Terrie.com. Thanks England. At least someone is looking after Japan…