Killing Rumours and Misconceptions:The Leadership Japan Series

Killing Rumours and Misconceptions: (Audio here:https://bit.ly/407Zc1c) The Leadership Japan Series

Staffing is a subject that gets a lot of attention from those within and without the organisation.? Those outside see staff movements as a bellwether of how the company is travelling. High turnover indicates disruption and uncertainty about the future.? Rapid high turnover indicates real trouble within the ranks.? When executives arrive in Japan, they often discover a lot of deadwood and they get about cleaning them out.? They are wholly focused on internal issues.? The outside perspective hasn’t been a consideration in their minds. They have forgotten about their competitors and how they will try to use this information to damage the firm. They think they can operate in a vacuum.

Japan being such a risk averse culture, unscrupulous rivals have a field day playing up your instability and therefore heightened risk as a business partner.? I remember running ads for sales staff when I was in Osaka.? I merrily ran the ads looking to expand the sales team.? Now I knew that, but interestingly our rivals took that as a sign of weakness not strength.

Japan loves secrets and rumours.? With everyone living on top of each other for centuries, keeping secrets is almost impossible and salacious talk and spreading rumours are up there with dining out and shopping as national sports. It was made to look as if we were in chaos and there was high turnover in the ranks.? Our customers began to ask probing questions about our stability.?No doubt they were doing this after they had been briefed by our competitors on what a mess we were and how we were not a suitable supplier anymore.

That negative fallout from the ads never occurred to me in a million years because I was upbeat, focused on the positive, the expansion, the growth.?After that near death experience with our customers, I made sure that every ad thereafter had the explanation that we were hiring because we were expanding.? What was the additional costs of including those few vital words in the ads – nothing.? It was only my ignorance and single focus that allowed our rivals to seek a way in.

The same issues can arise from within.? Whenever there is an organisational change, do people start high fiving each other, celebrating the new structure as a way to steal a march on the competitors?? No, they are concerned about losing their jobs, or having someone invade their turf, lose face, or being dragged kicking and screaming out of their comfort zone.

This is a great breeding ground for rumours.? The formal explanation of what and why this is happening never seems to outpace the rumours.? The top executives are all on board with the changes, because they thought of them, but for everyone else, this is new.? In the vacuum, the rumour mill kicks into high gear.? The impact is that everyone forgets about the customer, the competitors and concerns themselves with their own best interests and imagining all the bad things that are about to unfold.

We have to make sure that every person? is spoken to directly and so quash the rumours and misinformation before THEY can gain momentum.? Yes, this takes time.? But the focus on the customer and the competitor is where we want people concentrating, rather than on what is going on inside the firm.? They need to get back to work and the sooner their fears and concerns can be addressed, the faster they can do that.

When people quit, the assumption is there is something wrong in the company.? Key people departing is especially unnerving for a lot of people, who immediately jump to all sorts of misconceptions about what this means for their own security or the stability of the enterprise.???Sending out a blanket email heaping praise on the departing is guaranteed to set up the vacuum, allowing it to weave its magic spell of impending doom for the survivors.

We need to tell each person, one by one, what is really going on and assure them that everything will be okay.? We will find a great replacement, we can carry on in the departing person’s absence, it is not the end of the world.? This is time consuming, but it is the best way to ensure that the official version is the only version floating around.

Action Steps

1. When you have turnover whether it is positive or negative, be aware of external perceptions about the change – that perception will always be a negative one, so prepare to counter it
2. Whenever a vacuum in information appears, it will be filled with rumours and misinformation, so you have to grab hold of the narrative and control it
3. Internally, make sure every single person is spoken to directly and don’t imagine for one second that a blanket email will do the trick –it won’t.

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story, President Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training

Contact me at [email protected]

Bestselling author of “Japan Sales Mastery” (the Japanese translation is "The Eigyo" (The営業), “Japan Business Mastery” and "Japan Presentations Mastery".? He has also written "How To Stop Wasting Money On Training" and the translation "Toreningu De Okane Wo Muda Ni Suru No Wa Yamemashoo" (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのは止めましょう) and his brand new book is “Japan Leadership Mastery”.

Dr. Greg Story is an international keynote speaker, an executive coach, and a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations.?He leads the Dale Carnegie Franchise in Tokyo which traces its roots straight back to the very establishment of Dale Carnegie in Japan in 1963 by Mr. Frank Mochizuki.

He publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

Has 6 weekly podcasts:

1.?????Mondays -??The Leadership Japan Series,

2.????Tuesdays – The Presentations Japan Series

Every second Tuesday - ビジネス達人の教え

3.????Wednesdays - The Sales Japan Series

4.????Thursdays – The Leadership Japan Series

Also every second Thursday - ビジネスプロポッドキャスト

5.????Fridays - The Japan Business Mastery Show

6.????Saturdays – Japan’s Top Business Interviews

Has 3 weekly TV shows on YouTube:

1.?????Mondays - The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

Also every Second Thursday - ビジネスプロTV

2.????Fridays – Japan Business Mastery

3.????Saturdays – Japan Top Business Interviews

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development.

Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making, become a 39 year veteran of Japan and run his own company in Tokyo.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate (糸東流) and is currently a 6th Dan.

Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.