Sabbatical update and my first day at work in Japan

Japan is one of my favourite countries in the world. I've visited the first time in 2009 and immediately fell in love with the country, the culture, its rich history and everything in between. In 2018 I made a plan that I would like to stay for longer, if possible, even work here. It took a pandemic, 3 years of saving-up and the good-will and fortuitous connections along the way for it to become reality in 2023.

I'm currently on a sabbatical from Hatch, which in itself is a big deal because after 10-years, I really wanted a longer break and see Hatch and my life from the 'outside' and gain some perspective by not being 'in it'. I've had this chance and opportunity almost every year (apart from pandemic years), where I placed myself here in Japan for 4 - 6 weeks, to work from here and also to take a break from London. I've often combined these breaks with cycling and seeing Japan, which culminated in some epic cycling trips around Central, Northern and now Southern Japan and some 5,000+ kilometres cycled in total. These unique opportunities and inflection points also afforded chances for learning, evaluating and planning things. As I sit here writing this, I'm needing to take a quick moment to sit through a small earthquake - my first in the last 4-weeks, but a relatively regular occurrence here, but definitely not something that can be planned. And yet, Japan is prepared - always prepared, train staff is prepared, building and infrastructure is as prepared as it can be, people are prepared and it seems that many fail-safes are implemented to deal with many eventualities. Very different from the UK, where leaves on train tracks or minimal amounts of snow can cause massive disruptions. I do hope to learn from this level of preparedness that I have and continue to experience here...

In the meantime, I've had lots of fun cycling and camping and here some images from this recent trip circumnavigating Kyushu.

Cycling and roaming around for 3 weeks was done with very little planning! I knew I was going to cycle around Kyushu in the South of Japan and I was going to do it counter-clockwise but the daily route and what to see, what to do, where to sleep and what to eat was decided on the day.

Not planning everything to the last detail (or at all?!) was a lot of fun, especially when sometimes, the road was no longer a road, but turned into this (below). Dealing with unexpected road closures is even more interesting, when all other roads are steep, uphill struggles with a bike, rider and luggage weighing well over 110kg. But, as always, there's only one way: just keep going...find alternatives.

My first day at ETIC

After my 3-week cycle ride it was time for my first day at work! I was very lucky to meet some amazing people at the last Youth Business International meeting in The Hague (link to blog ) at the end of 2022, which was attended by organisations and people from across the world, including colleagues from Japan, who we got to meet. My amazing colleague Deryl was MC'ing the main stage for a session together with my new colleague Naho and over a few days, new friendships were made and a plan was hatched: I would do part of my 2023 sabbatical at ETIC . (Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities.), a Japan-based nonprofit organisation founded in 1993 and one of the largest networks of social change leaders in Japan. The meeting was in November 2022, and with the tireless help of Naho and her colleague Mitsu , who we hosted for a few days in Spring in London to get to know Hatch, we then met weekly to plan me working for ETIC.

ETIC isn't just another enterprise support organisation! They've been delivering immersive, innovative social change and entrepreneurship programmes in Japan and across South East Asia for 30 years!!! Not only that, very recently their founding CEO retired and the company became a self-designing and self-managing not-for profit organisation. I've only read about these in case studies or came across organisations like them in books and articles but to be invited to work in one was a huge opportunity for learning and exchanging thoughts and best practices.

Then, on Tuesday, the day had come! My first day at work, in central Tokyo (Shibuya) at ETIC's headquarters, which they recently move into. We already knew it was going to be a busy day but luckily Naho and Mitsu had some mercy on me as I have to travel into Tokyo, which takes almost 2h each way so my first day would start at 10am and go until 6pm. Working hours at ETIC are flexible, phew!

I got set-up with a desk, figured out wifi, put my lunch in the fridge and then had a quick intro to another staff member who also worked from the office that day, followed by a quick briefing on the day itself. Today was a big team meeting day, which happens once a month and most people join remotely for this 2h session, with hardly anyone in the office. This helped me not be overwhelmed.

As part of the meeting I introduced myself and thanked ETIC for the opportunity. I got a very warm welcome from the over 40 people on the zoom call! My nervousness slowly disappeared.

Then it was time to do a presentation to some of my new colleagues that I was asked to deliver to share what got me into supporting #entrepreneurs and about Hatch and how we work + Q&A.

This was an hour and a half that went by so quickly, including translating everything from English into Japanese (Thx Naho). Next-up, 30min lunch break before another 1h meeting, online and this time with WWF Japan and ETIC members to exchange thoughts on a new programme to get more young people involved in social entrepreneurship, especially those with a desire to launch organisation with an environmental focus. The focus was also on youth exchanges with Europe and the UK and interestingly, I had done many of those before my time at Hatch so I hope I can contribute to this as the project gets going.

It was difficult, we realised in the meeting, to have an effective meeting when some people did and others didn't speak English. My working Japanese is literally non-existent. I can introduce myself, order food, ask for directions and tell people I don't eat meat. Thats it...So the meeting presented some challenges in that the meeting leader had to wait for translations and this disturbed the flow of the meeting a bit, whilst enabling a broader exchange of ideas/ thoughts, which included me, but it just wasn't very effective as only 1/2 or 3/4 of the agenda got discussed. We decided to re-think which meetings make sense for me to join.

By now it was mid-afternoon, time for a quick break before being interviewed by ETIC's internal magazine. Mitsu was the interviewer, Naho did the translation ever so brilliantly. She's been working hard to translate earlier, and now again! Hosting a foreigner on their sabbatical is also new for ETIC so there's lots to figure out. I had to get a working visa, which we're still chasing-up as Japan only recently re-opened after the pandemic and many foreigners are now coming back. After the interview, we had a quick feedback session on how the day went, took some pictures.

Then it was time to brace myself for the return journey out of Tokyo, joining the many, many commuters in packed trains. Initially travelling with Naho who helped me navigate Shibuya better (its a crazy busy place), then by myself for another hour and a half trip back to my accommodation, using 2 trains.

Overall, a great first day at work and the best start I could have hoped for!

I hope to write a few more things on ETIC's work around the self-designing and self-managing not-for-profit organisation and am always keen for people to share ideas too. Feel free to reach out!

Reflecting on this huge opportunity to do a sabbatical in Japan, in a Japanese company comes with huge feelings of gratitude to my family who are putting up wit this, the team & trustees at Hatch Enterprise UK , my new co-workers at ETIC (Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities) , and especially also to Hatch's Interim CEO Rebekah Capon !