Today we returned to our academic roots with a visit to Dr. Suzuki at Chuo University, a private school in Tokyo. Dr. Suzuki, who has visited UMaine, was by far one of the best experiences of the trip. His presentation was excellent and he is clearly a brilliant finance professor. For folks back home, he is basically the Japanese version of "Pank" and that is said to the credit of both professors and their brilliance both as experts and educators.
Dr. Suzuki spoke directly to us about the current situation facing Japan from a macro-economic perspective. The issues the country are facing include population decline, the recent disaster and political/financial turmoil. I absolutely believe we as Americans have a lot to learn from how Japan will navigate through these tough times.A point of interest for me was Dr. Suzuki's comments about how the Japanese are beginning to come to terms with their traditional values and how they may have to flex in order to facilitate the next era of prosperity for future generations. I appreciated Dr. Suzuki's candor and openness to discuss the negative as well as the positive aspects of the situation faced by the Japanese.
Our next stop was a visit to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ). Our meeting with Michael Alfant the president of the ACCJ and CEO of Fusion Systems (a small sized software firm) was arranged after Paul heard a brief interview that aired on NPR. Michael Alfant, originally from Brooklyn, came to Japan and with nothing but sheer entrepreneurial determination, and arguably a pretty good stroke of luck. He rose to be one of the most valuable assets to American companies in Japan. He had some excellent insights into the B2B environment in Japan and the media's handling of the recent disaster in both Japanese and American contexts. He is not a fan of CNN's Anderson Cooper....enough said.
Clearly, Michael's experience of over 20 years in Japan is impressive and very unique, however, considering my experience growing up overseas I felt like if I met him in a a different context I would never have known he was from anywhere but New York. Maybe that is a testament to his strong values as being first and foremost an American or maybe it is an observation of a stereotypical caricature. Nonetheless an excellent discussion and one of the most valuable meetings so far.
Itochu was the last stop on our very busy day. Itochu is a Japanese Kerietsu (Conglomerate) involved in 6 primary areas of investment including Food, Electronic systems and shipbuilding among others. Maime and Shinya, former USM ESOL students, now working for Itochu gave us a brief presentation of their business sections and insight into working for a Japanese company. Being selected for positions in Itochu from a pool of 30,000 applicants is about 0.4%. Unlike in the west where we learn specific skills prior to job aquisition, Japanese new hires are given all the training they need on the job. To me this shows the faith the Japanese have in their people to succeed in any capacity. In the US, we have a very limited understanding of this concept. I think there is a lot of value within it, with limitations of course. The other striking difference between working for a western company compared to a traditional Japanese company is the work environment. Employees work next to each other in very close proximity with their manager. It was commented that this style would probably breed a huge spike in workplace violence if implemented in a western environment.
Last up was a visit to Shibuya, the Times Square of Tokyo. The crowd was a much younger demographic and we had a very enjoyable time walking around and taking in the sites. For those of you who have visited Taipei, this is Ximending at a scale factor of 10x.
No comments:
Post a Comment