• The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

  • 著者： Dr. Greg Story
  • ポッドキャスト

The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

著者： Dr. Greg Story
無料で聴く

  • サマリー

  • For succeeding in business in Japan you need to know how to lead, sell and persuade. This is what we cover in the show. No matter what the issue you will get hints, information, experience and insights into securing the necessary solutions required. Everything in the show is based on real world perspectives, with a strong emphasis on offering practical steps you can take to succeed.
    copyright 2022
    続きを読む 一部表示
activate_samplebutton_t1
エピソード
  • Minimalist Presenting

    Minimalist Presenting
    2024/08/18
    Zen study is a way to strip out all of the non-essentials in life. The noise, the distraction, the things that are not so important. People sit around concentrating on their breath cycle or one word or any number of other methods to quiet the mind. They are seeking to get more clarity about themselves and what are their real priorities. As presenters, this is a good metaphor for when we are in front of people speaking. You would think with all those thousands of years of Zen in Japan, in art, in design, in temples, gardens, in history etc., that the Japanese people would be legends of simplicity and clarity when presenting. Not true! Presenting as an idea only came to Japan around 160 years ago. Fukuzawa Yukichi who founded Keio University and who graces the 10,000 yen bank note, launched public speaking in Japan in the Meiji period. There is still an enzetsukan or speech hall preserved on the grounds of Keio University, where presumably the first public speeches were given. Western society plumbs the wisdom of ancient Greece and Rome, parliaments allowing debate and Hollywood for models on speech giving. Japan has no traditional home grown role model. If the authorities needed you to know anything in old japan, a notice board would have it written there for you. No shogunal oratory from the castle walls to the assembled masses. No Mel Gibson Braveheart style speeches before vanquishing the foe in battle. Japan bypassed all of that until Fukuzawa Yukichi decided this was another area of modernization that needed implementation in Japan, like wearing ties, boots, hats and petticoats. Of course there were no slide decks in those days, but Japan certainly was an early adopter of the technology for giving presentations – the overhead projector, the slide projector, the modern light weight projector, large screen monitors, electronic pointers, etc. Any venue you go to in Japan will be bristling with cool tech gear. Interestingly, the content on the speaker’s screen will also be bristling. There will be 10 graphs on the one page, lurid diagrams employing 6 or more vivid colours, numerous lines of text so small you could use it for an optometrist’s eyesight test chart. Where has the zen gone? To be an effective presenter, we don’t need any tech or screens or props or gizmos. We can just speak to the audience and enjoy being the full focus of their attention. As a result of this visual conflagration, many speakers are competing for attention with what is being displayed on the screen. Company representatives love to play the video of their firm or product or service. They can be quite slick, the joy of the marketing department. They are the pit into which a chunk of money was thrown for the production company, directors, designers, film and sound crew, talents and innumerable others who all got a slice of the pie. The question to ask though is does this video actually assist the speaker to make the key point under consideration. Often they are like eye candy, but are not on point to the main argument. Unless it strongly reinforces your message dump it. It will only be competition for you the speaker and it will suck up valuable time which could be spent better with you as the main focus. I saw Ken Done, a well known Australian artist, give a talk in Japan many years ago. He has a very unique visual painting style. He moved around from behind the lectern, stood next to it and just spoke about his art to the audience. It was very engaging because it was so intimate. The Japanese audience loved it. There was only one source of stimulation for the audience and that was Ken Done. This is what we want – to be the center of our audience’s world for the next thirty or forty minutes. Don’t use a slide deck unless there is something in that content and presentation on screen which really helps bring home your argument. If it is for information purposes, then that will work well. If you are there to persuade, then you will be so much more powerful if all the attention is concentrated on one point and that point needs to be you. In this case we have stripped away all the visual noise, so we have to fill the void with word pictures. We need to transport the audience to a place where they can see what we are talking about, in their mind’s eye. If you have ever read the novel after seeing the movie, you find yourself transported visually to the scenes from the movie, as you read the novel’s pages. This is the same idea. We have to usher the audience to a place, time and situation that we are describing in words, in such a way that visually they can imagine it. We don’t always have to have slides or visuals. We are the message, so let’s manufacture the situation so that we are the center piece of the proceedings and all eyes and ears are on us, totally focused on every word we say. We need to Zen our way to speaking and presenting ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    12 分
  • Project Management Fundamentals

    Project Management Fundamentals
    2024/08/11

    Projects have been around for a long time of course and in the modern era we have accumulated a vast amount of best practice on how to manage them. It isn’t usually that we don’t know what to do, it is that we don’t actually do it. We get into trouble when we just leap in and dig straight into the logistical entrails, without giving enough thought to a macro 360 degree view of what is involved. We see this tendency all the time. Any group of people given a project task go straight into the gruesome detail. In project planning, a pinch of planning goes an extremely long way. Having a common and clear set of rules helps to ensure we are all approaching the project in the same vein.

    Here are ten rules for ensuring that what needs to get done is completed on time and to expectations.

    1. Mind our business. Keep our eye on the ball, especially defining what is inside and outside the project scope. This often changes mid-steam so we need to be nimble and adjust accordingly.
    2. Know the customer’s requirements. Double check you have properly understood the detail, document it and keep checking against that documented record, especially if there are changes needed.
    3. Plan well. The plan will cover the scope, schedule, cost, approach etc. Involve task owners to gain buy-in and apply a strong reality check to what you have created. Strangely, the planning value comes from the creation process and not just the project outcome. It forces some hard thinking, tough prioritisations, player commitments, clear controls, smooth coordination and cooperation. Basically, the things at which most companies are usually rubbish.
    4. Build a great team with strong ownership. Motivation of the team is critical, so we need total clarity around the WHY, trust, communication, sufficient resources and mutually agreed deadlines.
    5. Track progress. Frequent reviews, wide visibility, broad communication and clear goals are needed. There are hard and soft aspects to most projects, so ensure we don’t overlook the soft skills needed to succeed.
    6. Use baseline controls. These are the fundamental building blocks against which we steer the project forward and against which we alter course when needed.
    7. Write it, share it, save it. Here is the Holy Grail of project management – write it down - if it isn’t written down it doesn’t exist. Document procedures, plans, evolving designs. Baseline controls are compared against the preserved records. Repeatable projects especially need this record, to which are added the fresh set of insights and learnings of the current project.
    8. Test it. Jumping into new territories with both feet can be high risk. Better to develop test cases early to help with understanding and verification of what is required to succeed. Resources and time are the most often underestimated elements, so an early testing helps to flush out the gaps.
    9. Ensure customer satisfaction. Make the customer’s real needs the prism through which everything is viewed. Undetected changes in customer requirements or not focusing on the customer’s business needs can in fact blow up in our face.
    10. Be pro-active. Be proactive in applying these principles and in identifying and solving problems as they arise. Review and search for problems, knowing there are people dedicated to hiding issues. Vigilance is a virtue we all need to practice when working on projects, especially anticipating trouble before it arises or becomes too explosive.
    11. Stop the same old, same old and take a fresh look at your methodology for approaching projects. It seems so simple, but it can simply go wrong so easily. You might be surprised at how loose and inefficient your current methodology is. We can always do better and these ten rules will help us on that journey.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    11 分
  • How To Provide Great Customer Service

    How To Provide Great Customer Service
    2024/08/04
    Great service is so fleeting and illusive. You encounter it and then like the morning mist, the next minute it is gone. One company representative is so spectacularly helpful and then next one is seemingly possessed by evil spirits and demonic. As companies how do we get the angels inside our staff to engage with the clients, rather than having reputation destroying devils intrude. Good service, consistently delivered, is no accident and so it has to be made to occur. How can we do that? Jan Carlzon many years ago published a tremendous guide to customer service. He had the job of turning around SAS airlines and captured that experience in his book “Moments Of Truth”. Carlson’s insights flooded back to me when I checked into a hotel in Singapore. By the way, the drive in from Changi Airport is a credit to the Singaporean Government, who spend millions every year to develop and maintain their landscaped, leafy, green, tropical thoroughfares. This is smart. You are already in a pleasant mood just getting into town. While going through the check-in process at the hotel, a waiter from the adjoining restaurant approached me bearing an ice-cold glass of freshly squeezed juice. Singapore is very humid and trust me, after a long flight, that ice cold beverage went down very well. I thought this is really well thought through customer service by this Hotel. One of Carlzon’s observations about customer service however was the importance of consistency of delivery. For example, visualise the telephone receptionist answering your call in a pleasant, helpful manner and you are uplifted by your exposure to the brand. The next staff member receiving the transferred call however, is grumpy, disinterested and unfriendly. Instantly, your mood and positive impression plummet. You are suddenly irritated by this company, who have just damaged their brand by their lack of an ability to sustain good service across only two consecutive touch points with the customer. How do you feel when you are given the run around from department to department? So back to my story. As I get to my room, in good spirits after unexpectedly receiving my ice-cold juice, I find out the television isn’t working. After a forensic search for the cause, including a few harsh words with the television controller, I discover the power is not on. There is a card slot next to the door that initiates the power supply to the room. Actually, I discovered the same system in the elevator, when I unsuccessfully tried to select my floor. Yes, I worked it all out eventually, but the thought occurred to me that the pleasant, busy young woman checking me into the hotel, failed to mention these two salient facts to me. Sustainability of good service has to be the goal if you want to protect or grow your brand. Let me mention a customer service breakdown I particularly dislike here in Japan. When you call just about any organization here, you get a very flat voice answering the phone saying in Japanese ,“XYZ company here”. You ask to speak with that very excellent and impressive member of staff, Ms. Suzuki whom you met recently. The flat uninterested voice tells you that she “is not at her desk right now” and then you are abandoned to stone cold motherless silence. The “may I take down your name and phone number so that she can call you back” bit is rarely offered. Instead, you are left hanging on the phone. The inference of the silence is that if Ms. Suzuki is not around, that is your problem buddy and you should call back later, rather than expect a return call. Again, to Carlzon’s point, these inconsistencies of customer service directly damage the brand. In this example, when I had previously met Ms. Suzuki, I was impressed by her and consequently I had a good impression of the whole organisation. I was projecting that positive vibe to the entire company. The person taking the call has just put that positive image of the brand to the sword. When you are the leader of your company, you presume that everyone “gets it” about representing the brand and that the whole team delivers consistent levels of service. You expect that your whole team is supporting the marketing department’s efforts to create an excellent image of the organization. After all, you have been spending truckloads of money on that marketing effort, haven’t you? But are all the staff supporting the effort to build the brand? Perhaps they have forgotten what you have said about consistent customer service in the past or they are a new hire or a part-timer who didn’t get properly briefed. I heard one of my recent hires in the sales team answering the phone with an unhelpful tone in his voice. He actually sounded like he was angry. He was in his fifties, so no boy, but obviously that had been his standard, ugly phone manner throughout his entire working life. A perpetual brand killer, client ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    14 分

あらすじ・解説

For succeeding in business in Japan you need to know how to lead, sell and persuade. This is what we cover in the show. No matter what the issue you will get hints, information, experience and insights into securing the necessary solutions required. Everything in the show is based on real world perspectives, with a strong emphasis on offering practical steps you can take to succeed.
copyright 2022
マネジメント 経済学
続きを読む 一部表示

The Cutting Edge Japan Business Showに寄せられたリスナーの声

カスタマーレビュー：以下のタブを選択することで、他のサイトのレビューをご覧になれます。

Audible.co.jp

Amazon.co.jp
レビューはまだありません。