The Era of Change

In Darwin's Theory of Evolution there is an explaination about "Natural Selection". Natural selection is about the survival of the fit, not the fittest; or,if you prefer, the survival of those that are able to survive.

It's not just the strongest or the smartest of any particular species that survive to pass on their genes, but the strong and the smart; or the average; or even, in a lot of cases, the relatively puny and stupid. All that is required is that they are capable of getting by in whatever environment they find themselves in(*1).

The business environment has evolved from one of predictability and long-term planning to a new age defined by unpredictability and global competition,rampant change, faster flow of information and communication, increasing business complexity, and pervasive globalization. 

The pace of change has become so rapid that it took a different type of firms to be dominant and marked entirely new era of business. Today's growth era produces huge discontinuities, creates new industries and destroys old ones, and accelerates global economic growth in the process.

Two year ago (Sep 2008) after failure of Lehman (Lehman Shock) produced serious problems in credit markets not only in the U.S. but also in Japan. The crisis make Japan economy trapped into deflationary spiral. At same time, economic rising of China and South East Asia fasten the hollowing-out of the domestic manufacturing industry. Therefore stiff domestic competition occurs.

As I mentioned above about Darwin theory, even well-developed countries that possessed high technologies like Japan facing a tough new era of changes especially small-medium industries like us. We must focus our limited management resources to maintain our existence in manufacturing market. Therefore our mission now is to revitalize our organization in order to innovate the management. 

I will disscuss futher about the approaches and method to management innovation.     

1):http://www.speedysnail.com/pacific/evolving.html

Ishin-denshin & Shuhari

I also interested in Japanese Language, they have few sound pronounciation, so there will be a lot of words that will be pronounced the same ways. However the interesting part is how they use intonation to differentiate the meaning.

Since the Japanese strive for harmony and are group dependent, they rely on facial expression,
tone of voice and posture to tell them what someone feels. They often trust non-verbal messages more than the
spoken word as words can have several meanings.

"Ishin-denshin (Kanji: 以心伝心) "is a Japanese concept of communication through unspoken implication.The term is often used to describe nonverbal, mutual understanding that takes place between two people and is supposedly unique to the Japanese.[1]

This tendency can be repellent to Japanese workers, who practice "ishin-denshin" -- communication by the heart.This term is important in learning a technique from others. Most technique must be learn by watch and sense by own body.However this process sometime takes time and in business scenes it will interrupt with the standardizing of the work process.

Another term that i like is Shuhari (Kanji: 守破離)
Shuhari is a Japanese martial art concept, and describes the stages of learning to mastery.
It is sometimes applied to other Japanese disciplines.

Shuhari roughly translates to "first learn, then detach, and finally transcend."
Shu (守) "protect", "obey" — traditional wisdom — learning fundamentals, techniques, heuristics, proverbs
Ha (破) "detach", "digress" — breaking with tradition — detachment from the illusions of self
Ri (離) "leave", "separate" — transcendence — there are no techniques or proverbs, all moves are natural,
becoming one with spirit alone without clinging to forms; transcending the physical
[From Wikipedia]

References
[1] Pulvers, Roger. "Japanese betray some blinkered views of their foreign coworkers," Japan Times, July 4, 2010, p. 8.

My impression about Japan

When i was still studying in unversity i have a lot of chances to visit a lot of factories and companies to learn about management and production control system. I was lucky to have a good professor to give me chance to take part in problem solving.

I was really impressed with Japanese System in educating thier workers, their spirit in work,
how they make everything important even smallest part in the work is important in maintaining top quality.

Everybody knows about Japanese High Technologies. When I was in High School I watched a TV programme called Beyond 2000. It shows about bullet train and robot in Japan. I was so amazed with their technologies.Then I already decided that I want to study engineering in Japan. After staying for almost 12 years, now i can understand why they could achieve such a high speed economic developement after world war 2. Japan itself dont have nature resource for industrial like petroleum, steel, etc..(ofcourse they have some rear metal...) Therefore, they understand what they should have to keep them living by polishing the production technologies.

Japan have 3000 years of history that makes their society system really well-organized. The changes of climate (4 seasons) make them really susceptible to the time and enviroment changes.I was really suprised to see how Japanese being so sensitive with time. For example the Sinkansen (bullet train) schedule very complicated but always in time and never even late
even a minute. Even in private they will be really punctual, they will feel uncomfotable if we are late for a minute.They also very sensitive about spaces, Japan population is up to 1.2 billion, very limited space, therefore the roads and houses are designed with a limited and compact spaces. I respect their knowledge and techniques on how they use the limited space to create maximum comfort and appearance.

From my experience these culture make them really displine and always requesting changes for the life, that makes them motivated to challenge in improving the techniques and innovate the technologies.

Where there are lights, there will be shadows too. Japanese really hard working people, including me now, they will work late.The working system itself makes the employees stay late. To compare with my own country, they spend a lot time on work that makes them under a lot stress and pressure. Working enviroment here itself is very high compatative environment.

Japan's grim reputation as one of the world's suicide nations has been confirmed by statistics that show more than 30,000 people a year have taken their own lives since figures first began to rise in 1998.There a lot reasons for suicide but i personally think high compatitive society and unbalanced work environment are big factors for these phenomenon. Recently there is movement about [work life balance] , i think it is still a long way to solve this problem.