In March this year, Japan reeled under devastating blows from the environment. The country’s economic ascendency seemed to dissolve away in an instant before Nature’s fury, causing widespread trauma. Some authors say, however, that Japan’s economic decline began much earlier.
Familiar surroundings disappeared in the earthquake and tsunami. The toll was at least 5,000 lives along with major infrastructure, leaving people lost and literally cold in the pre-spring weather. Survivors of the destruction were left to grapple with shock and sudden adversity. Everywhere, writes a friend, almost no electivity, no water, no gas nor gasoline.
The worst environmental calamity in 140 years of that nation’s history has wiped out all traces of development. Even months later, the emotional distress persists, the friend writes:
It passed 3 months since that terrible earthquake attacked us. Since then until now I have been, somehow lethargic and do not want to do anything. But it was beginning of March and still cold and after March, April and May, now we are in June … and seems no changes happen … Northern Part of Japan, focus of the earthquake are still desert. So many people died and still so many missing, so many suffered a lot. On the other hand we are alive and so we have to live, exist…
Lethargy is but a natural reaction, a defence against trauma most unexpected. Many wonder why they have been left alive at all when all they hold dear in life is gone. In addition, looms the threat of a nuclear fallout that could affect generations. But not everything should be blamed on Nature – the lacks of foresight and openness to change are the human contributions to disaster.
Japan became the Asian superpower on the shoulders of its manufacturing prowess over the later half of the twentieth century, while China and India still grappled with burgeoning populations and poverty. Since globalization, however, these other countries appear to have picked up their pace of development, and they are being termed ‘the new economic frontier’.
Globalization showed up the cultural stagnation. The reason for it, as Japanese retail business leader Yanai perceives, is the people’s getting stuck into change-resistant ways. Ethnocentric preferences turn them inwards celebrating sameness, and in the process, gradually they lose adaptability to the outside world that is meanwhile changing differently.
The business practices, Yanai writes, have also become introspective:
One problem is that we look down on developing countries… we lack the willingness to learn because we have been so successful before… we are under the illusion that we are rich and superior … in Japan, income has stagnated for many people for a decade or more. Japan is still very comfortable to live in, if you are Japanese. But there’s a difference between being comfortable and being viable.In the global forum, crucial business decisions rest on cultural awareness. Yet many Japanese company representatives are unwilling to accept that they can and do make mistakes. Similar people issues may have underlain Toyota’s automobile debacle overseas. Their chairman, summoned before a US Congressional hearing last year on the accident involvements of their cars, hung his attribution on employee confusion between sales and quality. Disgruntled consumers however, complained that repeated problem feedbacks to the company fell on deaf ears.
The general organizational pattern is bureaucratic, built upon traditional ideals of the Japanese culture including dignity, honour, discipline, and strength. But expectations of social respect in the collectivistic society, often prevents bottom-up feedback and the sharing of information. The need to preserve hierarchy may then encourage cover-ups, and thus face-saving of the decision-making structure becomes paramount. The attenuation of creativity may naturally follow, as may the corruption of power and resources.
Beech writes that imminent labour shortage has forced open to change the most traditional doors – in sumo wrestling. This sport, totally associated with Japanese culture, has been practiced for at least 1,500 years. Its traditional secrets can be expected to remain within the ethnic fold. And yet, the top spots of the sport in Japan itself have been taken over by gaijans – foreign athletes from Mongolia, Bulgaria, and Estonia.
Yanai points out:
Most ordinary Japanese industries are bound up by government regulation, or by agreements (tacit or explicit) within the industry. The idea is to create a union or association or something and then use it to start imposing regulation and preventing competition.
In the recent nuclear crisis at Fukushima, the country’s prime minister himself received news about reactor explosions from media reports! In truth, the reactors were able to withstand the earthquake. Against the tsunami however, the safety measures were inadequate, since a deluge of its proportions had never been experienced or even considered before. The plant authorities did not admit the shortcomings, they chose instead to play down the nuclear threat.
Garthwaite writes:
[International agencies] criticized Japanese authorities for "working from a standard nuclear industry playbook” … calling for "a frank appraisal of what is known and not known and the potential range of damage and consequences … verbal reassurances about low radiation levels stand in stark contrast to repeated increases in the radius of evacuations."Post-catastrophe, big firms have become pessimistic about Japan’s business conditions. Economic recovery is not expected to be broad-based and household spending has decreased. The country may also face labour shortage because of its social imbalance - the biggest demographic age group being the oldest. In a nation largely of of retirees and disconnected youth, the effects of trauma may well tend to hopelessness.
Back decades in time, in the aftermath of World War II, a proud nation was brought to its knees, with the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroying Japan socially and economically. The people’s indomitable spirit of recovery raised the levels of creativity and industry to achieve new heights of economic glory.
Clearly, the present ‘traditions’ of closedness and ethnocentricity are not part of the cultural inheritance. Perhaps these later additions to social learning were adopted to secure the preeminence of the manufacturing industry against foreign invasions.
Clearly, the present ‘traditions’ of closedness and ethnocentricity are not part of the cultural inheritance. Perhaps these later additions to social learning were adopted to secure the preeminence of the manufacturing industry against foreign invasions.
Economics again has been responsible for the dearth of local talent. In earlier ages, families sent their children to the sumo “stables” to ensure that they were at least fed. In an affluent nation, hard labour is a thing of the past. The goal becomes college education, and thereby a comfortable life. With few indigenous aspirants, the ancient sport faced extinction.
Beech writes:
After all, if this quintessentially Japanese sport can accept—and even celebrate—foreigners, perhaps the rest of the nation can do the same in other fields.
Indeed, change is a necessary part of evolution. The world has changed, and today in the global forums, people skills are required to survive and flourish. Sharing does not diminish knowledge, it expands it. In new millennial businesses, collaboration and partnership are replacing merger and acquisition.
Perhaps the cultural need of the devastated nation is to revisit the forgotten past, and resurrect the spirit of recovery that once brought the people up from absolutely nothing. Although their emotional minds are now burdened, the people of Japan need to realize that the opportunity arises to once more resurge from devastation. And little by little, as my Japanese friend mentions, time and nature heal the sorrow.
References for this post:
1. Beech, Hannah. “Sumo wrestles with globalization” mckinseyquarterly.com. McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey & Company. JUNE 2011.
2. Garthwaite, Josie. “How Is Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Different?” news.nationalgeographic.com. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Daily News. March 16, 2011.
- Kihara, Leika and Ishiguro, Rie. “WRAPUP 2-Japan business mood to recover from post-quake slump-tankan” reuters.com. REUTERS.
- Yanai, Tadashi. “Dare to err” mckinseyquarterly.com. McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey&Company. JUNE 2011.
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