The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

Anyone presenting in public eye is going to experience fear.  I am a veteran, having done over 500 public speeches and usually I am relaxed about speaking in front of an audience.  But put me in front of an audience of Dale Carnegie High Impact Presentations instructors at a Dale Carnegie international convention, a room positively bristling with presentations expertise and I can tell you I get ne...

Dale Carnegie Training conducted a global survey to examine what are the key people issues organisations are facing.  The research identified three common macro trend areas: Leadership Development, Succession Planning and Employee Engagement.  The results proved to be consistent across organisations, regardless of size, geography or industry.   Leadership Development ideas have been overtaken by t...

We hadn't thought of that or we hadn't planned for that are holy grail of sales.  This is what the client is saying silently to themselves because you have asked a really, really smart question about their business.  Turning up to sell something and turning up to add value are not the same thing.  The real pro salespeople turn up with value from the outset.  They are thinking about the client's bu...

Speaking in front of groups is a learnt skill, except that we don't bother to learn. Oh, so and so is a natural, they have the gift of the gab.  We hear these types of things and imagine that an ability to speak in public is some inherent skill, that we don't possess.  We all learn the skill, except that some start earlier than others.  It doesn't matter, it is never to late to learn and the impro...

Who would have thought we would be seeing the job mobility we are witnessing today in Japan. This is a recent phenomenon and it will become a bigger topic for discussion going forward.  The inability of companies to hire enough young people because of the decline in the youth population will see companies get into bidding wars to grab the talent.  The winners will be those who train their middle m...

There is no doubt that having a solid personal philosophy for how we deal with others is a sound idea.  Few people however bother to develop a personal approach, so they are always floundering around trying to get on better with others.  We are some much more interdependent in business today than we have ever been in the past.  If you are in sales, then your people skills have to be simply excelle...

It is rare to see a presentation completed well, be it inside the organization, to the client or to a larger audience.  The energy often drops away, the voice gradually fades out and there is no clear signal that this is the end.  The narrative arc seems to go missing in action at the final stage and the subsequent silence becomes strained.  It sometimes reminds me of classical music performances,...

If we want to improve we need to change.  We can't keep doing the same things in the same way and expect an improved outcome. Einstein defined that as "crazy". This means we have to institute some behaviour change.  Not easy. If it was easy, none of us would be overweight.  We would all be able to simply alter our lifestyles and become more healthy.  We have to change our thinking about the result...

Nothing happens in business until a sale occurs.  By the way, we are all in sales, whether we know it or not. If we are doing sales properly we are providing an immensely valuable service to our buyers. We are connecting them with goods and services which will help to grow their businesses.  We fail our clients when we are not professional in sales and that means the ability to understand what the...

Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and author of Japan Sales Mastery and we are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Well, where is this Cutting Edge?  For all of us, the quality of our people i...

We create stress for ourselves don't we.  We often do this through being disorganized and time poor at the same time.  We get into a habit of how we work and it is usually not the most effective system.  There are some simple steps we can take which will really help us to get more efficiency out of our way of working.  Let's take a look at how we can be more productive. Welcome back to this weekly...

 How do we build trust at the start of a business relationship?  We are an unknown, we have no established track record and we have to get over that situation.  There is best practice about how to build the trust and once we know what we are doing then the problems fade away. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story,...

Being able to get up in front of a crowd of strangers and speak with confidence and persuasive ability frustrates the vast majority of people, because they don't feel they can do that.  They are limiting themselves unnecessarily.  In any business being able to take people with you as a leader, colleague or salesperson is fundamental to moving forward in the your career and your business.  We are s...

Often we are not tapping into the full brain and experience power of our team.  This happens because of the way we go about sourcing ideas.  The extroverts take care if themselves.  They are boisterous and dominate the airwaves whenever ideas are called for.  It is the introverts we need to also pay attention to. They are often thinking deeply on a subject but never get their moment in the sun to...

Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and we are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Well, where is this Cutting Edge?  For all of us, the quality of our people is the cutting edge for success in...

Your name is called, you are ushered up to the podium.  You are in the limelight, all eyes are on you, here is your chance to shine.  You blow it. The brand damage both personal and professional is writ large up on the public stage.  It didn't have to turn out like this. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Presi...

Mistakes happen.  How we deal with them becomes a crucial skill as the leader.  There is always the contradiction between asking people to do new things and then being upset when mistakes result.  We are all the product of our experience and that experience was built on a firm foundation of mistakes, where we learnt what not to do. We are quick to accept this learning process for ourselves, but so...

Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and we are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Well, where is this Cutting Edge?  For all of us, the quality of our people is the cutting edge for success in...

Having the ability to influence decisions separates the leaders in business from the rest.  Getting others to accept our suggestions and recommendations is not easy.  Everyone is so much more opinionated and skeptical today. We need a smooth way in to their mindset which will allow us to persuade them to follow our advice.  The ancient art of storytelling is one powerful way to get others on board...

We need the leader to provide direction, hope, guidance, the way forward. That same leader needs to be able to communicate the vision for the team and to build the people power under their accountability. What do we get though?  Leaders who can't lead and can only manage the processes. We get poor commitment from the team because they don't know the "why" of what they are being asked to do.  It do...

Scrolling, thumb typing, constant checking on updates seem to be the new skill sets we need to make in this screen addicted modern business world.  In reality, the key missing skill is the art of really listening to others. What we want to say may be astonishingly interesting to us but that is the point – everyone wants to be listened to and we need to build relationships, trust and credibility th...

We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold.  We like to do business with people we like and trust.  We will do business with people we don't like and very, very rarely with people we don't trust.  Neither is our preference though. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan a...

Booze and chat are the enemy of event programme speakers.  The level of audience rudeness, especially here in Japan, is gobsmacking.  Japan is such a polite society with a couple of exceptions and this is one of them. You may be the speaker or you may be the warm-up act.  When you are in the MC role, about to introduce the programme speaker, avoid the charisma by-pass problem of no presence in the...

The dealing with mistakes culture in Japan is definitely in the tough love category. This makes innovation and engendering creativity difficult here because, the penalties for failure far outweigh the rewards for success.   Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and we are...

Talented staff are hard to keep.  They have options and are free agents, selling their services to the company that offers them the most attractive home.  Do you have that home for them now? Want to take a peak inside to see what that home looks like? Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegi...