The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

 It's inevitable - at some point disagreements are going to come up in the workplace. Power struggles, political plays, sectionalism, siloism – the list goes on regarding sources of organizational conflict.  As we all know, disagreements can get heated quickly and it can be difficult to put aside our opinions and biases in order to handle the situation diplomatically.  We can get locked into posit...

We are such a judgmental lot aren't we! We form opinions about people within seconds of seeing them, often even before we hear them speak.  We judge their dress, their body language, their style, without knowing anything about them as a person.  We are slow to unwind our first impression as well, so those first seconds of any interaction are vital.  How is that going for you? We are all critics to...

Like a lot of people, I subscribe to various sites that send you useful information, uplifting quotes etc.  The following morsel popped into my inbox the other morning, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care –Anonymous".  Wow!  What a powerful reminder of the things that really matter in our interactions with others. This piece of sage advice should be metaphorical...

People skills are really one of the key basics of leadership.  Fortunately, leading is easy.  Getting others to follow us is the tricky bit.  I hope this isn't new information, but not everyone is like you, so how do you get the team to follow you?  Especially how to get others, who are so totally different from you, who are "difficult", to follow you or support you? Central to working well with d...

Job descriptions, performance reviews, incentive schemes, recognition programmes are often box ticking activities in organisations, which often lead nowhere.  Overviewing these various systems and their execution may make the managers feel like they are earning their keep, but are they really contributing all that much to the required outcomes?  Counting what the heads do, getting those heads to t...

Everyone hates to be rejected, but not many people have this as a fundamental aspect of their work.  We ask colleagues for help and they assist, we ask our bosses for advice and they provide it.  Buyers though are a different case.  They can easily find a million reasons not to buy and unashamedly tell us "no".  The rejection itself is not so much the problem, as is how we respond, how we deal wit...

     When you see someone do a very good presentation, your faith in public speaking humanity is restored.  There are so many poor examples of people killing their personal and professional brands with poor public speaking skills, it is refreshing to see talks done well.  It is not that hard really, if you know what you are doing and if you rehearse and practice.  This is where the majority of lou...

Bullying, humiliation, ridiculous stretch targets, rubbish goods, stress, shame – a toxic cocktail often suffered in the sales environment.  We often get into sales by accident.  There are not many varsity business courses in sales.  There is sales training available, provided by companies like ourselves, but often this is not offered by the employer.  The assumption is you look after yourself.  W...

You want to promote your business or organisation, so that you can be more successful.  A genius idea pops up amongst the brain trust over a few drinks after work – why don't we enter the Business Awards?  Someone has to win don't they, so the odds are fair. Anyway, there is no downside is there?  True but there can be, if you don't fully think this through.  I don't mean the requirement for polis...

We have all seen it.  The presenters face is expressionless, wooden, devoid of emotion or life.  It is usually well paired with a horrific monotone vocal delivery, to really kill off the audience completely .  Presenting is a serious business, so these presenters present a very serious physiognomy.  S omehow, s cowling is thought to be good too, to show the gravitas the se heavyweights bring to th...

In a previous episode, I mentioned a Spa magazine survey in Japan of 1,140 male full-time employees in their 40s, about what they hated about their jobs. The top four complaints were salaries have not risen because of decades of deflation; a sense of being underappreciated and undervalued and a lost sense of purpose. The Lehman Shock in 2008 opened to door to job losses in larger companies, someth...

This is an old saying in sales and one we forget at our cost.  We might have made the sale and then we keep moving forward.  We get wrapped up in the intricacies of the getting other customers to commit and in the logistical details of delivering our previously sold service or product.  Our schedule fills up quickly and we have filled it with the present and future, not the past.  That customer we...

The head of a pin isn't much real estate is it ?   The metaphor for presenting is to have pin point accuracy around what you are presenting. Going straight to the slide deck production component dilutes our message concentration and takes us too broad.  This should be the last element, rather than the first.  The temptation though is to get into thinking about different visuals, graphs, statistics...

A number of years ago, I recall reading in Japan's Spa magazine , the results of a survey they completed of 1,140 male full-time employees in their 40s, about what they hated about their jobs. The top four complaints were salaries have not risen because of decades of deflation; a sense of being underappreciated and undervalued and a lost sense of purpose.   Apart from not enough money, in a time o...

"We don't plan to fail, we fail to plan", is an old saw that is still true today.  Despite an avalanche of tools to help us plan well, we still manage to do a lousy job of it.  Another oldie goldie is "a good workman doesn't blame his tools" and so this applies perfectly to the tech panoply we have at our fingertips. Having tools available and using them at all, much less effectively, is the bugbe...

In 2017 METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and industry), and the peak industry bodies the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and industry launched their Premium Friday campaign, encouraging firms to allow their workers to depart early on the last Friday of each month.  Approximately 70% of the Japanese economy is based on domestic consumption and the idea is to...

There is an old saying about lies, damn lies and statistics.  An often misquoted statistic in the presenting world is that 55% of your impression on an audience is based on how you are dressed.  Some coaches are advising on this basis and it is only partially true.  Professor Mehrabian's research at UCLA did nominate that particular percentage, but he did so with an important caveat.  When what we...

When you hear an excellent presentation, it is easy to be well satisfied.  When you are giving such a presentation and the audience are wolfing down your information, it is also easy to be self satisfied.  The good is the enemy of the great we say, don't we.  The difficulty is when things are going so well, to know exactly how to take them to a higher level. I was attending such a presentation rec...

When you hear an excellent presentation, it is easy to be well satisfied.  When you are giving such a presentation and the audience are wolfing down your information, it is also easy to be self satisfied.  The good is the enemy of the great we say, don't we.  The difficulty is when things are going so well, to know exactly how to take them to a higher level.   I was attending such a presentation r...

Being persuasive is not down to luck or accident, it is the result of good planning and execution.  This is the problem.  The vast majority of speakers do not prepare properly.  The slide deck gets all the attention, the data gets lots of love, the logistics are thoroughly checked.  The planning component?  Not enough going into that effort unfortunately.  How can we become more persuasive?  There...

When a presentation event unintentionally turns into comedic relief, you know you have a major credibility problem.  Imagine it is after work, a cavernous hall filled with hundreds of people, the booze and small talk all free flowing.  The MC attempts to introduce the main host of the event, to make some worthy remarks.  The hum continues as people are more riveted by their own conversation than a...

In sales we can defeat ourselves, because our way of thinking isn't positive enough.  Consequently, we don't challenge the status quo and we accept our lot, which usually doesn't amount to much.  There is a better way   There are two players in this mental game of sales.  The buyer and the seller and they are playing with entirely different strategies.  For the buyer, the idea of a salesperson sym...

Intention in life is key.  Are we living an intentional life or are we a buffeted bystander of what is happening around us?  We have our personal vision, aspirations, goals, targets or maybe not.  Sales is one area of professional pursuit where intention is everything.  Assertion is key in sales, but it is assertion with a Smiley Face not a grimace.  Of course, salespeople need to have superb peop...

Here we are back with Part Two of the fascinating journey exploring how to use visuals when presenting. Given how straightforward this is, you wonder how come so many people make a mess of it. Let's keep going with some guidelines to help us stand out in the crowd, as the special few, who are professional and know what they are doing. Graphs are great. They make it visually easy to compare items....

The world's third largest economy and one of the most sophisticated and advancedcountries is a notorious underperformer on the international stage.  I was reminded of that by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. She was a guest speaker at a foreign chamber event,drawing a capacity crowd. She is whip smart, charismatic, and knows how to charm thecrowd. She speaks Arabic fluently and her English is simply e...