Learning's from Japan!

This is my Project-8 or CC#8 of competent communicator manual in toastmasters.
(Though this is posted on blog on 27-Sept-2016, I delivered it in club on 30th-Mar-2013).

Project 8 is about getting comfortable with visual aids.

It's objectives are:

• Select visual aids that are appropriate for your message and the audience.
• Use visual aids correctly with ease and confidence. 

I leveraged on my stay in Japan, used "before-after" images to demonstrate it's "resilience" & articulated possible reasons of  resiliency. I used power-point slides  as visual aids.


Speech content is

Toast-masters Konnichiwa.

Konnichiwa is Hello or good day in Japanese.

After spending close to 8 years in Japan, a frequently asked Question is what’s learning for us – Indians!  I kept on thinking on this and came to conclusion that the Resilience is what we should learn from Japan.

Resilience is ability to find inner strength to bounce back from a set-back or challenge.

More resilient you are, faster you will bounce back.

Let’s understand This.  Japan is country prone to natural disasters. Earthquakes, Tsunami, & Typhoons – you name it and they have it.

For example this 11-th March 2011, Tsunami triggered by 9.0 Richter scale EQ.  This is third largest EQ every happened in this century.

It triggered Tsunami of 133 ft. high, and almost 30 ft. high waves hit the shores.

Disaster was telecasted almost all over the world. The damage was exorbitant.

This is just nothing. But Hiroshima-Nagasaki Bombings were worst!

When that “Little Boy” hit Hiroshima – The city was literary wiped off!

This is image of before and after the bombing.  Absolutely everything was wiped off.

Scientists said the radiation was so bad, that nothing will grow for 100 years there.

Damage to country and psyche of people was so bad, that they said, “Japan will never stand up again”.

But they were wrong!

This is Hiroshima today, the bustling city.

This garden that you see is just walk-away from the centre – where Bomb was dropped. See the greenery today.

One may claim that it is miracle; it is if it is happening only in Hiroshima.

But it works every-where in Japan.

Look at this, these images of Tsunami places – just one year after.

Look at this – not only roads, but even business are also functional.

Think – how the place will be after 40 or 50 years!

That’s Resilience – You bounce back from ashes!

This resilience is all about citizens and communities.

Citizens and communities are nothing but the Culture!!

What’s the culture of Japan, that’s making this possible!

Culture is really a complex thing to study & has long list of areas to think.
But let’s consider only 3 of them due to paucity of time.
First is Punctuality.
Can you see this man; he is actually setting his wrist-watch based on the train-timing.  Imagine this in India!
Here is 1920 poster that shows how much time each of this hair-style takes; within that time how long will you reach by train! It’s in 1920.Here is a late pass, which they issue to passenger in case the train is late by few minutes. You can hand-over this in your office and then office won’t mark you late! It is said that all such small efforts really counts and national inventory of Japan has dropped. That means to secure a critical item in Japan you need to plan only for 3 hours, this period is 3 months for India. !
2^nd is Discipline. It’s phenomenal in Japan. See this first image, its train station in Tokyo. Compare to any station that you know. And you see that Yellow line – It is textured line – so that even blind person can catch the train without any assistance. See those Station-Masters are struggling to close the crowded train and others are calmly waiting.  Here is another image of escalator. Can you see only one side is occupied neatly. Another side is kept vacant – so that someone who is in rush can run along. The real acid test of discipline comes when disaster strikes. See these both images are taken just during 11-Mar Tsunami incident. See how disciplined citizens are. There is absolutely no Chaos. I have an incident to share. It was pretty late night, I was returning from office. There was hardly anyone on the road, not even cars. A very drunken man was coming towards me. And it was still some distance, and he suddenly stopped. I could not understand what happened. I was still walking. And then I realized he stopped for road signal. That’s the discipline – it is ingrained in their blood.
Lastly it is cleanliness.
See this road; this is near to station towards school. It’s absolutely clean. I used to make a fun – by saying that their Public Toilets are cleaner than our kitchens.  See this inside of train. And the dust-bins – separate for burnable/unburnable/kitchen waste etc. You may feel this is inside premises and hence clean. See this. Cleaning products is multibillion $ industry in Japan. 600+ antibacterial products. They have some crazy things like touch less toilets, or virgin money. I will suggest checking this more on internet.
But what I feel that these three things punctuality, discipline and cleanliness will not make any country only a resilient but also a best place to live – what do you think?
It is not wonder that this great patriotic saint Vivekananda found this in his brief visit to Japan. He said this in 1897 in his interview to Hindu, that “I would wish that every one of our young men could visit Japan once at least in his lifetime”.So Toastmasters – when are you visiting to Japan?  Over to MOC. 

Disclaimer: Figures, images etc. are taken from online resources purely for learning purpose only. 

Japanese adopting western Bonus culture !

Financial times dated 1-jun says "Nomura's 1600 staff- more than 50% of its investment arm adopted western style contracts" .

This will cut basic salaries , provide higher performance bonus and it will be easier to fire them in case of downturn.

Though the firm maintains that it is essential for integrating Japan and European acquisitions of Lehman , still it is in stark contrast with Japanese employer outlook of "stable Jobs" as well as against the government and regulators efforts all over world to curb executive compensation and golden parachutes.

So is Japanese embracing western culture in pay-packages ? It is difficult to comment with one such example.

More-over news article no where comments about employee reaction .One may doubt about the negotiating power with employees given recessionary trend and downturn in job-market .

Lets keep watching how other Japanese firm are responding ...