Why are Japanese companies’ “employee engagement” the lowest in the world?[A simple way to unite a team]| Agile work technique | Diamond Online

In times of rapid change and an uncertain future, each and every one of us is required to upgrade the way we work. What is needed is a work method that produces results quickly in an era without answers.That’s the agile way of workingis.“Agile work technique that produces results at super speed”(Diamond Co., released on June 29)A noteworthy book recommended by two people, Mr. Kazuhiko Toyama, chairman of the Management Co-Creation Platform Group, and Mr. Isao Hosoya, author of “Training Jitama”.The author is Koki Sakata, co-manager (partner) of IGPI and CEO of IGPI Singapore.is. We live in an era in which the barriers between industries are breaking down, routine work is decreasing, and project-based work is overwhelmingly increasing. From now on, instead of relying on the organization, each individual will have no choice but to become an independent (autonomous) true professional. In this series, we will deliver excerpts from the book about the mindset, skills, and work styles necessary for that purpose.

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Era of co-creating a vision with members

Is your organization maintaining high employee engagement? It is not easy to maintain the motivation of members over the long term and produce results as a team.

Empathy with the vision is more important than financial compensation to support the motivation to work in the futurewill be

　past seriesAs explained in , in the future, the world will change to a world centered on co-creative teams that are built on horizontal relationships. In that world, the form of gathering members to win alone and paying for their labor will become obsolete.

From now on,It is important to co-create a vision with the members, support each other, act towards the realization of the vision, and win as a team as a result.is.

After achieving the vision as a team, the team can disband once. Forcing people to stay on a team whose vision has changed will only result in lower engagement.

It is a well-known story that Japanese companies have the lowest employee engagement in the world, but the style of lifetime employment and a top-down organizational culture are no longer suitable in an era of rapid change and high diversity.

The figure below summarizes the differences between conventional team management and team management by supportive leaders.

Visions created by one genius or an advertising agency don’t work

Does your organization have a mission, purpose, vision, or management philosophy? If so, to what extent are they utilized in daily activities?

Is it possible that something like the following is happening?

● The outdated management philosophy created by the founder 50 years ago is still admirably upheld, but no one understands its content.
● An external advertising agency was hired to set up a purpose that lined up good-sounding words, and purpose training was implemented, but nothing has changed.
●The Japanese mission and vision were translated and came down to overseas subsidiaries, but they have not penetrated at all to overseas employees who do not understand the background.

There used to be many famous business owners in Japan. They have inspired many employees with their own management philosophy and have built a large global company.

For example, the management philosophy advocated by Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic, is to “supply large quantities of high-quality products at low prices like tap water.”Philosophy of waterworksspread throughout the world as The idea that “the mission of an industrialist is to overcome poverty, and to lower prices by supplying goods in abundance so that they can be easily distributed to consumers,” was a great idea for employees who were themselves consumers. There were many things that I could relate to, which helped motivate employees and increased their engagement with the company.

This kind of management philosophy worked effectively in an era when it was important to reach a set goal as quickly as possible. However, in this day and age where the ability to set goals themselves is questioned, it doesn’t work.

　In an era like this, it is important to co-create a vision as a team, instead of top-down implementation of a vision decided by a single genius.is.

Create a place to meet regularly and repeat the dialogue

To co-create the team’s vision,It is important to set up regular gatherings away from the daily workis. A physical meeting would be ideal, but online is also possible.

For example, my client carried out an online initiative to co-create a vision even during the COVID-19 crisis. The company is a Japanese company, but the management team was half Japanese and half Indonesian. It was good enough to localize the management team, but partly because of the language barrier, we were unable to reach the point where we were united.

In the online sessions held multiple times, participants were asked to think about answers to the following questions in advance.

●What do you want to achieve in life?
●Why did you join this company?
●What do you want to achieve at this company?
●If you were to tell your family about this company, what would you say?
●What do you think makes this company better than its competitors?

We had a discussion about the company’s vision while sharing the answers with everyone.

By going through this process, we were able to re-understand the differences in each other’s values, and at the same time, we were able to summarize the thoughts of each member, which had been disjointed, into a single vision.

Diverse teams don’t have to force themselves to co-create a vision in one conversation. Forcibly creating a single vision may result in ignoring diversity and creating a one-strong system.

than thatLet’s start by understanding that each other’s values ​​differ through dialogue.

If the interests of the team and each member are significantly different even after regular dialogue, the team should be dissolved or the member should consider leaving the team.

The theme of this series, “Agile work techniques,” is not something that each member does as they please. By co-creating the team’s vision, even if each member works autonomously, we can produce results with a sense of unity as a whole.