In Europe...
As a newcomer in Japan, I am not yet familiar with many of the numerous Japanese business rules and traditions. I feel it is quite hard but necessary to get to know them and to understand how and when to apply it. But listening to Mr. Yoshikoshi's speech... I was feeling that we just need to keep on doing what we already used to practice from Europe: work with deadlines, take at least two consequitive week vacation for relaxation of body and mind, work efficiently so that overtime is (hopefully) not needed, and so forth.
... and in Japan
Well, I also got a closer look into traditional Japanese business culture: paid vacation yes... but you cannot take it, overtime until late at night everyday, (endless) discussions in a team for finding a consensus, staff are tired and cannot concentrate, no time left for personal life (weekend is reserved for sleeping and reduce exhaustion), mental illness until karoshi... death because of overwork.
Karoshi - 過労死
"Every year", according to Mr. Yoshikoshi, "30'000 people are killed by karoshi. Since the government started with this statistics 11 years ago, 330'000 people died because of overwork." So, what's going wrong? Well, Mr. Yoshikoshi introduced at his former company a healthy work/life balance (8 hours sleep, 8 hours work and 8 hours personal life). The part to reduce the very common overtime (only a worker doing lots of overtime is a good worker...) was even not an easy task. First he made overtime on Friday evening forbidden at the company, then Wednesday, next the whole week. But first, when he turned off the lights at 6:30pm... people came back after that to the office, turned the light on again and were working again. Imagine that in Europe?!?!
White-Collar Efficiency
What Japanese companies have to work on is White-Collar Efficiency. Blue-collar efficiency is there in the factories, but in the offices... there is the problem. On one slide of his presentation, Mr. Yoshikoshi showed an impressive chart: within 20 years of his career at Triumph, he increased revenues 5x times but could reduced the white-collar workers in the office by about 1/3. I guess what's left was a nice profit! And all this without overtime... in Japan.
There were lots and lots of other interesting aspects at his speech. Actually he published 16 books already about his management philosophy and the 17th is just hitting the book stores now. His meaning about Japanese business culture like nemawashi 根回し (informal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or project) is frank and clear: "It is bullshit". Nevertheless, he also noted that even in 10 years from now, he expects that less than 10% of Japanese companies will change to such a (European?) management style concerning overtime and work/life balance.
Japan: world leader in public holidays
The decrease of karoshi in Japan seems not an easy task. The government at least tries to give workers more days for relaxation and personal life through the increase of public holidays. And there, Japan is now world leader with 15 official public holidays. Even better... if a public holiday falls on a weekend, it will be taken on the following Monday. So Japanese workers never miss a public holiday. That, I think is a good idea... and it makes already 3 weeks of holiday over the year.
Japanese just don't want not to work
Talking about this topic with a friend in Tokyo, a web worker, he just said: this is true, I am not in the office at a public holiday but having my mobile and laptop at home I just work in my home office. OK, I finally got it... what Mr. Yoshikoshi changed in his former company is really a great achievement: for the company, for the health of staff and the Japanese karoshi statistics.
