1st Post
It is an interesting article to me that appears to show a typical view over the Japanese workforce from the non-Japanese.
> graduates are not taught to think for themselves,
> innovate or be highly creative.
> As a result, they are ill prepared to enter the workforce.
In the 13 years of my career being a tactical schemer for the SMEs in a variety of trades, sizes, and locations, I have never encountered a single company that demanded creativity from school grad new employees. Before I became a tactical schemer, I enjoyed an opportunity to interview more than a few hundreds of SME owner-CEOs as an editor of a business magazine for the SMEs. I could never find a single company that demanded creativity from school grad new employees.
The companies, on the other hand, strongly demanded high sensibilities in the human interactions (i.e. non-KY), intellectual curiosity to find and learn things in the given situation, and endurance to complete any given tasks. I used to have a client company that was a designing agency of sales promotional materials. The CEO told me that he would immediately reject the students at interview when they refer to their creativities. Let me add that the company was increasing its revenue bit by bit every year for more than a decade.
There are many excellent companies with breakthrough new products among the companies mentioned above. They are regarded as creative organizations by peers, where I could never find someone obviously creative. They say each of the employees could be creative at any time as a result, if only they are able to sense the customers’ subtle needs. These needs are seldom apparent enough to be found by their competitors. If the companies could detect the subtle needs yet to be filled among the customers (i.e. actually their markets), and if the members of the companies eagerly pursue the fulfillment, the breakthrough results would naturally ensue. Thus, there is no need for creative employees.
I love hard rock and some kind of heavy metal music. I know some of the hit-making guitarists in person. They say they are not creative at all. They learn classic music and music history very much. They spend several hours in fundamental training of guitar play every day. They exercise hit rock tunes over and over. This is how they come to notice what could be left unfilled in the genre, which naturally appears to them as room for new so-called creative works.
2nd Post
It does not seem to me that my points in the previous comment are accurately understood. Let me summarize them again.
As far as I know, the SMEs do not want…
1 super creative persons like some artists with patrons
2 super creative persons who are sometimes suspected to be AS people
3 mediocre creative gen pops
4 toadies whose definition I am not quite sure of.
As far as I know, the SMEs, instead, do have a great need for those with high sensibilities in the human interactions (i.e. non-KY), intellectual curiosity to find and learn things in the given situation, and endurance to complete any given tasks.
The creative persons with their own flashy ideas do not necessarily bring profits to the companies. Those who face the customers’ needs and who attempt to go one step further than the needs with persistent learning and challenge would surely bring profits to the companies. When the latter group reaches a unique solution, the whole organization may be referred to as creative.
As for innovations, they could bring money to the companies only when they meet customers’ needs. Thus the SMEs do not need and do not want creative people or innovative people in any sense.
Let me add another thing.
If there are only two extreme choices, I am sure that most of the SMEs would prefer toadies to the creative.
I used to have a small transporting company (Hikkoshi-Ya) as a client. It had about 20 employees. Most of them had been thinner-inhaling greasy bike junkies in their school days. They could not read books. They never read Nikkei paper. They just read tabloids filled with sports and sex instead. They had no idea of what computers could do. The company was hiking its sales record every year. There was no trick with creativity or with innovation or even with USPs.
The president said that its competitors had initiated some new service to differentiate themselves but in vain, and that what his company had been doing was to desperately complete what was ordered. He said, “I am lucky enough to have ex-junkie-riders as my subordinates. They can never think of some fancy things to do for customers. They used to be in the greasy rider groups where they were obedient to their heads. Now they had heads at each job sites. The heads are the customers. They simply obey their new heads. The heads are very much demanding. They often say to me that customers are even harsher than the gang-rider heads.”