Fujiko Suda: Worklife

The Gap: Education & Business

Mar 29, 2003 18:06 pm / Add a comment

The spring warmth has finally come for the past week here in Tokyo area. Trees are com­ing to life with soft greens and blos­soms in var­i­ous shades of pink, yel­low, white, and blue. While I was cycling, as usual, thoughts begun to take shape as words.

It was about the vast dif­fer­ences between what the chil­dren are trained to think and act espe­cially in jr. high and high school, and how the knowl­edge work­ers are asked to think and act in busines scene in Japan. That is, young Japan­ese adults receive for­mal edu­ca­tion with train­ing stressed upon obe­di­ence and placid­ness, yet once out in the world of work, they are to express them­selves freely, clearly, sup­port­ing their own ideas.

Although my old­est son’s jr. high school was great in the way it val­ued indi­vid­u­al­ity, basi­cally treated kids with dig­nity and trusted their cre­ativ­ity, not too may schools have such attitude.

Unfor­tu­nately, in the high school my son will start to attend in April 2003, the style is militaristic.

You are to obey the rules, period. No self-expression is per­mit­ted in appear­ance. Shirt must be white, no stripes or col­ors. If you come to school with a shirt in any other color than white, you will be sent home to change your shirt.

On spe­cial occa­sions, if your hair color is any­thing other than your nat­ural color, you must dye your hair back to the nat­ural color (which is black for Japanese).

On and on.…. The school and teach­ers con­stantly recite the rules, how many days you must attend school in order to grad­u­ate, that you must not ride your bicy­cle or motor bike to school.

On the day of school ori­en­ta­tion, there was not once a word about cre­ativ­ity, expres­sion of self. There were some talk of gain­ing knowl­edge and wis­dom, but how could one max­i­mize in those with­out free­dome of expression?

It is a won­der that despite of being bounded by so many rules and reg­u­la­tions, that some of Japan­ese still are able to func­tion as what work­place demands, that is to express their ideas, to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tively with their bosses and customers.

Although I lived in US between the age of 12 and 30, it is in just last few years that I have learned to express myself effec­tively in group ses­sions. Until then, I could only lis­ten in for­mal meet­ings, not able to make com­ments. Even now, I need courage to break the ice and say what I need to say.

I noticed young Sakakida-san and Ohno-san hes­i­tate when there are senior mem­bers in meet­ings, even when meet­ing is infor­mal. And they are con­sid­ered as very out­spo­ken among Japanese.

When will the edu­ca­tion in Japan change? What do I do to make that change hap­pen, changes in pos­i­tive way? If the edu­ca­tion in Japan is not chang­ing fast enough, I had bet­ter come up with super meth­ods in my work with Japan­ese com­pa­nies pro­mot­ing inno­va­tion through com­mu­ni­ca­tion and expression!

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