Every year thousands of people in the organization go down the drain because of their mistakes and only a few emerge on the top of the organizational pyramid as winners.
Mr. E was a salesman employed on a permanent basis. One day he found out that his monthly base pay was ¥400 (nearly $2) less than his peers'. He immediately suspected that he had been underrated and was extremely distressed. To outsiders, a difference of ¥ 400 per month may be very lige, and in monetary terms it is. But it mattered a great deal to Mr. E. It meant that management regarded him as less meritorious than other salesmen, and accordingly his promotion would be delayed. Finally, he went to his manager and asked for an explanation. The manager told him to recall the day when he goofed off somewhere and missed a negotiation meeting with an important customer. Even though he had been a very competent salesman, he was underrated thereafter because of his one mistake. It was a serious setback for his career.
Since the seniority-based escalator goes up gradually at the same speed, organization men of the same annual class should, in theory, be promoted to a certain managerial rank at the same time. But, as noted earlier, it does not work that way in practice. The organization does not have a sufficient number of managerial posts for all those on the slate. Naturally, personnel managers will screen people in close connection with top management. They conduct merit reviews to single out better candidates for the posts, and in the process of rating they try to eliminate ones who have fumbled in the game. Those who have made any serious mistake will be put on the negative list and, as a result, will fall off the regular track for promotion.
Once anyone gets behind his peers, he has to put in five times as much effort to catch up. So every organization man is cautious in his daily work.
However, a successful organization man is not overly cautious in carrying out his responsibilities. He knows that his capability shrinks if he becomes too nervous and afraid of making mistakes. If you avoid making mistakes at all times, you have to avoid taking risks. You can probably survive in the organization without taking chances, but you can't succeed. And certainly you won't enjoy your work.
It is risk-taking ability that separates the winner from the loser. If you always try to play it safe and rely solely on some kind of map, landmark, or other guidepost provided by other people, you just have to stagnate. You will find later that your stagnation is just as fatal to your career as an overt blunder. If you have an idea, work it out as a shiny new plan for the company's growth and present it in due course. If you are hesitant, like 90 percent of the organization men, you will never get out of your rut and join the 10 percent who are successful. The insights that come from your past experience will guide you in reading the warning signals. You can calculate each risk you face. You may have to hold back, sometimes, but all your holding back will someday help you move forward at the best possible speed.
The largest whiskey distiller in Japan offers its employees several awards, including the Greatest Confession Prize, the Highest Unpopularity Prize, the Superoptimistic Proposal Prize, and the Most Arrogant Prize. The Greatest Confession Prize is awarded to the man who confesses the greatest mistake made in the company. For instance, it might be given to a man who reports that he caused a sudden stoppage in the production line by mistake. The Highest Unpopularity Prize is given to the man who has made a speech which was most unpopular among company members. The Superoptimistic Proposal Prize goes to the man who has made the most optimistic proposal to the company. The Most Arrogant Prize is awarded to the man who has presented the most arrogant suggestion to management.
Apparently, the company is trying to encourage its members to speak up openly and not to be afraid of making mistakes. The aim of its policy is clear. Management appreciates employees' mistakes if they are caused by an enthusiastic desire to aid the company. No wonder the average sales per employee in this company is ¥ 160 million (approximately $727,000) annually.
Grow over Drinks on the Way Home
I heard from one Asian that in the colonial days the people of his fatherland were strictly prohibited from putting salt in their food. This policy, he said, was aimed at keeping the country a colony, for a salt deficiency causes people to lose both the will and the strength to revolt.
According to legend, a similar policy was instituted by the Tokugawa Bakufu in the rural areas of Japan during the late eighteenth century. In order to subjugate the rebellious peasants, who were the largest in population and ranked second to the samurai, the Bakufu strictly banned them from eating beef. However, the Japanese peasants were not completely subdued by this ordinance. (In fact, peasant riots broke out occasionally in those days.) After dark, the people hid behind thick bushes, made a fire, and cooked beef with some green vegetables on a suki (spade). This is the origin of suki-yaki (grilling on a spade), the world-famous Japanese dish cooked in a shallow, square iron pan in the circle of four or five people.
The Japanese working class of today has inherited not only the peasants' way of cooking beef but also their habit of eating and drinking after work. We can imagine how many people indulge in this afterwork activity if we take another look at the astonishing figures on company expenses for social activities described in Chapter 4.
Any long-standing practice in this world has some reason there, and the afterwork tradition does have certain merits for the organizational "peasants." The first merit is that it helps the organization man relax over drinks with friends on the way home and get rid of the mental cholesterol accumulated during the day. Unlike the contract society of the West, in which a worker can leave an employer quite easily, hollering "The hell with him," the on-tract society usually exhausts one's nerves with its tightly knit groups bound by the traditional concepts of giri (social duty) and on (social debt). Sake (rice wine) loosens the organization man's tongue, so that he can lash out at his kacho (section chief) and bucho (department head) and figuratively crush them to pieces outside of their presence. Next day, he will be fresh and work again diligently for kacho, bucho, and the organization. It is much like the peasants who thwarted the Tokugawa Bakufu by holding a suki-yaki party in the bushes after dark and then obediently went to work in the fields the next morning.
The second merit of the afterwork tradition is that it gives the organization man a chance to collect information over drinks.
Like everyone else in the company, his range of official activities is limited, and he always takes pains to watch his tongue. He needs more information about what is happening beyond the border of his working territory in order to arm himself. So he often takes or follows his company friends to a pub or tavern to exchange information with them. From the information he can figure out what's going on around him. If his leading question is superb, he can garner very useful information and thereby grow for tomorrow. Success is very expensive in the vertical organization.
Third, superiors make use of such personal, afterwork activities to develop an informal training program. Advice and instructions are often imparted to subordinates in this informal, warm atmosphere. There is good reason for this practice. Both superiors and subordinates work together, usually in a large room, and superiors can't reprimand a subordinate openly in front of other members. In order to solve a touchy problem or persuade a subordinate, the superior takes him out for a drink on the way home. Then the informal training session begins. Over drinks each can talk freely, and the superior, if he is a good communicator, can rectify misunderstandings or redirect the misguided performance of the subordinate. At the same time, he can imbue the subordinate with his own views or philosophy. This relaxed two-way communication can be very constructive, uniting subordinates behind common goals and releasing a great flow of creativity. Thus on-the-drink training is sometimes more effective than on-the-job training in Japan.