Posts Tagged ‘Japan’

 My colleague in Asia just sent me a link to the blog of the Prime Minister of Japan. Mr. Naoto Kan’s blog had been ongoing but after the triple disaster of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant problems, he stopped blogging for good reason.  He has now just begun. Since I am always interested in how leaders communicate and how CEOs or other leaders are using social media, this was a good find. The theme of his blog is Looking Squarely at the Future (a good title)  and the blog says that he does all his blogging himself.  There is an English version which is translated from the Japanese. There are also videos of the Prime Minister on TV or at different events so it is a true multi-media platform. I definitely intend to follow it because hearing from the Prime Minister as he leads his country through this cataclysmic time will be worth my time.

Below is from Mr. Kan’s April 13th post:

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, I have held back from sending out my thoughts through my blog. This was to avoid confusion amidst the ongoing flurry of large amounts of information, while I dedicated myself entirely to responses to the disaster.  With a tense situation continuing even now, a month since the disaster toward the future while I will continue to devote my energies to responses to the earthquake disaster and the nuclear accidents, I will resume blogging little by little.

  Who would believe that the late Peter Drucker, famed management guru, would be a hit among young business women in Japan? Well it is true. His reputation lives on. The hit comes in the guise of a book, “What if the Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team read Drucker’s Management”  and is a favorite among this generation in Japan. The book is based on a story about a girl who is the all around go-to member of a baseball team headed by a male coach. She decides to set some goals for the unambitious team after reading Drucker’s 1973 book, “Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices” and by focusing on discrete, measurable goals leads them towards a championship title.  Interestingly, only 61% of women in Japan work and less than 1% are on boards. The hope is that these young women with the noses in Drucker’s management theories might just change the world. [Read about this in The Economist and thought it was a cool way to teach the importance of good management.]