I was one of 400,000 employees, and I knew that even the president of IBM Japan was just a general manager with little influence. Well, as I turned 40, I still had plenty of doubts! I had had a good career at IBM and was on the so-called “elite course.” But I wasn’t feeling satisfied.
#Japenese work timer free#
At forty, I came to be free from doubts.” Kono: There’s a saying by Confucius: “At fifteen, I set my heart on learning. Insights: What made you decide to get your MBA?
#Japenese work timer professional#
These have been indispensable for a variety of situations I’ve faced as a manager, opinion leader, and lecturer at business schools.Ĭonnecting the Dots for Professional Growth I found that writing broadened my network and earned me a great deal of social trust. Some of them have been translated into other languages-Chinese, Taiwanese, Russian, Mongolian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean. I’ve also published several books, which have sold 1.7 million copies. Premo is a different industry, but I can apply my experience there pretty seamlessly, as well. Aidemy and Eight Arrows are HR businesses. The bigger surprise for me was getting involved with startups. Kono: Actually, I always expected to work in HR. It highlighted some important things for my own career path. That’s important-just one or the other is insufficient.Īnd honestly now, with a little distance and perspective, I can reflect on my experience. If Dentsu showed the extreme of the Japanese work environment, IBM was the cutting edge of the world.Įxperiencing the two extremes greatly broadened my horizons. They really helped give me some perspective. It wasn’t until 2017 that I started my own business, so in the meantime, I worked at other big companies-Accenture, IBM, and Deloitte. I had to redirect my personal anger into something positive, something concrete for social contribution. Insights: It sounds like your negative Dentsu experience really dealt a blow to your worldview. It was as if they were saying to me, “Go home, you country bumpkin!”Įitaro Kono Moving on from a Negative Experience with Japanese Working Culture But I was assigned to Nagoya, which was close to my hometown in Gifu. It was the best way to work in Japan and have a global career. I wanted to work in Tokyo, where I’d gone to university.
But right away, the company started giving me assignments that I hated. Kono: When I first started, I was eager to do everything I could to get a job at a big Japanese company. Insights: What was so terrible that you only lasted three months? Lifetime employment with a single company is still common in Japan, especially with large corporations. I went to work for Dentsu, a Japanese giant in advertising and public relations. Kono: Well, after graduating university, I fully expected to enter the Japanese workforce the usual way.
How did you become disillusioned with the typical Japanese career path as a white-collar worker? Insights: Tell us about what happened in your early career. With these eclectic responsibilities (and a GLOBIS MBA behind him), he’s turned his early career frustrations into a change-making mission. He’s also a business school lecturer helping shape future leaders. He’s the chief operating officer of Aidemy Inc, an e-learning company involved in artificial intelligence and digital transformation a cofounder of semiconductor designer Premo Inc and the founder of consulting firm Eight Arrows Inc. Today, Kono is involved in three very different companies. Then he dedicated his career as a human resources professional to influencing the Japanese labor market (and Japanese working culture in general) for the better. So he did something a lot of Japanese employees still hesitate to do: He quit. The company that was meant to care for him in the decades ahead was instead making him miserable. Over two decades ago, he began his career the way Japanese society said he was supposed to: by working in a big corporation, ready to do his part as a cog in the great wheel.
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