Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (21) : Ron-sanが大いに苛立った問題とは？

1980年にいすゞ自動車の人事部に配属されたRonさんは、言葉の壁がある中、二つ大きな問題を感じました。

その一つは、結論が出ない長すぎる非効率な会議です。

関係する部署（それとあまり関係のない部署）から沢山の人が出席して、延々と会議し、結論が先延ばしになる会議。

Ronさんは、かなりいら立ちを覚えたようです。

コロナウイルス対策としての給付金問題、ロックダウン問題。
緊急課題でも結論まで大変時間がかかっている現状を見ると、今も残る日本の組織の弱点としか言えません。

もう一つが「たばこ」。昔は、会議室の中に靄がかかたようになることもありました。
幸い、これはオリンピックもあり、禁煙、分煙が行き届いてきました。この状態に至るまで40年ですね。

The atmosphere in the personnel department was something new for me. We had our own tennis team that competed in head office and in company-wide tournaments. We went to baseball games together. In the evenings, I would from time to time go out with other members of our group for a drink and dinner. This was all company paid as it came under the heading of building teamwork. In most Japanese companies even today, being able to get along and work as a team member is sometimes more important than your actual job performance. If taken to the extreme, this concept can become a liability for many companies, as they cannot make the difficult decisions as to how to be more efficient, who is needed and who is not needed. Just getting along is not enough.


　　
Gatherings in Isuzu Motors with my family

In those early months in the company, I suffered with language problems again. I didn’t know the financial and managerial terms required in internal business discussions. Also,the offices and meeting rooms were filled with heavy smokers that left me with a headache at the end of each day.

The meetings were twice as long as I thought they could have been and with three to four times more people than was necessary. Decisions were slow in coming and not made without a lot of research. One troublesome area about decisions by committee is that with the continual interaction of a large number of people no one will be finally responsible. Even top management would rubber-stamp what these committees decide and not even know what they are approving. Even if they did, they would not be able to stand up and strongly support the committees’ position.

I would listen to rambling and rambling on subjects of which no one had the required information to make a decision. So, the talking just kept going. Rarely did a meeting end on time. A one-hour meeting could very easily go for three hours. Also, there were people in the room saying nothing and doing nothing. No note taking, nothing. Some, believe it or not, some attendees were sleeping in the meetings. Although, improvements have been made, that characteristic about Isuzu was there even when I left. It unfortunately is a very common problem in many large Japanese companies but to a lesser degree today. The good side is a lot of information comes out. The bad side is that with management by committee no one will take responsibility for the decision and stand behind it.

It was becoming clearer that my goals and dreams for life would start to material greatly working in Isuzu Motors through their international activities. I still had to find out exactly what role I would play in that regard. That started to be answered in the years that followed.

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (20) : Ron-sanこりゃ凄いよ！

Ronさんと私の奇妙なつながりの一つは、以前お話ししましたカリフォルニア州サンノゼ。
ロンさんはサンノゼ州立大学で学び、私はIBMサンノゼ研究所で仕事。

もう一つのつながりはこのいすゞ自動車。
IBM藤沢工場・研究所があった桐原工業団地にいすゞ自動車とその関連会社があり、
また、同じマンションにいすゞ117クーペをデザインした社員もおり、当時の状況はよく耳にしました。
117クーペは、いすゞの個性的なデザインの乗用車。
今でも中古市場では人気のようです。ピアッツアの登場により1981年に生産終了。

さて、翌1982年、Ronさんに凄いことが起きます。

In those days, it was extremely rare for a foreign person to work full-time in a large Japanese company. Because of the language, corporate culture and business style, there seemed to be little value. In my case, I was one of a growing number of people taking this career path. It was so rare that along with four other people, I was interview for an article in FORTUNE MAGAZINE. It was in the July 12, 1982 issue. I am still in close contact with one of those people today.



FORTUNE MAGAZINE interview

確かに当時、日本企業で働く外国人は少なかったですね。
IBMのような外資系企業でも私の知る限りではおりませんでした。
今ほど、海外からの出張者もいなかったと思います。

さて、当時のいすゞ自動車の経営状態は？

Even in those days, Isuzu Motors was in financial difficulties and had a debt to equity ratio of 85% to 15%. Also, its working capital (current assets to current liabilities) was mostly in the red. Simply, they lived off of bank borrowing. As there were a lot of land and other long-term assets that were heavily undervalued on the books, the banks were always willing to continue to lend to Isuzu.

Most of the shareholders were institutional investors, like GM. Their main concern was related to working with Isuzu more than Isuzu’s profit making. The banks wanted to lend. The trading companies wanted to process overseas sales and lend short-term. GM wanted cheap and good vehicles, which they could not produce themselves. The financial health of Isuzu Motors was a minor concern to almost of the major shareholders. When the company did lose a great deal of money during a business term or because of a product failed, no one at the top management level would be held responsible. There was always a reason other than bad management decisions. That lack of attention and accountability is one of several reasons the company continued to deteriorate during my 21 years in the company.

From the job interview and throughout my career in Isuzu Motors, I had always been able to get agreement on proposals if I said I could do it cheaper than the way it is currently done. There was always a cost cutting program in place, and that got attention.

During the job interview, I said I would bring all language training programs in-house. I would hire teachers directly and set up an in-house testing system. That alone saved millions of Japanese Yen per year. No one was interested in improvements, only how to do the same thing cheaper.

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (19) : いすゞ自動車に就職

ここから第六章です。代表的な日本企業いすゞ自動車の社員としての生活が始まります。さて、入社までの経緯は？

Chapter #6: BECOMING AN EMPLOYEE OF A LARGE JAPANESE CORPORATION

One of the English students I had was my next-door neighbor’s daughter. The father was to top executive in Isuzu Motors Limited. That was one of the major truck manufacturers in the country. It was one of the three oldest automotive companies in the country along with Toyota and Nissan. During and after World War II, Isuzu decided to devote most of its strength in building and marketing trucks instead of passenger cars, which Toyota and Nissan did. All three produced both cars and trucks, but Isuzu put most of its effort into trucks. The truck industry is very cyclical and is affected by economic shifts, and Isuzu suffered greatly during periods of recession. In order to survive, it had to sell off one of its plants (later to become Hino Motors) and affiliated several times with other manufacturers through product cross badging. Nothing seemed to work until in 1971 General Motors (GM) bought 34% of the company.



The family to got me into Isuzu Motors

With the very different corporate cultures and approaches to business between GM and Isuzu, there were always areas of friction and pro-GM/anti-GM camps within Isuzu Motors. The pro-GM camp was basically saying that Isuzu could not survive without GM, and to prosper, Isuzu needed all the help it could get from GM including management support. The anti-GM camp was saying that Isuzu and GM are equal partners with different strengths and GM need not participate within Isuzu’s management at all. Interestingly, I didn’t know it at the time, but the person that brought me into the company was more in the anti-GM camp. His feeling is that he could build Isuzu into an international organization without GM’s help. Anyway, he was my gateway into the company.

最初の仕事は人事の研修部。
My first position was to work in the training section within the Personnel Department. My first function was to set up a range of English classes for the entire company, as well as test staff on their English ability.

一方で、結婚に向けて準備。
While I was adjusting to working in a large Japanese company, I was also adjusting to married life. I had been with Taeko most of my time through graduate school. She’s a Tokyo girl, born and raised right in the center of the city.

The first time she brought me over to her house, I met the whole family, father, mother, two brothers and sister. Taeko is the youngest of the four children.

Taeko’s father ran a carpenter business but was pretty much retired when I met him. The two sons ran the business with the older of the two managing the company, the mother doing the accounting and the other brother doing a lot of the carpentry work.

Uploaded by Nobi Saito

以上は1980年の話です。日本の自動車の生産台数が世界一になり、モスクワオリンピックをボイコットし、竹の子族が出現し、ルービックキューブとチョロＱが流行った年です。

この頃、読者の皆様はどうされていましたか。まだ、生まれていない！？

私は1977年に日本IBMに入り、入社時から狙っていた海外出張（初めての海外）で1979年12月から1980年5月までサンノゼで過ごしました。Ronさんは、サンノゼ州立大学を卒業して日本に、私はサンノゼのIBMに長期出張となりました。Ronさんと知り合ったのは30年後ですが、縁を感じます。

そして、今も、海外と関わる仕事を行い、それなりの生活を続けていられることに感謝し、自分の人生の選択が間違っていなかったことを実感しています。

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (18) : 上智大学で勉強開始。人生最高の出会いが。

菅さんが総裁選不出馬を宣言。コロナ対策では批判が多いが、高齢者から先にワクチンを打ち、国全体として重傷者リスクを減らしたのは大きな功績。
本人や政府は、もっと胸を張ってもいいのに、そうしないのは何故か。トランプさんだったら100倍くらいに誇張して言うであろうに。
余裕がなくなっていた？発信力の問題？！

以下、
株式会社 日本総合研究所 主席研究員、株式会社 日本政策投資銀行 地域企画部 特任顧問
藻谷浩介氏、2021年8月30日の講演「オリンピックと第五波の決算　～ データから見た第五波の真実 ～」より抜粋。
詳しく知りたい方は是非、藻谷氏の講演をどうぞ。資料はいただけます。

＜日本はかなり良い方では？＞


＜ワクチンの効果は？＞


＜ピークは過ぎた＞


＜死者数は少ない＞


*****************************************************************************************************************************
さて、Ron-sanのLife Storyに戻ります。

チャレンジし、努力する。そして、初めて道が開ける。私にそのことを教えてくれたのはシリコンバレーの人たちでした。

Ron-sanは文化の異なる日本の大学院（上智大学）で勉強を開始、このチャレンジがその後の大きな展開につながりました。

仕事でもプライベートでも。

As the subjects in graduate school became more interesting and demanding on my time, after the first year I decided to reverse the process. I changed from a working visa to a student visa. In order to do that, I had to leave the country and process the visa outside Japan. So, I spend two weeks in the Philippines with several of the other students I studied with. We traveled from Baguio City in the north on Luzon Island to Cebu Island in the center of the Philippines all by bus or jeepney, which was a form of taxi in the Philippines.

At that time, my Japanese was good enough so I could go out and generate my own English classes to support myself. Although I only stuck to the business community, my heart was not into teaching English. I always found myself teaching more business in English to businessmen than just English itself. Also, I learned a great deal about how business was run in the respective companies I taught at. I even wrote several papers for graduate school based on what I learned teaching English. So, teaching English achieved several goals.

Much like my undergraduate studies, about 10% of the material learned was helpful throughout my professional career, but that 10% paid for itself hundreds of times over. My studies evolved around the rapidly developing economies in Asia, foreign exchange, foreign investment and different management styles between western businesses and Japanese businesses. Those management differences learned in graduate school were very helpful when I started working for a large, old-fashion, traditional Japanese company.

As I did a lot of the research by interviewing companies in Japanese, I went through the second time of the exhaustion in using daily the Japanese language, as the subject matter was so different from basic living and daily subjects of conversation. I was now talking about growth industries, management decisions and investment strategies. I really had to develop my Japanese vocabulary to discuss those topics.

As the school was graduate school, many of the students were well into their careers and worked full-time. Therefore, most of the classes were in the evenings. After our classes we would quite often go out for a couple of beers with one of the professors, Professor Hirono from Seikei University. He even published one of my papers in his school’s economic journal. It was on the development of Malaysia, and I was very proud of that 50-page paper. At the time, I had no idea that I would be traveling to the countries repeatedly once I got into my career.



Professor Hirono, Petra Fujiwara

Other people from those beer parties that I still maintain contact with today are Petra Fujiwara and Wayne Toyomura. Petra eventually went back to Germany, her native country and spent many years working for Canon of Germany as their PR Manager. At the time of this writing she’s working for Fuji-Film in Duesseldorf. She married a Japanese guy who lived a great deal of his life in Germany. Wayne was from Hawaii and eventually moved back there.

Both Petra and Wayne are excellent in Japanese and started learning the language about the way I did, but both of them were more serious about it than I was, particularly on the writing side. They have very great depth in the language. I’m more a talker and negotiator.



Early days dating　＜いいね！！「昭和」の外国人感があるね！＞

When in graduate school I met my wife Taeko. She was working at the time and had no connection with the school, but I just loved her personality. It was, and still is, very light and happy. She was the perfect match for a serious worrywart like me.

Coming to Japan, studying the language, getting to know the way the Japanese lived and attending graduate school in international business all contributed toward my dream of contributing to the world through working in the international community. A pathway to my goals of global interaction and understanding was starting to become clearer.