Learning to Decide: The Founder's Edge
Leading in ambiguity successfully requires stronger competencies, especially deciding without knowing, learning by doing at velocity, and building conviction through repetition. Founders get thousands of reps in these skills weekly—conflicting advice forces decisions, rapid experiments replace perfect planning, small failures build the muscle. Corporate leaders need the same capabilities, but their systems prioritize alignment over action and risk prevention over learning. They're stuck coordinating about decisions instead of making them. The answer isn't better training. It's changing the environment.
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Leading Light: Why the 'Technicolor Leader' is the Future of the C-Suite in Asia
For decades, you succeeded by becoming the "Monochrome Expert"—suppressing warmth, passion, and vulnerability to appear professional and bulletproof. But in the C-Suite, accuracy is merely table stakes. The new currency is Impact. This article explores why Asia's most effective female leaders are moving beyond the "Expertise Trap" to master Strategic Modulation—the art of deploying your full personality spectrum to create psychological safety, drive conviction, and build trust without sacrificing cultural intelligence.
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You're Not Failing: Why Managing Larger Teams in Japan Is Harder Than It Looks
If managing feels impossible right now, you're not imagining it. Average team sizes jumped from 10.9 to 12.1 people in just one year, while your individual contributor workload hasn't shrunk. In Japan, you're navigating additional challenges: promoted later in life, managing former peers and older team members, all while mastering leadership for the first time. Based on Gallup's latest research, here's why you're struggling—and practical strategies that actually work when you're caught in the player-coach trap.
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The Great Flattening: What Executives Must Know About Expanding Span of Control
Global pressure to flatten organizations and expand span of control has reached Japan. But before you increase team sizes, ask a harder question: How many of your "managers" actually manage people? In over-aged Japanese organizations where titles are tenure-based rather than capability-driven, the Great Flattening exposes a deeper challenge. Drawing on new Gallup research of 92,252 teams, this article reveals what executives must address before wider spans of control can succeed—and what you can control when global mandates change.
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When Engagement Scores Reveal What Trust Scores Would Say
When a pharmaceutical subsidiary in Japan received engagement scores of 9%—compared to 23% globally—the country head's first instinct was to blame the survey. But the real question cut deeper: If 93% of employees are disengaged, what does that reveal about trust in leadership? Through the story of Mike and his leadership team navigating cultural expectations and personal blind spots, this article explores what leaders can control when they can't control the corporate dashboard—and why waiting for the perfect trust initiative means losing the talent you can't afford to lose.
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Why Your Goals Keep Not Happening …
Your goals aren't failing because you don't know what to do. They're failing because achieving them requires becoming someone you haven't yet learned to be. This is the knowing-being gap—the space between understanding what you should do and becoming who you need to be to actually do it. The transformation isn't about better planning or more willpower. It's about the courage to evolve your identity.
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The Analog Paradox
Why are effective leaders trading laptops for leather planners during critical strategy sessions? It isn't technophobia; it is a sophisticated cognitive advantage. Explore the neuroscience of handwriting and discover practical ways to integrate analog tools into your digital world to deepen focus, clarity, and strategic intent.
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The Silent Career Stoppers
The call came on a Tuesday morning. Patricia had just walked out of what she described as "the most uncomfortable performance review of my career." Her directness—once her greatest strength—had become a barrier to her team's innovation. Across boardrooms in Tokyo, Singapore, and Frankfurt, I encounter brilliant women whose careers have stalled not because they lack talent, but because they've unknowingly stumbled into silent career stoppers. These aren't dramatic failures; they're the quiet erosions that happen when core strengths calcify into career-limiting behaviors. Three critical derailers consistently emerge, each stemming from the very qualities that initially propelled these women to leadership.
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No One Will Tap You on the Shoulder
She had everything it takes to lead—performance, influence, respect. Everyone came to her when things got stuck. But as she watched senior leaders tighten their grip on operations while competitors adapted faster, a gap was opening. "I think I could be the Country Head," she said in our coaching session, "but I'm not sure I'm ready."
The real block wasn't her capability. It was permission.
She'd been waiting for someone to tap her on the shoulder and say "now's the time." But no one was coming. The role she envisioned? She had to step into it, not wait to be invited.
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The CEO Who Wasn't Needed
What happens when a new CEO arrives to find the organization running smoothly without them? This isn't about crisis management or turnaround strategies - it's about the far more complex challenge of integrating into a team that has already learned to succeed independently. Through a real case study from Japan's medical device industry, we explore why joining high-performing teams often proves harder than fixing broken ones, and what leaders can do about it.
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When Crisis Strikes: How Organizations Reveal Their True Corporate Character
When crisis strikes, an organization's true nature is revealed. This piece explores how companies, much like individuals, exhibit "dark side" tendencies under pressure. Drawing on real-world examples, it delves into how aspirational values can transform into their extremes, offering crucial insights for leaders to build resilient and authentic corporate character.
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Generations at the Table: Getting Intergenerational Teams Right in Japan
Intergenerational teams are no longer the exception- they’re the reality.
We explore how to get the best out of these diverse teams by drawing on Belbin’s team role research and our work with leadership teams in Japan. From uncovering hidden strengths to navigating generational dynamics, we share what helps these teams thrive - and what holds them back.
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Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: The Masaki Wakabayashi CEO Blueprint at GE Healthcare Japan
In this comprehensive dialogue, Masaki Wakabayashi, the President, and CEO of GE Healthcare Japan, unfolds his journey and the pivotal experiences that shaped his leadership style, his drive for excellence, and his profound commitment to fostering a culture of diversity, openness, and innovation within the organization.
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