I  have more than twenty years' experience in management roles, across a wide variety of environments in a different cultural society. I have managed or coached a variety teams, cross-functional teams and operational teams ranging from the producer, marketing, product development, administration etc as Managing Director or operational manager in a foreign investment in Japan.

Some people tell us that management doesn't matter--good technical people in sales or manufacturing will produce results regardless of the quality of management. That has not been my experience. Even the poorest one will kill and spoil totally the organization. Poor managers create the illusion of productivity through busy-ness. Average managers finish work (but not always the right work). Great managers accomplish goals and develop people. As a result, I strongly believe the quality of management makes a huge difference in bottom-line results and quality of work life.

In a SME(small-medium-sized entity) or MNC(multi-national-company), newly minted managers receive management training and coaching to help them make a successful transition into a management role. More often, new managers receive a basic orientation and a high-level introduction on what to do--but don't receive much information on how to do it particularly in a different working environment such as Japan.

Sadly, many new managers receive no training at all--they are on their own to learn how to manage by observation, trial, and error-that is OJT (On-the-job-training) which Japanese organization may most prefer to. This method may save money in the training budget, but those savings are more than offset by lower productivity for the organization and personal stress for the manager and the group lead by the foreign management.

I believe that most new managers (and managers who have been in their positions for a while) want to do a good job but don't always know how to do a good job. Some of them have never seen good management---so how could they possibly be ready to be effective managers?

If you don't know what people are doing, you can't organize the project portfolio of your own. And if you can't organize the project portfolio you intend to accomplish, you can't know whether the work is being done well and on time, whether your group can take on more work, or whether you need more people. You just don't know. And that's just not acceptable for a manager.

My executive mentoring is personal and it will provide -how- in a Japanese work environment. I want to show you how to coach people into performing management jobs, as well as show what a management job might look like.  'Nominication', ie, Japanese style business communication in a very high context at Izakaya (Dringking and unwinding place) is not the one where we can improve relationship. Every management role is unique, and the boundaries depend on the individual and the organization. But all managers have similar operational work.  It needs to be set up logically, explain-able and agreeable...that is what is our goal of work communication even in Japanese work society.