THANK YOU VERY MUCH, KEN !!! :)

 The whole term has just passed so quickly and I've just finished my last RW class, Lessons in Leadership and the Dynamic You, taught by Ken today. I learned so much from this class, honestly. Since I had many experience that I played a role as a leader in many groups, I was able to reflect on what I had done and my failure at that time, and think about what I need to improve or what I need to acquire to be a better leader from next time.

 What is a better leader for me? And now, I remember I wrote a statement in the beginning of this term.

"I, Shiori Asakura, living at my highest and best, am cooperative (understanding others), responsible, and the most hard-working in the team so that I can motivate teammates and provide them a comfortable environment to achieve the common goal."

 Learning from Shackleton, some guest lecturers and Ken, what I wrote above was not wrong, I believe. Many of so-called "qualities of leaders" are based on this kind of idea and leaders are able to get trust from their teammates. In addition to what I wrote in my statement, I learned there are something special that leaders need to acquire, rather than qualities based on emotional matters such as trust and respect. Those are optimistic ways of thinking, quick decision-making skills and courages to take risks based on their judgement, for example,  if the risk people were about to take is necessary or not. To gain these qualities, however, people need time and training. I think I now need to start training to acquire them in ICU and also in an organization I belong because I have never trained myself to be a skillful leader.

 What I really liked about this class was that every class was very entertaining and so interesting to me! In every class, I get new and useful information about some steps to be an ideal leader, and have some time to discuss with my friends, which worked very well on me because I was able to organize my thought by talking to them, and also gain others' perspectives towards leadership. Presentations by guest lecturers were so impressive, and I've got so many "impressive quotes" from their speech. Even though I feel regrettable that I was not able to attend the whole class because of my chronic disease, I really think I was fortunate to be in this class this term and had an opportunity to learn from Ken. Your class left me a big goal towards mu future, with specific steps I need to achieve one by one. The figure of my ideal leader has definitely changed since I took your class, and now I hope to acquire more skillful and effective leadership for my own future.

Thank you very much, Ken!

With my best regards,

Shiori Asakura

LE Part 10: Tenacious Creativity and "Japanese Business"

 The last chapter (in an assigned part of reading) is about "Tenacious Creativity," and it illustrates the importance of finding solutions with tenacious creativity. The most impressive quotation for me is "think the unthinkable," which means we should not dismiss "any ideas, no matter how farfetched, without throughly considering it."By reading this chapter, my honest impression towards tenacious creativity is that it's not so easy to do this: I need stamina, tolerance, optimism and many other qualities i learned from previous chapter to find a solution with tenacious creativity. It's not so easy.

 Another quote which got my attention is "rather than expecting things to go right, successful leaders under these conditions should be prepared for things to go wrong." My essay topic for this term is Japanese negotiation. My essay illustrates what Japanese distinct negotiation style is and finds out problems in it by looking through the skills of ideal international negotiators, and analyzes how Japanese people can fix these problems. The main reason why I decided to write about Japanese negotiation is based on my regrettable feeling towards Japanese business which I've begun to have since I went out of Japan and recognized Japanese business situation in an international scale for the first time when I was sixteen. (I decided to stay abroad and began going to a high school in Switzerland at the age of 16. ) In my diary, I wrote, “it is regrettable that Japanese corporations frequently lose international competitions and cannot expand their business even though Japanese people have brilliant ideas and advanced technology.” A few years later, in 2012, Yomiuri Shimbun issued an article which states, “despite its technological prowess, Japan has sometimes failed to make its technologies the global standard--typical examples being its analog high-definition broadcasting system and mobile phone technology.” It was issued in the middle of struggle when Japanese automakers had been trying to make their own EV (electronic vehicle) charging connectors a global standard. Until then, I believe Japanese automakers were being ahead in developing the charging system, but American and some European automakers began concerning about the fact Japanese automakers would monopolize the EV market in the future, they decided to invent their own charging connector, which was different from Japanese one in advance at that time. And then, the struggle of which charger should be the global standard started. What I really think Japanese business people should have done is to talk to Americans and Europeans beforehand. They could have expected that kind of things happened since Japanese corporations had been the only one being ahead in developing chargers in competitive automobile industry. If Japanese business people in automobile firms had known the idea of "rather than expecting things to go right, successful leaders under these conditions should be prepared for things to go wrong," they could have dealt with the problem beforehand and that's the thing I really feel it's regrettable. Japanese creative ideas and minute technologies are brilliant, and Japanese people should be more proud of them and make a best effort to promote them internationally, by acquiring leadership skills.
 I think I've written too much here, but since I left Japan and stated my high school life in Switzerland at the age of sixteen, I began to think about who I am, my identity, and one day realized I'd been thinking about any things or problems from "Japanese" perspective. Then I think my love towards Japan, my home-county, got deepened, and began to be more proud of being Japanese. From my, one Japanese girl's perspective, it is so regrettable that Japanese business does not expand because of the lack of their leadership skills, and what is worse is that Japanese business people don't really see that right now. They tend to focus on acquiring English as a language, but they should take one or more further steps to be international business men / women so that Japanese business with its brilliant idea and technology will spread abroad and can be global standards in this globalized business world.

Bye!

LE Part 9: Risk

 Taking risks, which is the main topic of Chapter 9 in Leading at the Edge, is sometimes important although we need to avoid taking unnecessary risks which can endanger organizational stabilities as stated in this chapter. I usually do not want to take risks because I'm afraid of the fact I might regret my decision later on. This chapter, however, taught me a new perspective towards taking risks. By looking through many examples, I stated to realize drastic actions involving risks can result in a huge success, and to be successful, leaders' agile decision-making abilities are essential. H-LAB, an organization where I belong, is now four years old, and for the past three years, founders of the program have mainly built up the summer school, and there were some kind of traditions, which include what kind of framework the annual summer school for high school students would be like. High school students attend two classes held by Harvard students in the morning, they eat lunch, listen to presentations given by adult people who play active roles in their society and have reflection times in the evening and go to bed at 11 o'clock. This whole framework has never changed in those three years. This year, however, almost all of the founders graduated from this program, and now there are many new executive committee members to build a summer school this year. We are now about to make some change in the fixed framework. What I think, however, is that we can take risks and try something new from this year, to make this program keep improving and better, but those risks should not affect high school students who pay so much money for this nine-day summer school and are passionately ready for absorbing many things from this program. As I belong to this team, and am responsible for offering a program, I hope to keep challenging to make this program better without giving a bad affect on people who receive our service. I hope to think about the balance between them when in an attempt to take risks.

Bye!

LE Part8: Lighten Up!

 The seventh part of Leading at the Edge is "Lighten Up!" and I thought what Dennis Perkins says in this chapter is connected to many of the previous chapters. Building a good teamwork require personal relationships in a team, which means they need lightening-up moments in a time they spend. In an organization I belong now, H-LAB, holds many events in a year. They hold events like Nomikai (飲み会) at least once a month. Events can be someone's birthday party, a small trip and just for eating something them want (i.e. all the members really like to eat ra-men, so we have ラーメン同好会 in a team and go to some ra-men restaurant al least once in two months). Through these events, we get to know each others and get friendly, so that we build friendship and begin to talk about anything, which means we can overcome some problems we have, and we can try to deal with conflicts popped up in a team as a whole. Reading the section called "Find Something to Celebrate" reminded me of not only teams I have belonged but also a relationship with a boyfriend. Although boys tend to forget and feel troublesome towards anniversary events (such as the day of one year after the day the couple get dated), girls like to hold them and do special things on those special dates. I really understand many boys don't really like to plan those things and feel troublesome towards them, but I really think making those days kind of special has a good effect on their relationship. After having special date, we both always have close feeling for each other, and try to be more understandable and considerate to the other. I believe sharing an enjoyable moment with teammates or lovers definitely has good effects on their relationships.

Bye!

LE Part 7: Conflict

 Once you belong to any organizations or groups, there will be conflicts in some ways. Some conflicts or argument can be opportunities to make a change of their teams, but others can be pointless to discuss. The most interesting section in Chapter 7, "Conflict" was "Avoid Needless Power Struggle." Dennis Perkins illustrates a conflict on Shackleton's journey as an example and advise you to "choose to leave your "McNeish" standing in the snow until you can assess the situation." The reason why this section got my attention is because I thought I sometimes can be "McNeish" and tend to argue pointless things when irritated or frustrated. As I think you know by reading this blog, I have played a role as a leader many times in my life, but I have never been conscious of the psychological qualities of leaders and never tried to be "Shackleton," who tries to solve the problems calmly. I, indeed, tried not to be emotional in front of my teammates, but talked to my friends out of the team or mothers who always taught me new perspectives towards the problem. But in my personal life, I tend to be emotional when things are not going well. Therefore, reading this article made me realize, in my case, I need to try not to be "McNeish"or make decisions for teams emotionally at first. And then, I need to face teammates who can be McNeish. Since I understand how they feel when frustrated, I think I can deal with them softly after giving them time to calm down.

Bye!

Leadership and Followership

 In this term, we mainly focused on leadership. We learned so much about what qualities leaders need, from Ken, guest lecturers, and also Shackleton. I, however, think leadership is not all about teams. Not only leaders require special skills or abilities and not only leaders would determine what kind of teams they will have, but followers are also important. Leaders tend to be praised in the team, but active followers are the one who enables the leader to start movements, which are going to praised in the future. This idea of mine came from one TED video, and this is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy!

- "How to Start a Movement" by Derek Sivers

It demonstrates how the first follower is important. Since I had never been thinking about the influence of the first follower until I watched this video, I was very convinced by what he says. Leaders, indeed, need followers to be leaders, and the first follower is the one who gives opportunities for them to be leaders. In many cases in Japan and also all the other countries, it is almost impossible to be a leader of an organization from the beginning. I mean, many people starts from new employees, or lower positions and as they get promoted, they will be able to be leaders at last. That also means, everyone starts from followers, and what they need at the time, may be what is implied in this video, qualities of followership.

Bye!

LE Part 6: Core Team Values

 The context of the sixth chapter of Leading at the Edge, "Core Team Values" sounded very connected to other chapters, especially chapter 5, as written in the beginning of "Core Team Values." I was very impressed by many of Shackleton's actions towards his crews and saw the reasons why his crews put so much faith on him. I believe that his self-sacrifice required so much stamina and optimistic perspectives towards the tough situations, the qualities of which are mentioned in previous chapters. If I were his crew, I would feel like I would like to do anything for him even though his request was quite tough. The most interesting quote from this chapter is "what is important to realize that Shackleton's behavior as a leader had ripple effects beyond his individual concerns," which made me realize how much importance a leader's every action has, and how much the leader concerns about his / her teammates influence what kind of team he / she will have. As I've written many many times in this blog, I've been in an organization called H-LAB for two years in low. Last year, unfortunately, I did not have a good health condition. I had acute stress gastritis and my doctor strongly suggested staying at home in Hiroshima with my parents so that I was able to get balanced diet made by my mother. I, therefore, wasn't able to attend so many meetings held in Tokyo, and I was not able to do my work sufficiently. But I was not able to reveal I was in a bad health, because I did not want them to recognize me as a person who have a low tolerance for stress. I was so ashamed. The leader of the group one day asked me a reason why my work was beyond the schedule. Since I was very sorry about my late work, I confessed that I had acute stress gastritis. I was thinking he would have scolded me for not telling this earlier. He, however, did not get mad, but instead, he said, "Sorry that I did not see how tough situation you were in, and now I know I there is a lack in my leadership ... I know it required a great courage, for you, to confess this, but the problem is me. I wasn't able to notice your situation." Then I felt sooooo guilty, and sorry for not telling the truth earlier. I thought, if I had told them about this earlier, he would not be feeling like that and he would have dealt with this, which would have given both of us, happy and trustful feelings. What I learned from this experience is that it is very important for leaders to provide comfortable and open environments for their teammates, which means they really need time for personal relationship like Nomikai (飲み会), and leaders need to be a keen observer so that leaders would not miss opportunities to act like Shackleton, self-sacrifice actions for their teammates.

Bye!