Chindogu!

The art of the useless is something many of us specialize in over a life time. We accquire stuff, that we may never use, drawing comfort in the act of buying.

The Japanese, with growing urbanization and wealth, post World War 2, indulged in wanton buying and coined the word 'Chindogu' for urban folk buying up and accumalating useless stuff.Stuff that was useless or that they would not use.

Now with the Japanese economy stagnating and real incomes dropping for urban Japan, many people are re looking at their habit of 'Chindogu'. It is extremely difficult to drop the habit at the flick of a switch.

Japan's rural population has aged and the farming sector has seen alarming dips in productivity with the average age of farmers, being about 65 years, prompting many youngsters to relocate from Japanes cities like Tokyo and Osaka to rural Japan and take up farming as a livelihood. For this to happen young Japanese will need to give up the habit of wandering into malls and shopping for Chindogu, which like many things is an addiction.

Human Resources & Human Beings!

Are humans resources or are they simply human beings who turn up for work ? Are they resources at the work spot and cease to be resources when they walk out of your office? These are fundamental questions that need to be answered by the 'Talent Philosophy' of an organization.

Many an organization,treat sacked employees very poorly,subjecting them to the humiliation of a body search as well as searching their car and so on. These are departing employees who had probably served your organization for a number of years before you found them incompetent.

The fundamental point is, is an employee as asset. Infosys says that employees are assets and so reflected in their balance sheet. Wonderful, but the problem is when the value of the asset depreciates. What then? Sack them..............

How else would you look at at an employee in an age when everything is to be measured and encapsulated in a 'bottom line'? Many Japanese firms treat their employees as 'investors', where the employee is investing their skills & time with the organization. The perspective now changes, dramatically. It is probably the reason why Japanese firms see longer serving employees.

While I respect American Management practise, I also believe that,we should be wary of blindly following imported practices. Management has much to do with a nations philosophy, ethos and culture. To ignore these is stupid and akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water............

While my line of thought looks utopian, I firmly belive that humans are not only about resources and business and bottom lines!

Where does the buck stop?

The recent spat, between, the governments of Japan and China, was very interesting on a number of counts.

The story.......

A Chinese fishing boat skipper, by design or otherwise, strayed into Japanese territorial waters off a disputed island, called Senkaku Islands, in the East China Sea, North East of Taiwan. Worse the boat collided with a Japanese Coast Guard ship and the Chinese skipper was arrested and promptly shipped off to Japan for trial.

From China, the reaction was fast and furious. The Japanese ambassador, was summoned over six times, once at 2 AM, and a demand was made for the immediate release of the fishing boat skipper.All this for a fishing boat skipper, nosing around a group of uninhabited islands.

Contrast this with our reaction to the Common Wealth Games imbroglio. Yesterday, the Prime Minister of India, is said to have pulled up the Minister of Sports. The question is where does the buck stop? Who is accountable for the mess? Is being pulled up a good enough penalt

Latest reports indicate that the Japanese have released the boat and its skipper, only to have the Chinese up the ante and demand a state apology from the Japs. Nobody is in any doubt, where the buck stops here!