I saw an unforgettable example of how they took pride in their work during a visit in the late 1970s to Takamatsu, a city on the island of Shikoku. The Japanese ambassador gave me dinner at their best but three-star hotel. The food was excellent. For fruit and dessert, a chef in his 30s appeared in immaculate white to demonstrate his skill with a sharp knife, peeling persimmons and crunchy pears. It was a virtuoso performance.
I asked about his training. He had started as a kitchen helper, cleaning plates, peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables. Five years later he graduated as a junior cook; ten years later he became a chief chef in this hotel and was proud of it. Pride in their job and the desire to excel in their given roles, whether as cook, waiter or chambermaid, makes for high productivity, and in manufacturing, near-zero defect products.
No nation in Asia can match them, not the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese or Southeast Asians. They consider themselves a special people. You are either born a Japanese and therefore in that magic circle, or you are not. This myth of being special makes them a formidable force as a nation, a corporation or a team in any workplace.
Indeed, the Japanese have admirable qualities. Theirs is a unique culture, where they fit into each other snugly like Lego bricks. One-to-one, many Chinese can match the Japanese, whether it is at Chinese chess or the game of Go. But in a group, especially a production team in a factory, they are difficult to beat.+++(5)+++
When I presented an award to Nobuo Hizaki, the managing director of Nichison company in the 1980s, I asked how the Singapore worker compared to his counterpart in Japan because both worked identical machines. He assessed the Singaporean’s productivity at 70 per cent. The reasons:
Japanese workers were more skilled and were multi-skilled, more flexible and adaptable, had less job-hopping and absenteeism. They accepted the need for life-long learning and training. All workers considered themselves grey-collar workers, not white- or blue-collar. Technicians, group leaders and supervisors were willing to soil their hands.
How long would it take for Singapore workers to catch up? He thought in 10-15 years. When pressed, Hizaki said Singapore workers would never catch up 100 per cent. He gave two reasons.
First, the Japanese worker would cover for his work-mate who had to attend to other urgent business; the Singapore worker looked only after his own job.
Second, there was a clear division in Singapore between the rank and file and the officer cadre, which was the British system, where a polytechnic or university graduate came straight into the officer grade. This was not so in Japan.