On the proper care and feeding of managers
Saturday, December 16th, 2006Japan’s over flooded market of English conversation and children’s schools ensure that most English-speaking university grads around the world will be able to find a job. But be prepared for an east meets west experience. The dichotomies that exist in your average private school will usually be one of the first cultural shocks that a new transplant to Japan will face. Before arriving, I imagined overtime, weekends at work, and every other nightmarish work scenario associated with Japanese companies. After settling in at my school, I found that my worries couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a concerted effort to divide the labor into two distinct pools: Japanese and foreign. While the stereotypical work conditions are definitely present, foreign teachers are largely sheltered from them. The brunt of the workload falls on the Japanese staff, primarily the school manager. Because we speak that Golden language, we are paid more, do less, and are able to see out a year contract without exerting much effort, seriousness, or sobriety. It’s a pretty nice arrangement, but made guilty, a feeling that grew throughout my 16 month tenure at my fledgling company.
This is a story of English conversation school managers, a group of characters that I became quite fascinated with while teaching in Japan. The managers that tend to succeed, and by succeed I mean don’t quit, are the biggest gluttons for punishment. Any foreigner who has taught in Japan has no doubt marveled at the level of verbal abuse managers take from upper management on a daily basis. The young men and women that filtered in and out of my school over the course of a year would receive a call each evening, at which time the yelling would begin for not meeting his or her ridiculously inflated sales goal.
The idea behind this management approach is that the higher the goal, the higher becomes motivation to achieve the mark. This idea is deeply rooted in Japan’s “ganbatte” culture, where all are encouraged to “do one’s best”, regardless of the insurmountable task at hand. To this day I can’t understand the level of self-sacrifice Japanese devote to their jobs. Does this make me a typical Western quitter? I don’t think so. I like to think we’re realistic. When you focus on realistic goals, motivation increases, time is more efficiently managed, and the work environment cultivates a higher feeling of accomplishment among workers.
At my school we would have a weekly meeting to discuss campaigns, student renewals, and fiscal goals. The process often went painfully slow, and was generally a waste of time. The conversation would usually go something like this:
“Our campaign goal is 900,000 yen (roughly $9,000),” the manager would start.
“Uh-huh.”
“Right now we have achieved 120,000 yen.”
“Right.”
“The campaign lasts three more days so…let’s all do our best to gain five more students so that we can achieve our goal. Gambarimashou!”
“Sure. No problem.” Our small school of 100 students should have no problem boosting its enrollment by 5% in three days. Instead of focusing on the previous two weeks of the campaign, and why the sales results were so dismal, the manager is trained to narrowly assess only the immediate task at hand, and forge on resiliently.
The longer I stay in Japan, the more I observe this blind, masochistic dedication. At this particular company, one the of the “big 3” conversation schools, these tendencies run rampant. The top leadership rarely provides innovative solutions to poor business results, and their management styles seems more like belligerent bullying.
In many ways, I look at much of the English conversation industry as a sinking ship, with the hardened, loyal staff going down valiantly, obeying the orders of their incompetent superiors until the end. There has been a downward trend in business over the past 15 years in Japan, and the entire nature of the language industry has been drastically changed by technology. Students have so many more options for learning English these days with the Internet, free podcasting, and interactive language software. The lag time in reacting to these changes says a lot about the endemic lack of creativity and innovation in Japanese business. There seems to be a time warp in reason, where the pervasive idea remains that whatever worked in 1987 should work today.
From time to time I would receive a letter from the corporate headquarters titled: The proper care and feeding of managers. It included a list of suggestions for making the school manager’s life a bit easier. These always amused me, because in my mind it is the head office that should be receiving these subtle tips on civility and encouragement in the workplace.
It’s been nearly a year since I jumped ship, and I still bristle at the incoming gossip from my previous coworkers and friends who worked for other big conversation schools. The managers keep trudging along, obeying the ridiculous orders of upper management, seemingly oblivious to the house of cards coming down around them.
Administrator