Micromanagement is perhaps the most toxic business cultural practice. Cultivating a workplace based on Shintaku (trust) comes from letting employees "go on their own adventures." This piece is part of …

Finding balance (Chōwa) between positive and negative pride is difficult. Too humble, and you become a cog in the machine of your organization, never standing out or getting credit for …

What do most bad relationships have in common? Whether it's a romantic partnership in trouble, some bad situation going on in a family, or a dysfunctional coworker relationship, a lack of …

There is a difference between success as achievement and achieving success. If you've ever played a game like Monopoly, you know that humans like to win and like to do …

A Japanese proverb states 人生に失敗がないと人生を 失敗する (jinsei ni shippai ga nai to jinsei wo shippai suru), or “A life without failure is a failure.” Whether in our personal lives or …

Communicating across any type of language barrier presents challenges to the business and yourself. Finding a natural balance, Chōwa, makes this barrier rewarding, rather than challenging. I interviewed two of …

It's easy to blame disinterested employees for their disinterest. They're lazy, they're ungrateful, they're don't care about the company, and so on. Of course this is true sometimes, but rarely …

The concept of the "company man" or "guy in the gray flannel suit" is old-timey phrase to describe the employee who is hired, does the same thing for 25+ years, …

Especially in the reality of remote work and work-from-home, it's easy for work to fall through the proverbial cracks, pulling the organization away from its business objectives. On the other …

Companies say that "responsibility" is a core value often leave that platitude hanging. It's never explained or shown how it's practiced. Our story of the broken conference TV demonstrates how …