NEWS: CoachingOurselves at Japan Tobacco

By Phil LeNir, President of CoachingOurselves
 
 
I recently had the privilege to observe a CoachingOurselves session for senior managers at Japan Tobacco in Tokyo. Japan Tobacco is a multi-billion dollar company with operations in 120 countries around the world.
 
In Japan, CoachingOurselves goes under the brand name "Reflection Round Table". It seems the translation for ‘Coaching’ does not always have positive connotations, whereas many managers already know that a reflective mindset is the path towards improving one's practice of management. And, an improved practice of management generates high impact business benefits.
 
This was their 23rd Reflection Round table session. Japan Tobacco had selected a 30 session program, one 90 minute session per week. This extensive program generates a deep transformative experience within participants. Mindsets change, rather dramatically in many cases, resulting in a deep commitment and ability to fulfill one's managerial responsibility for continuous improvement in all aspects of self, team and organization.
 
The team used Henry Minztberg’s CoachingOurselves topic: "Managing on Edges". Through the thoughtful linguistic and cultural translation support of Motoki Watabe, associate professor at Waseda University, I came to understand that there are perhaps far more similarities than differences in the challenges facing managers around the globe.
 
This group of managers began the session by discussing a classic managerial challenge; how to increase communication? Sometimes this is simply about getting team members to talk directly with each other rather than through the manager. I remember one team I managed in which people would come to me as the manager and ask a question even though the team member sitting right next to them had the answer.
 
The topic then guided and framed a discussion on the balance between buffering, filtering and simply passing information from the outside in to your team, and the critical role this plays in innovation. It would be overwhelming and counterproductive to allow all information and happenings to flow into the team, just as buffering all external information and happenings results in isolation for the team. Either case will stymie innovation.
 
This management team worked out how they will improve their behavior to strike a thoughtful balance between buffering, filtering and passing through the outside information and happenings to their teams. The right mix of outside ideas, happenings and perspectives sparks the productive dialog and rich discussion that is the basis of much innovation.
 
As with almost all sessions in CoachingOurselves Japan, this program was fully facilitated by a professional CoachingOurselves facilitator. If you are interested in learning more, please contact us and we would be happy to share ideas on how you can make use of The Japanese adaptations in CoachingOurselves for increased innovation and business results through a more thoughtful and reflective practice of management.
 
I would like to thank Mr. Kashima, of Japan Tobacco, for allowing me to observe and share my experiences at Japan Tobacco.
 
Phil LeNir
President, CoachingOurselves International Inc.