Mentoring is learning by doing. Mentoring is teaching. Disciplines such as Bushido or any practical endeavor impart a very important lesson that directly pertains to mentoring, learning, competence, and quality. In martial training dedicated students learn after some time that assiduous training leads to a certain level of proficiency in time. The longer the time period and the more consistent the training, the greater the level of proficiency or competence. Interestingly, the prudent approach also applies to saving and investing, which are two sides of the same coin. The more you save and invest for longer periods of time, generally the higher the return on investment particularly in circumstances where the proceeds are reinvested and can compound over time. In this simple example of investing, which is rarely taught in schools even in investing courses, several important principles are conveyed: long term value, discipline, planning, compounding, development, etc. are crucial values and goals. These principles are also constructive values. The concept of compounding is particularly useful because it implies that positive, goal-oriented efforts build on each other to augment or facilitate growth. Therefore, the principles also entail the principle of growth. This approach saving and investing, and toward the simple principles of financial and personal solvency, used to be considered part of the American heritage. People like Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson spent a great deal of the time writing about the process and method of building virtue because they inculcated the characteristics that built the kind of character that tends to yield a high rate of return over time. In other words, the principles of investing are fundamental to individual and organizational progress. This includes the progress of a business, the progress of a family, the progress of a community, and in their case the progress of a nation. Owing to the wisdom of the founding fathers of America, they understood that the progress of a nation depended on the progress of its individual citizens. For this reason among others, the Shinsei Method™ takes a similar approach to growth, training, and development.
Virtues tend to build on each other. Virtues complement each other to make each one stronger. This is why Benjamin Franklin spent a good deal of time discussing the the value of virtue in his autobiography, not just in business, but in everyday life. This is also why we focus on principle and value in the Shinsei Method™. It is also why the Shinsei Method™ is loosely translated from the Japanese to be a method of training based on life, principle, and value. These are all useful guides for business management and leadership.
Students who seek what is called the shugyo or zanshin level of training. In the West this would be labeled as “expert” or black belt. However, it is crucial to understand that the Japanese approach to this level is quite different. It typically does not entail someone sitting in a class for a set period of hours or obtaining a degree. Expertise in the Japanese approach to martial training, business, leadership, and self-development is a long term process. More importantly, it is expected to be a long term process oriented toward doing with the full understanding that doing is the only reliable way to achieve lasting competence in something. For this reason mentoring is an indispensable part of business, management, and leadership training in Japan. In Japan, people typically begin their careers young. They may have attended college, but not necessarily. They tend to enter the work force at the same time usually in the spring every year. And, they usually remain with the same company for their careers, which is usually their entire lives say forty years or more. With this approach it is understandable that company owners and leaders feel at ease in investing time and money to train individuals over an extended period of time typically one year or more. When young people enter the workforce in Japan they are usually paired with a senior person in the area they will work and “shadow” that person for long periods of time so that they can see how to respond to customer inquires, solve everyday and practical problems, and general develop an all-important knowledge base. This very often requires performing what would be considered “menial” tasks in America and other western countries such as answering the phones particularly when someone is on vacation or out. This is also very different. In America, when someone is on vacation usually no one handles their work and customers are expected to wait for important matters until they return. However, this does not communicate customer value. It does not communicate management or leadership value. Work still has to be done if someone takes a vacation. Part of the mission of management is to ensure a smooth work flow at all times. Unfortunately, business schools especially college business programs encourage managers to think locally rather than thinking globally, which means thinking in the short term and only about “their department” versus thinking in the long term for the whole company. This is another big difference in perspectives between the Japanese business model and the American business model. The structure of the business culture including how people are trained in school facilitates a team-oriented perspective rather than a “dog-eat-dog” approach. The team spirit is also fostered in Japan in how people are compensated in that the compensation structure builds on the idea that senior staff will be mentoring less senior staff, and they will not be penalized for helping others in the company. In America, mentoring is typically not encouraged in the compensation structure in that people even from the same sales department for example are typically pitted against each other. So, senior members of the staff have little incentive to want to help newcomers by teaching them the tips of sales success for example. However, mentoring is one of the most effective ways to indoctrinate newcomers into the business culture and the important business values. It is also the most effective means to help team members especially newcomers, to develop the practical knowledge required for real competence in the work, and that competence comes not from a quick class or fancy computer module–although these may help reinforce certain things. True competence comes from doing (i.e. practicing) the work over a period of time: answering the questions, finding the solutions, asking the questions, creating the alternatives, etc. day in and day out. This level of practice or training is what leads to the shugyo or zanshin level of expertise mentioned previously. This is a relevant from Bushido. It applies equally well to business, management, and leadership. To focus on competence as the primary objective in training, leadership, management and business is fundamental to the Shinsei Method™. It is one of the characteristics of the Shinsei Method™ that distinguishes it from other methods of leadership training (i.e. The Shinsei Difference™). The Shinsei Method™ takes a comprehensive approach to leadership training in that it recognizes that leadership development is self-development. To develop the leader, an individual must first and foremost develop the self. Leadership comes from within. It is not possible to lead other people without having the inner potential to lead other people. Leaders, managers, or any professional is an individual first, and a professional second. This self-evident observation is not typically taught in most business schools. In fact, the contrary is often emphasized that leadership comes from without in that an individual is a leader by virtue of the position he or she holds; and many people take this misleading assumption to heart in how they manage operations. For example, many managers expect that others will follow what they say simply because they have the power to fire them. This is always true of senior level staff. However, this does not motivate people to follow an individual. Often, it does not encourage staff to fear an individual. It most certainly provokes people to scorn the manager or supervisor, and that is the most common state of affairs in companies throughout America. In Japan managers take a different approach. The Japanese approach is more in line with the Shinsei Method™ and the practice of Bushido in that there is an emphasis in Japan to develop competence in individual leaders and managers. There is also presumption in Japan that individual managers will have a certain character. All aspect of the Japanese approach to leadership and management training is organized around the idea that character is important and it takes time to develop. Given that a certain amount of character is expected from the beginning in people who are already adults, a certain level of character is presumed to be a baseline. Leadership and Management training then builds from that baseline through practical experience, much in the way the former Samurai developed their martial ability, and the elite special forces do it today. In the Japanese business model, mentoring is important for that training and development. Mentoring is practiced at every level of the business, and it is typically practiced over long periods of time so that people who start with a new company in Japan may expect to spend one year or more learning their work responsibilities from a competent person. This does two things in Japan. First, it allows the senior staff to evaluate how the trainee is developing and what his or her potential is for specific work responsibilities. Second, it allows the trainee to learn how to work effectively (i.e. competently). Third, and perhaps most important for the company, it allows the company to build a storehouse of knowledge that can be passed along from generation to generation. This last point is distinctly different in America where there is typically not an emphasis on building a storehouse of knowledge. One reason is that people typically spend such a short period of time from one company to the next. Also, Americans are typically taught throughout school especially school to value short term results. This precludes developing a storehouse of knowledge, which by its very nature takes time to develop. This has ramifications for all businesses in particular retail businesses where product knowledge, customer knowledge, and business knowledge determine competence, and a competent staff determines quality of the customer experience. Staff that is better equipped to answer customer questions, find product solutions for customers, and provide relevant services to customers bring the customer a higher value and determine the businesses competitive advantage. This is the basic approach in Japanese retail outlets that treat the customer as king. The importance of the customer is not only seen in Japan in the way all staff are expected to greet customers with cheerfulness and enthusiasm. If they do not, they will not last long in the business. Customers in Japan will complain, and those complaints are taken seriously. The nature of the complaint of course makes a significant difference. It is first necessary to determine the nature of the complaint. A complaint may be structural and require certain changes in the operational procedures. However, customer complaints provide very useful and often completely free data that can be used for purposes of improvement. The importance of the customer is also seen in the way staff members are trained. Mentoring is a crucial element of this, but it is not simply mentoring. It is mentoring for value in that people are mentored in Japan in how to do their jobs well. The effortful work ethic is reinforced in the company, in the company’s training, but it is also reinforced throughout school and at many homes where mothers and fathers are typically present. Unfortunely, this is not true in America, and it is a regrettable reality that leaders must also face.
In Bushido, or the way of the samurai which has strongly influenced the Shinsei Method™, expertise (i.e competence) if it is ever achieved is only achieved through assiduous, extensive, and sometimes very grueling practice. This is the type of training the author has practiced, and in so doing has learned the value of training. This approach to training has several by-product benefits. One of those benefits in the lifelong lesson that it provides for what is entailed in developing a true level of competence. This type of training also encourages the development of what the Shinsei Method™ defines as inner-balance and inner-strength, two of the three pillars of inner development. In other words, long term training teaches the importance of long term value. The other important lesson gleaned from effective training is that competence, skill, ability, and value are developed not from abstract academic concepts, but by doing something over and over again. Unfortunately, the practice-makes-perfect approach to training tends to be unpopular in the current, short-term business management and business training climates. These important but self-evident lessons are much easier for Japanese managers and leaders to understand intuitively because of the influence Bushido on the culture, and from their general approach to business as a process. The thorough-going approach to training highlights another extremely important method of training again very common in Japan and less so in America for most managers: mentoring.
A mentor is a teacher whether he or she sees it that way or not. A mentor teaches a mentee how to do some task. Ideally, that mentor will show the mentee how to do things correctly. This too is not always the case. For one reason, many people in America falsely believe that mentoring is a thing of the past. They are encouraged to believe with the help of many colleges and universities that a college degree prepares them for the workforce and effectively allows them to skip over the hard work of developing real skill. It does not. It does the same thing that guaranteed students loans and grading on a curve has done, it artificially inflates false sense of knowledge, skills, and abilities. Again in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Even if colleges provided a good academic grounding, this would still be wholly inadequate for the practical experience of business, which is all about finding solutions and providing value. As it is today, colleges train people to disdain practical experience to the detriment of competence, a knowledge base, and productivity. The destructive capacity of colleges and universities does not stop there. Colleges and universities inculcate many other detrimental lessons sub rosa, or covertly. Colleges and universities are destructive toward one of the fundamentals of business: value. First and sadly, most colleges and universities teach many anti-business tenets. Second, colleges and universities communicate the message that value is not relevant. They do this by charging exorbitantly high tuition and prices for books where a textbook can be over three hundred dollars. Now, how can this be when most popular books tend to average about twenty to thirty dollars? Government subsidies in the form of students loans that few people question also guarantee that prices can be gouged and students will still pay. They typically borrow the money with the hope of paying it later teaching that becoming indebted is a casual decision. This nonchalance toward crippling debt is then carried into the workforce and later life. Contrariwise, in the real business world debt is never a light decision. Managers who take indebtedness lightly, will have to face the reality of business when interests payments have to be paid while earnings do not support it. Debt is not a light decision, but students who go on to become business leaders are trained to consider it that way. This puts them at odds immediately with shareholders that they will have to answer to later who typically do not want to see high debt in a company unless there is an obvious and liquid source of capital to pay it down if needed. Again, the negative lessons do not end there.
Colleges and universities train students to falsely believe that value is irrelevant in the education they receive. Often, after spending tens of thousands of dollars, students graduate in their respective fields with very little practical knowledge or ability in those fields. How can that be? It is simple. There is no correlation between college and the real world where people spend most of their times and must seek their livelihoods; and more importantly there is no attempt on the part of college administrators to ensure that there is a correlation. So, students take a major, take a smattering of courses only loosely correlated if at all, and then they enter the workforce with very little practical ability. Often that inadequacy not only applies to their respective majors, but to basic abilities in problem solving, reading, writing, arithmetic, handwriting, communication, etc. Therefore, many people graduate in America after all of those years of forced “education” deficient in the stock and trade of management and leadership: communication. Yet, they are still tens of thousands of dollars in debt. What value did they receive for the money they paid? In many cases none. This is a powerful lesson that they take into their positions as leaders and it is reflected in the way business enterprises are run in America. This problem is so widespread, that it is the rare business leader who takes a more rational path even though that path can be objectively shown to produce more desirable results (i.e. a higher level of productivity). For example, clear communication reduces risk. It reduces the risk of confusion, misunderstanding, accidents, injury, and inaccuracy. Therefore, clear communication reduces costs by implication. In a more sensible environment, clear communication would be the basic value that schools sought to impart. They do not. This represents a significant challenge to leadership for those who seek value in their operations and in what they offer to customers while a significant proportion of the college-educated workforce has been trained not to. Mentoring is one way to meet this challenge.
Mentoring, which is an integral part of the Japanese business management and leadership model, allows managers and leaders to establish a desirable business culture based on a specific set of business values. Mentors teach mentees directly and indirectly. Mentors show mentees how to do things, but they also show them how things are done. Therefore, mentors inculcate a particular business model as mentees see how policies, practices, and procedures are implemented in a way that is unique to that company. This will always be the case. The Shinsei Difference™ or The Shinsei Advantage™ is demonstrated in the way that it encourages managers and leadership to conscientiously and consciously strive to establish a particular business culture rather than allowing it to develop poorly by default. In other words, if senior executive leaders do not explicitly strive to establish a specified business culture, a business culture will develop, but it will probably not be the most desirable one. The one that does develop very well may be contrary to the stated business values (i.e. counterproductive).
Mentoring allows managers and leaders to establish a certain knowledge base. This is a business critical business value for every level of the business enterprise, a competent knowledge base is particularly crucial for sales and customer service. In one way, everything in business could be called sales and customer service. The first mission of every business is to generate a profit. In a non-profit business the profit motive is still present and valuable, but for the non-profit solvency is the main goal. The principle in both instances is the same: a business or organization seeks to establish an operational practice through specific policies, practices, and procedures that generates more revenues than costs. Customers are the primary source of that revenue, and sales is the primary activity that businesses use to sell to customers for that revenue. Trade and exchange are indispensable and integral parts of this process. This is a fundamental economic reality. Businesses have to trade something for that revenue. They trade value as represented in the product and service. To the extent that they can effectively communicate to customers that their product and service brings a desirable value to them, they will generate revenue. This process is the reason that businesses exist. Therefore, from the perspective of the Shinsei Method™, every level of the business should be geared toward this process. In reality, many parts of a lot of business enterprises work against this process. One of the ways that executive leadership can establish a unified approach to this process is through mentoring at every level of the business. Mentors can teach a particular business culture as they show subordinates the most effective ways to get work done. However, even without a specific and targeted mentoring program, mentoring still must take place in every business. People must be shown how to do their jobs. However, usually that mentoring is limited to a two week training program where a person is supposed to go from zero to expert with no added cost in terms of accuracy and competence. This is an impossible expectation, yet it is also very common in many American businesses. Its commonness helps to explain why turnover and attrition tends to be very high particularly in contact centers and retail outlets, which are often seen as less prestigious, even though both represent a primary point of contact for customers, revenue, and therefore profit. The Japanese take a different approach to this. They tend to treat all work that a business does as important. Sometimes this is not entirely true. They have bloated bureaucracies and redundancies too. They probably have more of these than American businesses. However, the Japanese model does have a positive impact on business operations. Employees of Japanese companies in Japan tend to be trained and mentored well to see their job functions as crucial to the company. This makes sense from a practical point of view since a solvent company can pay salaries and bonuses. Therefore, Japanese employees in Japan tend to be quite competent at what they do especially when they interact with customers. This enhances the customer perception of business level quality, which of course encourages customers to do business (i.e. to buy stuff). Competent mentoring and training greatly contributes to profit and profitability across every level of the business enterprise.