Think you could learn anything from Uniqlo, the high-turnover, fashion-forward clothing retailer out of Japan? No? Then how about learning something from Japan itself? (That is to say, from its corporate culture.) No, again? Because of Japan’s “lost decade?”
OK, maybe Uniqlo and/or Japan, Inc. don’t have anything terribly specific to tell law firms–other than that going into the business of growing vegetables is probably not advisable (read the article)–but conceptually and in terms of cultural dysfunction I think there’s a lot here.
Here is a June 2011 column published by McKinsey, Dare to err, by Tadashi Yamai, Chairman, President, and CEO of Fast Retailing, the corporate owner of Uniqlo. What does Mr. Yamai have to say?
His theme is that Japan yearns for “stability, peace of mind, and safety. But the world keeps changing.” It’s more comfortable to “stick to our old ways” and to keep one’s gaze firmly focused “in the rearview mirror,” even if it’s self-evident that other countries are growing far faster than Japan (which is not, notably, growing at all). Might there be something to learn from others? Yes, companies elsewhere are demonstrably “better than us. But we lack the willingness to learn because we have been so successful before” and now all that remains is “the illusion that we’re rich and superior.”
He proceeds to talk candidly about Unilo’s mistakes and how the company had to learn from them, “several times, unfortunately.”
The first store opened outside Japan was in London in 2001 and it “failed spectacularly.” They opened a total of 21 stores in Britain at more or less the same time and shut down 16 of them within two years. But is he mortified, apologetic, or chastened? To the contrary: This “was probably good, because we learned so much.”
China, the second non-Japanese market they entered, was a similar story; they failed at first which is “always unpleasant [but] can be useful.” How was it useful?
To succeed outside Japan requires understanding other markets on their own terms.
This may sound blisteringly obvious, but remember, we’re talking about a Japanese company, and Mr. Yamai forthrightly indicts the whole country for seemingly having learned nothing from the Lost Decade:
“[Now] many countries are just as rich, and in Japan, income has stagnated for many people for a decade or more. […] In short, Japan has been utterly defeated as an economy. We’re losing the economic game. So why are we being so foolish? Or, more precisely, why aren’t we learning from our mistakes?”
He has a fascinating analysis of why Japan seems immobilized in the face of this stagnation: They simply cannot believe other people might have it right and they have it wrong.
One thing Japan has to get rid of is the idea that things are one way here and different everywhere else. The Japanese are really strong at home, and incredibly weak away from home.
[…]My advice for young Japanese is simple: get out of Japan. One of our weaknesses as Japanese is our ineptness at communicating with other cultures. Even people who speak English well are closed off psychologically. They don’t speak frankly like I do. There’s this uniquely Japanese standoffishness, this hesitancy to become too involved. And it’s detrimental.
Is this finally beginning to sound familiar?
What profession besides lawyers is simultaneously convinced that (a) we can understand anyone’s business; but (b) no non-lawyer could possibly understand our business? Are most lawyers:
- “inept at communicating with other cultures?”
- “closed off psychologically?”
- people who “don’t speak frankly,” are “standoffish,” and “hesitant to become too involved?”
I suspect you know where I stand. Yes, yes, and triple-yes.
I’m here to tell you that it hasn’t worked for Japan and, in the era of globalization, it won’t work for us.
I’ll give Mr. Yamai the last word because I couldn’t phrase my fear of where this can lead us any more succinctly:
Japan is still very comfortable to live in, if you are Japanese. But there’s a difference between being comfortable and being viable. We are gradually losing our viability.
Yes, a law firm can be a comfortable place to live in if you’re a partner. But for how long, on autopilot, closed to learning from the outside world, will it remain viable?
Is Japan really smarter than all the other countries of the world? Are we really smarter than all the other industries in the world?
