A Trojan Horse to Spark Innovation and Globalization (part 3)

Continued from 2 weeks ago, we discuss implementing an effective and wide-reaching scholarship fund for Japanese students. In order to do this, creating an organization that helps coordinate the various requirements becomes a critical necessity.

The third (and last point) is the importance of getting private industry involved.

3. Get private industry involved
A lot of companies "talk the talk" - they complain about their incoming hires not being worldly or knowing English - but they can "walk the walk" by participating in this program. As mentioned before, the program should be funded primarily by private companies. The reason is that this would give businesses a certain amount of "buy-in" - making them active stakeholders in the program and giving them an interest in its success and the success of the participating students. Private companies would also help by defining the types of people they want to hire - namely, people with overseas experience - as well as creating a willing job market for the students who return from overseas. To ease this process a certificate could be created for alumni, so that employers can tell who participated in the "official scholarship program." This is especially true in this country, since the Japanese love certificates and rankings.

Private companies would also provide crucial feedback on what is globally relevant and what the real world trends and needs will be in the next generation of leaders and creative thinkers.

In the longer term, having a pool of globally oriented, bilingual people can only be an enormous advantage for forward-looking Japanese companies. A global perspective helps companies understand that global "needs" are not the same as domestic "wants," and knowing this can help ensure that the products Japanese companies send overseas are globally relevant, and meet the needs of global consumers.

Implementing a program that encourages study abroad on a wide scale might uncover a number of problems in the Japanese establishment. But it would go a long way toward helping to renew and reinvigorate Japan and help it shake off the fetters that have been holding it back all these years - allowing this country to regain its natural innovative, competitive spirit and to prosper once more.

Your comments are always welcome.

Nominate a young leader to the World Economic Forum

As a Young Global Leader and Global Agenda Council member of the World Economic Forum, I was asked to become the Founding Curator for the Japan hub of the Global Shapers Community (GSC).

If you know of any passionate young leader in their 20’s living in Japan, please nominate them to the Global Shapers Community of the World Economic Forum. It will be quite a program. For more information or to nominate, please visit: http://impactjapan.org/gsc/

The "Hidden" Key to Economic Growth

As an upcoming YGL participant at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2011 (aka “Summer Davos”) of the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China (14 – 16 September 2011), I was asked to submit an opinion piece on "Mastering quality growth" for discussion and publication at the summit. I am posting the article to my blog so that you may send me questions that you would like to have addressed by the WEF.

I will select several questions to incorporate in two sessions I am participating in: "New Perspectives on Growth" on Wednesday, Sept. 14, and "Women Entrepreneurs - How are women changing entrepreneurship and driving growth?" on Friday, Sept. 16.

The Hidden Key to Growth:
Ready, Willing, and Waiting for an
Invitation to the Boardroom

There are several factors contributing to anything that could be termed “quality growth,” including environmental sustainability, better distribution of global income, and new metrics to calculate that growth. All worthy topics, but I would like to address a social issue that may get overlooked in the enthusiastic search for such growth.

It would be nice to think that discrimination is the kind of unwanted baggage we left behind in a previous century, but that is not the case. Discrimination based on national, ethnic, racial, or religious causes is still common. Yet evil as these realities may be, one type of discrimination is even more common: Women, regardless of their ethnic, racial, religious or national backgrounds, remain second-class citizens in most of the world.

What does this have to do with growth? Everything. The real cost of discrimination is considerable, and for many countries in Asia and the Mid-East it represents a significant piece of “missing GDP.” In order to achieve higher and more balanced growth, all nations, and especially the more male-dominated societies, need to let go of this useless baggage so as to achieve their full potential.

For the last half decade I have resided in Japan, one of the world’s largest and most backward economies. By “backward,” I mean a nation whose major corporations make gender discrimination a matter of policy. Companies hire women by the tens of thousands each year, then give them mostly menial jobs while their male counterparts, no matter how incompetent, are promoted regularly. The reasons for this lie deep in Japanese cultural tradition, and to those who argue that “outsiders should not criticize or try to change our culture,” my response is: When your traditions are choking your own economic health, insiders not outsiders should be crying the loudest for change.

A survey conducted last year by a prominent U.S.-based nonprofit examined the top 200 companies on the Fortune Global 500. It found dozens of giant corporations that had no women directors of any kind. None. Japanese companies took the dubious honor of having 19 companies big enough to be ranked among the world’s top 200 but not open enough to find room for a single woman in their boardrooms. Some of Japan’s most internationally active firms were on the list: Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Panasonic, Canon, and Toshiba had not a single female director among them. The final tally was 265 board seats. Total female representation: 0.

A 2009 survey of Japan’s top 100 companies found 17 women out of a total of roughly 1,200 board members, and of those 17, 16 were classified as “outside,” i.e., non-executive directors. Observers could be excused for thinking that Japanese companies are more interested in window dressing than in meeting diversity issues head-on.

Let’s focus on the bottom line: Gender discrimination hurts business and robs national economies of vitality and growth. To put it positively, many countries could add percentage points to their GDPs just by moving more women into the workforce.

In Japan’s case, a Goldman Sachs study concluded that if the labor force included the same percentage of women as men, that change alone would add 8 million new jobs and boost GDP by 15 percent. In other words, this massive but dismally performing economy could grow by more than the entire GDP of Canada and Israel combined if only it was willing to give women a better chance to work. I have seen time and again how bright, motivated women workers not only equal their male counterparts but often outperform them by a wide margin. Foreign companies have known this for years. In a phenomenon known as “gender arbitrage,” they compete to hire these legions of overachieving women and give them good jobs and salaries. They certainly don’t do that to win CSR awards; they do it because it helps their bottom lines. Who loses? The domestic firms that put tradition ahead of profitability and bigotry ahead of growth.

This is not a Japan problem; it’s a global problem. Increasing women in the workplace, and attracting and promoting capable women is a sign of efficiency. It makes sense for business. How many nations today can say they don’t need to increase GDP growth, especially if the solution is completely domestic and inexpensive?

William H. Saito

Tokyo, Japan

The Forum of Young Global Leaders is a unique, multistakeholder community of exceptional young leaders who share a commitment to shaping the global future. Each year the World Economic Forum identifies 200-300 extraordinary individuals, drawn from every region of the world. Together, they form a powerful international community that can dramatically impact the global future.

A Trojan Horse to Spark Innovation and Globalization (part 2)

Continued from last week, we discuss implementing an effective and wide-reaching scholarship fund for Japanese students. In order to do this, creating an organization that helps coordinate the various requirements becomes a critical necessity.

The second (of three points) is the type of scholarship organization needed.

2. Scholarship organization
Regarding a coordinating organization to run such a scholarship program, I helped setup an organization called IMPACT Japan, a non-profit created for supporting events such as Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) and TEDxTokyo. An organization such as this could be used to coordinate and do the following (not in any particular order):

• Coordinate with government agencies and ministries, since this issue overlaps with what many of them do very well;


• Vet appropriate target universities and curricula and make sure the participating students are placed in an appropriate curriculum/environment;


• Vet the student applicants to ensure they are motivated and have the required knowledge and maturity;


• Help with visa processing;


• Help with handling money (living expenses/tuition) for the students;


• Assist in finding host families, dormitories, apartments and other housing issues;


• Coordinate and receive funds from sponsors;


• Help with job placement for returning students;


• Send out solicitations for scholarships;


• Issue certificates - which may become important for job hunting;


• Assist with coordination and networking of program alumni.

Next week, I discuss the final point of getting private industry involvement and why that is critically important for the success of a vibrant and sustainable scholarship program. Your comments are always welcome.