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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
An inspirational compilation of stories from successful Japanese professional women In Winding Paths to Success: Chart a Career in Uncertain Times, experienced management consultant Nobuko Kobayashi delivers an engaging and insightful discussion of the professional and personal successes of senior Japanese women executives, academics, and entrepreneurs who started their career in the late '80s to '90s, the dawn of gender equity at work in Japan. You'll discover how these remarkable people carved out a long and rewarding career in a challenging environment. The author describes the substantial diversity of Japanese professional life, exploring the rich and varied histories of women who are often stereotyped and relegated to a one-size-fits-all story. Their creative navigation amid uncertainties inspires anyone who wishes to establish a career in the highly volatile world of today. You'll also find: * Personal and forthcoming stories from women executives * Recommendations for public and private sector employers to further enhance diversity and inclusiveness in the workplace * Individual strategies for crafting successful careers from a minority position Perfect for those building a career, managers, executives, entrepreneurs, founders, and other business leaders, Winding Paths to Success is a must-have resource for aspiring and practicing business leaders in Japan and other countries.
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Seitenzahl: 391
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Praise for
Winding Paths to Success
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
1 Levity
Yuki Shingu Makes a Brilliant Comeback to IT Career After Nursing Care Leave
Japan—Almost Silent over #MeToo
Why Having Women at the Top Is Not Enough
References
2 Independence
Makiko Nakamori Approaches Corporate Governance with Resolve
Gender Diversity in Japan Inc. Must Blast Past Tokenism
Women Must Learn to Harness the Power of Networking
References
3 Purpose
Mami Kataoka Believes in the Power of Art to Change the World
Every Day Is International Men's Day in Japan
Companies Must Face Up to the Downsides of Workplace Diversity
References
4 Altruism
Ayako Sonoda Inherits Altruism and Entrepreneurism Passed from Her Mother
Let's Get Real About Female Equality in Corporate Japan
Rolling with the Punches Hurts Japanese Women
References
5 Conviction
Miyuki Suzuki Drives Change as Outsider from Within
Meetings with Women That “Take Too Long” Are a Good Thing
Kawaii Culture Hurts Japanese Women in Business
References
6 Leadership
Masami Katakura Realizes Her Leadership Potential with Help from a Mentor
Former Princess Mako's Marriage Holds a Mirror to Japan
Japan's Language Gender Divide Hurts Women at Work
References
7 Growth
Ryoko Nagata Stays Clear of Cigarettes in a Tobacco Company
Japan Must Break the Glass Fence Keeping Mothers at Home
Japanese Companies Must Capitalize on the Gender Gap Disclosure Rule
References
8 Curiosity
Noriko Osumi Normalizes Women in Science
Japan Needs More STEM Research, Not Tours, to Revive Innovation
Women Can Help Revive Innovation for Japan Inc.
References
9 Ambition
Yumi Narushima Returns to Benesse After Running a Girls’ School
Japan Must Reform Its Antiquated Marriage Laws
Japan's Miss Contests Reflect Society's High Demands on Women
References
10 Competence
Masae Yamanaka Builds Career in Sales Traversing Four Companies
C‐Suite: The Last Frontier for Foreigners Eyeing Japan Inc.
Can Japan Have Prosperity Without Growth?
References
11 Homecoming
Chikako Matsumoto, World Bank Alum, Thrives at Japanese Trust Bank
Japanese Companies Can No Longer Expect Lifetime Loyalty from Workers
Gender Equity Is Coming to Japan's Workplaces
References
12 Resilience
Yasuko Gotoh Breaks Ground for Women Career Bureaucrats
Japanese Businesswomen Need More Than a Place at the Table
Employers Should Encourage Risk‐Taking to Beat Impostor Syndrome
References
Acknowledgments
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 6
Table 6.1 Gender gap index ranking (index rank, 2023)
Chapter 8
Table 8.1 Historical recipients of the Saruhashi Award
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Public opinion on a selective dual surname system for married cou...
Figure 1.2 Number of people (thousands) who resigned from their job due to f...
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Proportion of women in boards and corporate officer roles in Japa...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 Proportion of women in the art industry in Japan, 2021 (%)
Figure 3.2 Proportion of female art museum directors (%)
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Number of regular and nonregular employees by gender (millions of...
Figure 4.2 Proportion of female entrepreneurs in Japan (%)
Figure 4.3 Gender wage gap by country (%)
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 Proportion of female undergraduates at the University of Tokyo an...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Number of certified public accountants (CPA) in Japan by gender...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 Childcare leave acquisition rate by gender and employment continu...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 Proportion of female university students and female science and e...
Figure 8.2 Proportion of female elementary school teachers and female univer...
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Proportion of women in management roles (%)
Figure 9.2 Population of youth in Japan (million)
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Turnover rate by gender for full‐time employees in Japan (%)...
Figure 10.2 Total fertility rate by country (births per woman)
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 Proportion of female students in graduate universities in Japan ...
Figure 11.2 Breakdown of the World Bank staff by region, 2015 (%)
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1 Proportion of female undergraduate students in national universi...
Figure 12.2 Proportion of women recruited to be career civil servants in Jap...
Guide
Cover Page
Praise for Winding Paths to Success
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
Index
Wiley End User License Agreement
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Praise for Winding Paths to Success
“From each career episode of the Japanese women protagonists, emerge universal lessons—double down on your core skills, turn disadvantages into advantages, and seize the right opportunities all while never losing empathy for others. Nobuko Kobayashi brilliantly captures the essence of long‐term career and life success in Winding Paths to Success.”
—Dr. Otto Schulz, board member of the German Sustainability Award Foundation
Winding Paths to Success
Chart a Career in Uncertain Times
Nobuko Kobayashi
This edition first published 2024.
Copyright © 2024 by Nobuko Kobayashi. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Nobuko Kobayashi to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781394157990 (Cloth)
ISBN 9781394158003 (ePDF)
ISBN 9781394158010 (ePub)
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © Soul Art Workshop/Adobe Stock Photos
Author Photo: Courtesy of Masakatsu Nagayama
PROLOGUE
The genesis of this book began with a simple idea a couple of years ago—we are close to the 40th year anniversary of the enactment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985, a significant milestone in the history of gender equity at work in Japan, which prohibits discrimination against women by their gender at the workplace. The women who entered the workforce in the years following the enactment are now approaching retirement. Before it was too late, I decided to capture their natural voices to chronicle their individual career journeys, which run parallel to the progress of women's status in Japanese society. The original aim was to reflect on how far we have come and what still needs to be done in leveling the playing field for working women in Japan. This project took shape as a series of articles published on Japan Times starting in late 2021 under the title “Women at Work,” 12 of which are included in this book.
As I started interviewing these women, all in their 50s and 60s and still professionally active, it dawned on me that their stories carry a larger story beyond that of battling the odds as a gender minority—their stories apply to any ambitious individual building purposeful long‐term careers in uncertain times.
Whereas men in their cohort largely followed pre‐established paths, say by diligently climbing the ladder of a large corporation with consecutive positions handed down from the previous cohort man‐to‐man, women have been compelled, or in some cases liberated from, the norm to forge their own trajectories. By necessity, they were resourceful, creative, and agile about how they approached their career. The minority status as professional women compelled them to ask themselves why they worked and how to position themselves in a man's world.
Today, we live in an increasingly uncertain world. The traditional notion of a “good job” has been upended or remains elusive at best. Large corporations no longer dependably provide lifetime employment. Unthinkable when I started my career in the late 1990s, start‐ups and professional service firms are popular destinations for top college graduates, who have lost their fear of switching employers several times during their career. The external environment of volatility continues to accelerate, leaving us unsure of what anchor on which we can base our career. The more opportunities and mobility we gain, the more instability and anxiety rises—this is true for both men and women at the start or middle of their career.
These are the reasons why stories of senior Japanese women who successfully navigated the uncertainties and disadvantages are relevant as lessons on how to build a meaningful career today. Their motivation for work professionally, which was not a given when the society expected women to stay at home following marriage or childbirth, is inspiring; their ingenuity to carve a space for themselves in the male‐dominated world is insightful. In a world accepting of more diversity in all dimensions, every one of us is a minority in some way, bestowed with its upside as well as its downside.
Three core themes emerge from the 12 life stories. One is the women's sense of purpose—it can be as clear as a near‐religious calling in the case of Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum; she believes in the power of art to change the world. Or it can be more subtle, such as the altruism inherited from her mother in the case of Ayako Sonoda, the founder and CEO of Cre‐en, a boutique sustainability consulting firm. Noriko Osumi, professor and vice president at Tohoku University, finds joy in uncovering topics, in academic research as well as in real life, overlooked by others but that quietly scream for investigation.
Although career purpose is a part of life, it is not necessarily an omnipresent driver—Yuki Shingu, CEO of Future Architect, a major IT consulting firm, expresses little regret for jumping off the rails of a promising ascent to answer to a then higher life priority: to be close to her ailing father.
Second is the strategic positioning of oneself. Miyuki Suzuki, former president of Cisco Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China, fully leveraged her outsider‐insider status to transform Cisco Japan, and Ryoko Nagata, an independent nonexecutive director and retired executive from Japan Tobacco, deliberately chose the not‐so‐mainstream—noncigarette—businesses within the conglomerate to ensure freedom.
It is encouraging that Japan, with traditional Japanese companies at its economic core, has evolved over the three so‐called lost decades starting from the early 1990s to be more accepting of outside talent such as external hires into senior positions. Two protagonists, Chikako Matsumoto, executive officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, and Masae Yamanaka, vice president at Panasonic Connect, found homes in blue‐chip Japanese companies in the later phases of their careers.
Last, resilience emerges as a key tenet across many women's careers. Yasuko Gotoh, a career bureaucrat turned independent nonexecutive director, described her blackout of memories of her 20s and 30s when strong gender bias at work shattered her self‐confidence. Gotoh never gave up work, however—her faith in people prevailed and eventually increased awareness of gender equity worked in her favor.
Masami Katakura and Makiko Nakamori, female certified public accountant (CPA) pioneers, have led long careers in the professional service work of audit, a sector known for its conservativism. One of them stayed to eventually lead an audit practice for a Big Four firm in Japan and the other opted to trailblaze a path as a career independent nonexecutive director. These are unconventional outcomes for CPAs of their generation, a result of patiently crafting their own space within the profession.
Resilience enables careers to meander in unexpected ways and to eventually course‐correct—what seems like a detour may end up accreditive in the long run. In the case of Yumi Narushima, head of the Extracurricular Education Company at Benesse, a mid‐career five‐year stint as principal of a private girls’ school expanded her horizon as an educator, consequently benefiting her as she returned to her mothership of Benesse.
To give context to each woman's story, I have included in each chapter two supplemental opinion columns, originally published by Nikkei Asia. These writings aim to provide an in‐depth analysis of gender equity at the workplace in Japan. I hope these writings will help readers understand the cultural background of our 12 protagonists.
The women are diverse not only in their sector but also in their approaches to life. Some had families, others not. The course of their careers has been dynamic in their implicit and explicit purpose, which evokes the 16th‐century Parisian motto, Fluctuat nec mergitur: “tossed but not sunk.” It is from these real‐life tussles that I hope the readers will take away lessons for their own journey of career building in these uncertain times.
