My Mission Statement

Thank you for coming to my blog. I'd like to mention my future vision. Below is my mission statement submitted in the class. 


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My mission -what I'm going to do in 10 years ago- is attend to business assessments as a free, certified public accountant. I would like to be professional for designing socially beneficial businesses by accounting, because it will allow me to have my own vision, and dedicate myself to both society and family. 


Free agent style is the best way to engage in my own working vision. Unlike so-called organization men, free agents must have their own visions. My personal vision is to connect accounting skills to be thorough in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) for environment and employees. To achieve this goal, I will need to have various knowledge in terms of environmental protection, corporate governance, and leadership, as well as being accounting professional. Learning at ICU will surely be helpful. 


Boundary between work and life will be erased when we are free agents. For organization men, balancing these two is usually difficult, because work and life are separated here. However, these two can be mixed in free agent style. To contribute both society and family, it is necessary to have a strong individuality. Certified public accountant will make this life style possible and feasible. 


Achieving the personal target and having work and life blended are the core elements of my future vision. Thus, I must be a professional accountant as a free agent, and tackle various issues in business. 


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Above is my mission statement. But, why "Accountant"? The mission of accountant is combine various knowledge (Accounting, Economics, Companies Act, Civil Code, etc.) into designing business. Certified Public Accountant can have strong individuality, and not decide but create business idea. 

To manage designing social business, there are 2 things to do. First, I need to  learn the technical knowledge which needed to analyze which companies are socially beneficial. Second, I need my own leadership style learned in the classes. I believe this policy will be focused in near future, and the demand will be increased. I'd like to run this designing business as an initiative. I wanna make my own decision.


To have huge power, to have huge responsibility, I wanna become a free accountant. That's my future vision.

Risks for your success

Thank you for coming to my blog. This time, I'd like to focun on "RISK", literally means uncertainty or danger and metaphorically, sign for success.

When risk face to us? As written at the begininng of this section in the book, there are two stages to consider that point. First is when we are careless. We tend to be careless when we are urged to accomplish something; forget to name on your answer sheet for example, or after your accompishing something. Shackleton punished the clues, Macklin and Greenstreet, for their hasty acts. 

You can be careless, if you only need one step to acheive your goal. But you always has to be responsible if you are leader. Shackleton never lost this point. He made a decision to retrace his journey before reaching to the south pole. Never take unnesessary danger. That's a leadership.

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Then, I want to focus on the next stage of risk. 

You may agree that every decision is hounded by some risks. In a realistic manner, nothing is risk-free simply because almost everything in future is uncertain. To buy a car, you accept the risk of traffic accidents. To travel by airplane, you accept its possible delay.

In life or death situations, you could be extremely worrid about those risks, and hesitate to made decision. You could be even more so with your team members. At the same time, you should overcome those risks. As written in book, "risk aversion may not result in disaster, but neither does it create changee" (135). 

So what should we do? Make a good combination.

After you compare possible choices and decide a high-return choice, you need to take another actions which reduce its risk. When you buy a car, it needs to be insured. When you travel by airplane, you inform people you meet in there of possible delay. Everything is hounded by risks. So every time you make a decision, you have to care about what can possibly minimize those risks.

When I was assigned to be a leader, a respected senior of ICU advised me to anticipate the worst-case schenario. Why? Simply because its for preparation for the worst. What can minimize danger? What can we deal with the result after it would happen? 

Please check the following link to see how we can tackle risks in the future. This is how Johnson & Johnson had recovered its credibility after the severe health crisis of Tylenol capsule.

 http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall02/susi/tylenol.htm

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The most risky action for you is not doing anything. Be careful (Cool Head), take high-return action, and making up for it. After all, risks are for your future success.

Mr. 北城's impression

Thank you for Ken, who managed to provide the memorable time for us. 

Stupidly, I was late for Mr. Kitashiro's class. BUT, it would not affect my enjoying his gentle, modest, and attractive speech. I'd like to connect the 10 tips for leader in his presentatioin to his characteristics. 

His gentle way of speaking is definitely reflects his gentle way of being a leader. He do not shoot messengers and blame them for small mistakes. He also grabbed our attention in the class by giving some joke to make us laugh. He knows "atmosphere" is one of the most important factors whether meeting (class) will be successful, and laughing changes it a lot. Being optimistic, I really mean to do the same thing.

I felt his modesty in his presentation. He told the importance of preparationi for meeting. It seems to be a matter of course, but it is also sure that I slacken my efforts for it when I'm busy. Leaders must take ownership, and "acheive" commitment. Maybe this consciousness of his/her is important, as I wrote in the prebious post. These attitudes showed his modesty in his team.

I really glad to hear that passionate attitude is the most important element as a leader. He has great, attractive personality, and his own leadership style definitely came from it. Whenever you are, you must show your style, and lead by example. Every leaders has different styles of leadership, but they are all PASSIONATE. I absolutulely agree in this point. It changes everything.

Again thank you for my classmates and Ken, and sorry for bothering you during Mr. Kitashirro's speech...

Control from bottom

Thank you for coming to my blog. I'd like to begin this post by asking you one simple question.


Are leaders superior to other members?

Of course leaders have to do many things you their teams; assigning a task to each member, leading members to the goal, representing their own teams, and so forth. Many know this phrase: great power has great responsibility. Leaders have to be worthy and responsible for others. Thus, probably from members' position, leaders are superior to them.


Having said that, when you, as a leader, see what you have to practically do, you might think those tasks are usually plain, unsophisticated works. You always have to care about what your members think about you, get on members thier side, and cleaning up the mess after their mistakes to prevent future conflicts. Moreover, if conflicts happen among menbers, cannot be relax anymore. Take extra care not to get on thier nerves, and at the same time, place your team in orbit.


Let me introduce one of my personal experiences, connecting it to the phrase, "Engage Dissidents".
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"Engage Dissidents" is done for preventing potential collision among team members and turning it into good collaboration. As Schacht propose a management partneship with McGinn, it is not necessarily effective way to control members in team hierarchy. 

Acutually, I did the same thing a week ago. I am the project manager of a business contest held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia this summer vacation. It is various prepations and as time passed, it is getting difficult to cover all tasks simultaneously. Once, a member who is charge of preparation for a study meeting, complained that he was extremely beaing the expense. At the time, I thought of  two possible choices. 

First, I could reduce his burden by setting another member to those tasks. It is the most realistic way to deal with it, but there are some problems in there. No.1 is that everyone has own task, and I'm afraid of the same thing would happen. No.2 is that he has own unique idea about his task, I thought it was interesting, and maybe he prefered to be followed him. No.3 is that there are both members who complain easily and keep stress in, and it's is hard to a choice equally to each member. However, I was urged to do something.

So, I did the other thing: I assigned him to another leader of the new established project, which is about tasks he had had. Now, he is on equal position to me, so I can manage this project in our cooperation and he can take decision by his own responsibility. 

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One big difference between those two choices is whether you control your members from the top of your team or the bottom. I strongly believe that  team leaders must do more things from the bottom, because the major role of them is not to take all responsilibility, but to maximise team efforts by reorganization and task distribution.

Leaders can be worthy for others simply because they are the most dedicated members, not they are the top. My answer for the question at the beginning is "No". 

Work as a Team

It is said that as IT generations has come, an individual power, especially one charismatic power, is more important rather than team play. Because what we need to succeed in serving customers today is creating a new value.

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I mean, companies used to need large capital and production facilities. But for now, what we as people living in developed nations need is to explore or create  new and valuable idea. Facebook's mission, Mike's mission is "to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected". The last year's Arab Spring was brought by him, and it surely affects our lives and the world as a whole through his simple mission, and the value he gave us. 

So, what is the role of team, and membership? Is the only thing we need to survive today's world an unique, attractive idea? No. It is sure there is always the way to make a team functional, and of course Mike understands the his own style in organizing his team. Let me compare between the technique written in the book, and his own customs in terms of "working as a team".

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Bonds of communication and keep everyone engaged

Look at each other, talk to each other, and even embrace.  That is what the survivors and rescue team members of the accident of Avianca Airlines Flight in 1990 did, and shows the how we should act to make bonds of relationship among team members.  As the practice of Facebook, all employers and employees gather and celebrate when Facebook users reach to particular numbers, such as $100 million or $500 million users. When they do that, employees  are able to feel what they do is really connected to the success of Facebook, and feel the acheivement as the team.

Actually, Mark regected Yahoo's offer to buy Facebook for $700 million in 2006. I assume that if he didn't reject the offer, they don't reach to their today's success. Because, for venture business which don't employ so many workers like Facebook, keeping everyone engaged is really important. Because they have faced to others only by themselves, because they have the charismatic leader, all the employees feel involved and their responsiblity. As Shackleton did in the Directive Committee, of cource they don't make the decisioin by voting, Mark perhaps don't forget his unique identity as a team is the most important thing to succeed in keep developing. And that's why Facebook could buy Yahoo! for now!

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Charismatic people always exist. It is also true that a charismatic idea and attractiveness is now needed because today everyone can easiliy connecet to each other, even to the top of your company via Facebook or Twitter for example. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we disregard your work as a team. Make sure you having bonds of relationship, team passion, and dedication to all.

Tackle Summit Fever

Thank you for coming to my blog. Today, I'd like to respond to ch.4 "Stamina" by picking out the second question on Expedition Log: how can we avoid "summit fever"?

There are two possibilities when you run out of stamina. One is when we face to physical or mental obstacles, in another word, a disappointment. We get to be as if we lost any sights for future by facing to something unexpected. That is clear and understandable for us, and of course, I amazed to read how Shackleton tackle to his and others physical difficulties while exploring. With the being said, the other, the psychological phenomenon so-called "summit fever" is really important for leaders to recognize; because it occurs unconsciously and even an experience person possibly gets  it.


By two techniques as follows, leaders must deal with an easy going way of thinking to reach the top of mountain disregarding safety.


Set major goal and minor goal. In business situations, for example, DEADLINE is literally key date of our schedule, and we usually set only one major goal. That means there will be two possibilities; 1 or 0. Once we care about the worse result, 0, we struggle to avoid that situation. As a result, we exceed our limitations unconsciously. To avoid this scenario, leaders have to set another minor goal, a minimum goal to accomplish at least. Once we do that, we can relax and do not go over the top. It relieves the members and allow us not to break the speed limit.


Change the direction temporarily.  As written in the book, when pressure team members feel is extremely high, it is effective to calm down by providing with leisure and recognizing a start point. It  also helps leaders to make project get on track. Being simple is needed for project management because members tend to concentrate on their own tasks and not to see from a broader view point. That is the role of leaders.


These two ways, setting a another goal and changing of pace, are how leaders avoid the summit fever.

Second Post/ My goal and several things

Thank you for coming to my blog. On this post, I have three things to tell you.

Firstly, I enjoyed the last two leadership classes. Because I often shy of strangers, that kind of atmosphere help me a lot to communicate with you, guys. Really looking forward to having dinner (or drinking) together, cause I think everyone in this class has each goal and sharing it may allow us to emulate each other. I heard Hiroshi, for instance, is going to attend Japan-America Student Conference in this summer. Everyone has goals and passions, and one strong point of this class is that we can share it. 

Second, I would like to respond to the question 1 on Ch.1, what my vision of leadership is.

One thing I really care is how to organize a team when it starts . There are various ways to make teams stable, but for me, having equal relationships with members. What leaders must to do is not oppressing their members, not checking their members works, but make a strong relationships with each of your mate. As Shackleton did, they need to help their teams achieve their goal by systematic approach and some distractions: ) This way of being leader allow me to go next stage as a manager.


Finally, let me introduce my visions of future. My future goal is "living with something special." Is it really unclear, right? But, this is honestly only my long-term vision. Special doesn't mean the reason why I live, but a live of leisure. To lead my life with no inconvenience, I need family, friends, and earning money. These are all purposes of my living which I must have. Unlike purposes, my goals are what will entertain me. I am the member of Capoeira Regional Tempo Japan, the group of capoeira in Tokyo, and I could know how people's passions affect each other. Both at my work and at home, I will keep having my passions, and that is my something special.


So, in a short-term, I am trying to do new things in my university days. As one of those, now I am the project manager of "Social Business Competition" at Cambodia in this August. It needs hard work, but I am sure it genuine will entertain me.


3 things, my good impression for Ken's class, leadership when teams start, and my future visions. Looking forward to seeing you in the next class.