The Corporate Culture of “You Can Do Anything”

November 18, 2019
by Noriyuki Morimoto

Even with globalization, each country has different histories, laws, regulations, and customs. In order to penetrate a certain market deeply, a policy of thorough localization can make sense. For example, when entering the Japanese market, you can tell the person in charge of the Japan business that they can do anything, and leave everything to them. When entering a new business field, you can also leave things entirely to the expert in charge and say, “You can do anything”.

In the past, the consulting and other professional services were mainly operated through partnerships, with a flat organizational structure consisting of equal partners. Therefore, You Can Do Anything was naturally the principle. Geographically, a regional manager was selected from partners in the region, a business unit manager was selected from partners in the business unit, and the chief executive partner was selected from those managers. Nevertheless, every manager was something rather like a powerful member of the student committee.

As a matter of course, if you thoroughly implement You Can Do Anything, things will become extremely dependent on individuals, and the company will have less consistency as an organization. In the case of professional services, that was accepted due to the consistency of the profession itself, but it is also a matter of extent: in modern times, it is essential to provide consistent services under the same corporate name. The thorough implementation of You Can Do Anything corporate culture is a thing of the good old days.

However, on the other hand, as long as growth means the creation of new values, it is also true that individuals are the sole starting point of a company’s growth. The buds of growth do not dwell in the organization, because they are always born within the individual. The function of the organization is only to nurture those buds.

A growing company is, primarily, an environment of diversity and individual autonomy that boosts the probability of generating buds of growth within individuals. Secondly, it is the structure/organization to provide resources for those buds to grow. Essentially, the company is the fusion of a creative environment and a nurturing organization.

Now is the time to create a corporate culture of You Can Do Anything, in a form that is different from the partnerships of the old days, especially in Japan.

 

[Category/Human Capital Investment]