月別アーカイブ：2020年03月

There is something typical about corporate training in Japan; from my experience, it is very common in Japanese participants that their motivation level is quite low. In fact, not a few people come to the training with their professional mindset “turned-off,” so I usually have to start by doing something positive to bring the “negative” motivation level up to, at least, neutral. If this goes well, and if the training turns successful, participants would be pleasantly surprised. Nevertheless, it certainly is not efficient to have to interact with people with low motivation at the onset. To begin with, joining a ...

Ms. Kaneko, my former French teacher who I mentioned in a previous post, one day mumbled, “Upon getting the ‘Standard French-Japanese Dictionary,’ one should start by reading the foreword. It can’t be read without tears.” Indeed, unlike the foreword of a usual dictionary, this one does have some profound lines: The predecessor of this dictionary, “Standard French-Japanese Dictionary” was published about 30 years ago in May 1957. Under what situation the editing of this dictionary has been done is found in detail in the introduction given by the late professor Shintaro Suzuki: In 1945, Tokyo was completely burned to the ...

I just tried fasting recently. Fasting is basically refraining from eating for a period of time. I have been interested in trying it, and since my weight is constantly on the rise these days, I decided to give it a go. Here is the breakdown of what I did: 2 days of pre-fast (preparatory) meals, 5 days of fasting, and 3 days of post-fast (recovery) meals. For the pre-fasting and post-fasting, non-plant proteins such as meat, fish, and eggs must be avoided. During the fast days, taking sips of diluted fermented drink, eating an umeboshi (pickled plum), and having a ...

Japanese companies are finally taking serious steps to apply diversity and inclusion in their business practices. Promoting diversity has various meanings, including female leadership and hiring persons with disabilities, but I feel that many companies have not reached a full understanding of what it entails. I think that what is happening now is that the population in the country is sharply declining, consequently causing a decrease in the labor force and thus giving companies no choice but to consider diversity as a way to supplement their workforce. I suspect that this may be the real motive for many companies. The ...

One of my staff members asked me why MindSeeds Inc. is named as such, and I thought, “now you ask?!” But this may be a good opportunity to explain what I meant by it. I have always been interested in committing to human resources development, but the words “mind seeds” were taken from a French poem titled Rondel de l'Adieu. Rondel de l'Adieu (Song of Farewell)Partir, c’est mourir un peu, (To part is to die a little)C’est mourir à ce qu’on aime : (To die to what we love)On laisse un peu de soi-même (We leave a part of ourselves)En ...

“Read the books written by him. You know, he is your Senpai*.” When I was working at a bank in its corporate sales division, a lady, a company president and one of my clients, mentioned someone to me. Masahiro Yasuoka sensei** was the person. By that time, I had immersed myself too fully in the Western way of thinking and was somehow feeling stuck in my intellectual pursuits. As I read his books, which were full of classic Eastern wisdom, they quenched my intellectual thirst as though a blessed rain pour after a long period of drought. It was a ...

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading all over the world. The contagion that started in Wuhan city has now expanded to Italy, Iran, and many other countries. It has become more than just an “Asian” virus; it is an Italian virus, Iranian virus, and so on. It seems that being positive or negative for coronavirus is all that people care about. The test referred to here is called the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test. This method enables analysis of specific DNA sequences by amplifying DNA or RNA copies from a sample. It has become such a fundamental technology for any molecular ...