Addressing the cause of Japan’s global talent development troubles: creating a supportive team culture and addressing ambiguity in traditional Japanese culture
Anna has two Master Degrees, most recently a Masters in Organizational Management & Development from Fielding Graduate University and a previous Masters Degree in Linguistics from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She is fluent in Japanese with a First Class Honours Degree in Japanese and Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh.
Anna has held positions as Visiting Researcher at the University of Tsukuba’s Research Center for University Studies and Visiting Research Fellow at Waseda University’s Institute of Transnational HR Management, and her research relates to the issue of Guro-baru Jinzai (Global Talent Development / Global Personnel) in Japan. Her research interest is driven by her desire to address the problem of Japanese companies that still think that being global is simply about learning English.
Based on research conducted during her time at Fielding Graduate University combined with her experience working in multicultural organizations in Japan, Anna believes that ambiguity in traditional Japanese culture is one of the main barriers to Japanese organizations becoming “learning organisations”, thus making it difficult for Japanese organizations to successfully adapt to a more rapidly changing global environment. In particular, her current focus is on the application of the concept of psychological safety from Learning Organization theory in relation to the onboarding and retention of non-Japanese employees in Japanese companies.
One of her favorite books is “Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy” by Professor Amy Edmondson. Anna believes that if both Japanese and western organizations worked on making their teams more efficient through reduction of “management by fear”, that we would see more successful organizations in Japan.
