1. The Assumptions That Make U.S.-Style Systems Work Are Not the Same in Japan
In U.S.-style systems, there is a strong assumption that the job itself has a price, and when the role changes, compensation changes as well. If skills become obsolete, market value declines, and if required capabilities cannot be renewed,淘汰 can occur.
For that reason, systems such as reskilling, job-based employment, and skill-based organizations do not function only as systems. They are also strongly connected to individual compensation and opportunity, which makes them more likely to generate real traction.
By contrast, in many Japanese companies, the structure in which people, rather than roles, are priced still remains. Even when the role changes, compensation does not change significantly. Even when new skills are acquired, treatment does not always change clearly. That means the same system does not necessarily create the same motivation.
In other words, U.S.-style systems do not fail to function in Japan because Japanese companies are behind. They fail because the compensation structure and employment assumptions are different.
2. Japanese-Style Development Is Not Backward. Its Connection Is Weak
The defining feature of Japanese-style development is that it assumes long-term employment and develops people through experience in the workplace. OJT, internal transfers, and learning by observing one’s manager are not always easy to visualize in the short term, but they do have the power to develop people through real work.
For that reason, it is not appropriate to discard Japanese-style development simply as something outdated. The problem is not that Japanese-style development is weak. The problem is that what people are being developed for is not being worked backward from strategy.
Classroom training, OJT, and transfer experience are not bad in themselves. But if it remains unclear how they connect to future roles and strategy execution, effort may accumulate while execution capability does not.
In other words, the issue is not whether the system is good or bad. The issue is whether development is connected to strategy.
3. What Is Needed Is Not Importing, but Adapting
Introducing U.S.-style systems as they are is like planting a desert plant directly into a Japanese rice field. Even if the plant is the same, the way it grows changes when the soil, water, and climate are different.
The same is true of systems. Just because a system works in the United States does not mean it will produce the same results in Japanese companies. Employment practices, wage systems, the role of managers, employee expectations, and the culture of workplace development are all different. Naturally, the operating results will differ as well.
That is why what is needed is not importing, but adapting. Rather than copying the surface of the system, companies need to redesign it to fit their own assumptions and conditions.
4. What Is Truly Being Questioned Is Not the System, but the Operating Design
What is truly being questioned is not whether people were made to learn. It is whether what they learned was actually put to use. It is not whether a job-based system was introduced. It is whether role, evaluation, and compensation are actually connected.
What matters is not participation rate or system rollout rate. What matters is whether strategic execution capability actually changed. In other words, the essence lies not in whether the system exists, but in how the system is operated and connected to management judgment.
What Japanese companies need is not to chase U.S.-style systems. What they need is to preserve Japanese-style development while redesigning it into a strategy-linked model.
So then, without breaking Japanese-style development, what exactly needs to be reviewed in order to redesign it into a strategy-linked model?
5. Path to the Solution
To solve this issue, the answer is not to add more systems. It is necessary to redesign the development mechanism itself into a strategy-linked model, taking into account your company’s employment structure, HR system, evaluation assumptions, and view of internal transfers.
The concrete way of thinking and process are explained in detail on the following page.