Thought Leadership

Why Frequent Performance Reviews Fail — And What Actually Works in Japan’s Corporate Culture

Major corporations are loudly abandoning the traditional annual performance review in favor of frequent check-...

Nurture Ideas or Lose Innovation: What Leaders Must Do in Japan (2025)

Most ideas stall after brainstorming. Without sponsorship, clear pathways, or right timing, promising concepts...

Vision, Mission, and Values in 2025 — Still Essential, If Leaders Make Them Real

In the 1980s–1990s, many vision statements were clichéd, overlong, or irrelevant, so employees tuned them out....

Leading by Sensing (Not Just Knowing) in 2025 — The Japan Playbook for Modern Executives

Managers start with knowing—data, study, and execution. Leaders start with sensing—people, context, and emotio...

Strength + Flexibility in 2025: When Should Leaders Persist — and When Should They Concede?

Traditional leadership celebrates grit and resilience, while modern business demands agility. In Japan, gaman ...

Why Foreign “Hammers” Fail in Japan — and What Global Leaders Must Do Differently in 2025

For decades, foreign companies have sent “change agents” to Japan — tough reformers from HQ tasked with “fixin...

Authentic Leadership in 2025 — Why Real Human Connection Beats AI Empathy

In 2021, AI meant chatbots and holograms.By 2025, it’s everywhere — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and countless...

Sales Progression Bridges in Japan — How to Move Smoothly from Trust to Closing

Sales meetings follow a natural flow: trust, needs, solution, objections, and closing.In Japan, however, harmo...

Japan’s English Challenge: Why Companies Must Build Communicators, Not Perfectionists

For decades, Japan’s government has spent billions trying to raise English-language proficiency—with limited s...

Hybrid Presentations: The New Nightmare for Modern Speakers

Presenting in person is hard. Presenting online is hard.Hybrid presenting — a mix of both — combines the worst...

Presentation Disasters: How to Stay Calm When Everything Goes Wrong

An American professional once shared on LinkedIn how she spilled coffee on her blouse moments before addressin...

Presenting in Japan: How to Balance Western Simplicity with Japanese Data Hunger

When I exchange business cards in Japan, I use two versions — one for Westerners and one for Japanese. The Wes...

Microphone Technique and Voice Power — Why Your Audience Can’t Hear You

At a recent panel event, one speaker’s comments were completely inaudible, even though she had a microphone. T...

Presenting to a Japanese Audience in English — How to Truly Connect and Be Understood

Most foreign professionals delivering presentations in Japan assume that because the talk is in English, Japan...

Why One-on-One Presentation Coaching Transforms Executive Speakers

At Dale Carnegie Tokyo, we usually teach presentation training in small groups of fourteen. Two instructors, v...

Presenting in the Age of TikTok — How to Keep Attention When Audiences Expect Microbursts

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and other short-form platforms have rewired how people consume information.Twitter be...

How Much Passion Is Too Much? Balancing Energy and Emotion in Motivational Presentations

After giving a motivational talk to a room of managers — Japanese and foreign — I received confusing feedback:...

Style and Substance — Why Great Speakers Must Master Both to Build Their Personal Brand

During a company-wide presentation, a jealous colleague once sneered, “Greg is all style and no substance.”He ...

Personal Branding Through Presentations — Speak to Your Audience, Not at Them

The best personal branding isn’t about self-promotion — it’s about useful, interesting content delivered in a ...

When Experts Overwhelm Their Audience — Why “Less Is More” in Technical Presentations

When you know your field inside-out, it’s easy to go too deep. Experts have vast layers of nuance and knowledg...