In 1976 I was living in Japan and decided to take up skydiving. I had already been in Japan for five years and had spent the previous three years traveling in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and India. Somewhere along the way, I developed a longing to jump out of planes--yes, even perfectly good ones.
Kyoto, where I lived, was not exactly a hotbed of skydiving. For that matter, it hadn't yet become much of a sport anywhere. Most of us were making our first 50 jumps with leftover equipment from WWII. And so, It took me five years to find a place where I could skydive, but I eventually found a skydiving club near Tokyo. (Yep, things did take a lot longer before the internet.)
I was the first foreigner and one of the very few females in the club. Our instructor was a Japanese Self Defense Forces Sergeant who spoke no English. (I would say that was when my Japanese really jelled.)
Japanese culture permeated the training, and the lessons I learned then can be applied to aspects of Japanese business style now.
Take, for example, the time and finances required for the training. At that time, for $25 (equal to about $115 today), do a dozen PLFs (parachute landing falls) in a half-hour training, and up you go. Just like that, you could make a jump in the U.S.
Not so in Japan. The cost was $325 ($1,500 in today's dollars) and a minimum of two weeks' training. I say minimum because no one jumped until they had passed the incredibly arduous test, and two out of every three would-be-skydivers quit (forfeiting their $1,500 without ever jumping) because the training was too strenuous.
Thus, my first lesson.
Lesson 1: Invest in minimizing risk upfront, later you'll be glad you did.
The higher the risk, the more important it is to mitigate the possibility of trouble. Skydiving isn't exactly a low-risk sport. To put it mildly, it can be very unforgiving. But so can business decisions.
I'm one of the few jumpers I know with over 1,200 jumps who has never been hurt (or died) skydiving. Every time I see someone break a limb (or worse) I thank my semi-sadistic Japanese jumpmaster for the grueling training. It was a sweaty, exhausting, boot-camp hell that hot humid summer, doing hundreds of PLFs off a six-foot platform until the jump-land-roll-stand routine became absolutely automatic. Likewise with making emergency procedures routine, shouting each point at the top of my lungs: "Santai tenken. San kosho!" ("Parachute inspection. Canopy malfunction!"), followed by mock pulling of the belly-mount reserve ripcord and punching out the reserve.
So, two-plus weeks of Japanese hell vs. 30 minutes of U.S.-style prep did what for me? There's no way to know what might have happened, but I can say that if I hadn't been so well trained, there's a good chance the consequences would have been severe.
Likewise, Japanese take a lot of upfront time to make decisions, analyzing consequences from every angle, trying to mitigate risk wherever possible, until it almost becomes an analysis paralysis by U.S. standards. The upfront investment of time and labor in Japanese decision-making can be immense. But if things don't go as expected, they know the cost could be disastrous--especially in the unforgiving business environment of Japan.
New jumpers are eager to make that adrenaline leap, feel the wind in their faces and go home proud of beung a "Can Do" person. But do we really have to jump (or make that business decision) today? Or years later will we be glad we did the rigorous work to alleviate risk?
Learning to jump in Japan taught me to be an obsessive preparation freak. I'm sure it drives my co-trainers crazy. But my philosophy is if you've looked at all the angles, and over-prepared for every contingency, well, then the sky's the limit…
What do you think?
Read Part 2:Smile! You're the Example: What Learning to Skydive in Japan Taught me about Japanese Business
