What is the Shinkansen effect?

We will learn from Japanese culture, understanding what the following concepts refer to: Ikigai method, Shinkansen effect and Ganbarimasu.

The end of 2020, a complicated, different year, which has affected many companies that have had to join forces and resources to adapt to the circumstances caused by the COVID-19. The year ends and we always start the new one with the hope of creating purposes, innovative projects to change and make our businesses grow, in short, to transform ourselves.

What is the Shinkansen effect and how does it affect the business world?

It shows that if a complete transformation is to be achieved, not just small adjustments can be made, but a profound change is needed.

The cocktail that forms the Shinkansen and ikigai effect can be summed up in the expression ganbarimasu. The word ganbarimasu is at the origin of the expression ganbattekudasai, which means “do your best”, but whose more literal translation would be “be stubborn and firm until you achieve what you set out to do”. In other words, to achieve a goal you have to make the maximum effort.

What is the Ikigai method?

Ikigai method is a Japanese term used to identify what motivates you to start a day. For the Japanese, this concept is very broad and has been applied in their culture for many centuries. It can be summarised as the purpose of that energy that drives a person to get up in the morning.

It does not have a precise translation into Spanish, but its meaning is something like what it is worth living for. According to the Japanese, all people have one or several deep desires and motivations.

The origin of this terminology is on a small Japanese island, Okinawa, where the world’s oldest inhabitants reside. Their secret is to live with passion and intensity, setting firm daily goals. They follow the saying “if you do a job that you really love, it won’t be work, but enjoyment”. – by Confucius.

Ikigai Method: key to personal and professional development

This is a perfect formula for talent to develop. Only if you are clear about where you want to go, you will be able to choose how to use it and develop it.

Whatever purpose a person has, it will have a direct impact on various aspects of his happiness. Frustration often stems from not acting on a set of principles and values. With purpose, a person can focus on what they want to do in their professional life as well as in their personal life.

A study by the Harvard Business Review manages to show that when workers are connected with their purpose and the organisation, their motivation increases exponentially.

If your employees have a lack of motivation, you may also be interested in our training courses in Motivation, Self-motivation or Team Management.

What is the cost of not doing so?

• Talents can be wasted. If you do not act on purpose, you will not use your talent efficiently.
• You will work individually and not as a team. An organization that does not have a visible and clear objective for its employees will make them work in a selfish and particular way, because they will not be recognized as part of a more important whole.
• Motivation will increase considerably. If you don’t have a goal, people will not recognise the real impact of their work and that will discourage them. When you work with the knowledge of why you are doing it, it improves your commitment to achieving the goals of the company.

How to implement a talent management and development strategy?

• Identify passions. When a person knows what they like, they can recognise their purpose. With a clear goal it is easier to do so in a way that is aligned with the passions.
• Confirm values. Values represent a person’s roots. If they are present, they will help one walk towards one’s true purpose.
• The results give satisfaction and make it easier to take the desired path in a career, setting out strategies to achieve it.
• Bring together individual and team goals. If everyone’s goals are in harmony with the organization, the personal impact is greater. Redefine individual goals and their importance to the overall objective.
• Behaviors in line with the purpose are rewarded. Key performance indicators should not only reward tactical objectives, but also pay attention to strategic purposes that are resolved over the long term.
• Explain success within a team and redefine yourself as a team with a common goal

Venn Diagram

The traditional representation of the Japanese ikigai is with a Venn diagram. This image is drawn using a system of circles that are cut out from each other and describe the four basic components of the ikigai.

1. What you like to do: what you love

In the nineteenth century, work was understood as resignation and something that had to be done. There was no question about whether the task was enjoyable or not. But throughout the 20th century, this orientation began to change and students were able to choose, based on their interests, different careers. In the 21st century, the labour market is presented as something vocational and people choose what they want to be trained in.

By establishing the following two secant circles that cut across the first one, these two elements are placed:

2. What I am good at

There are some activities that some people can do naturally or because they have a wide experience. Some people have an innate talent for business and others have needed to undertake several times to achieve their goal. The group defined between the first circle and this one, the ikigai refers to as passion.

3. What a person is willing to pay for

A circle secant to the two previous circles will include a person’s hobbies. For example, synopsis writing may appear here, as reading is a hobby of many people and something they pay for. Therefore, in the space where circles two and three cross, the possible professions will appear.

The three concepts described so far, although they are related, do not necessarily coincide. In other words, it is possible to be insightful at work with a database, but this may be extremely boring for a professional. Therefore, once these three elements appear, a fourth pillar can still be added:

4. What the world needs

The activity a person chooses must have a certain demand. Otherwise, even if one has extraordinary capacity, it will not bring any value. The ikigai closes the circle with the personal mission and vocation.

Is it posible to find the Ikigai?

The fact is that it is possible, but the complexity of finding it lies in the fact that it is necessary to strike a balance between the four pillars mentioned above, without forgetting that each of them also has its own complexity. Once this argument has been presented, a professional has different opportunities to develop personally and professionally. This is what the Japanese concept is all about: that people are happy and have a personal and professional life purpose.

The vast majority of people are at one or two of the key points described for the diagram above. When a person has a job, they are in what the world needs. Also, they are likely to be good at it. But liking it and enjoying it is more complex to achieve, although it can be done.

Current gamma techniques conceptually extend what is fun to areas that were previously not fun. This adds a new dimension to the ikigai method. Another alternative is to work with something that is enjoyable and motivating in a paid profession.

On the other hand, it is possible to broaden the scope in which a person is competent by training in that in which he or she is not too skilled. What is more complex is that a person’s work becomes a hobby for which they would be paid, although this is not impossible either.

IKIGAI method conclusions

In short, the ikigai, or having a purpose in life along with good social connections, is the key to a healthy and happy life with professional success.

• Rrebuilding ourselves – Shinkansen effect
• Trying our best – Ganbarimasuy
• Finding our purpose in life – Ikigai

In Consulting C3 we have training courses which will help you to increase your motivation.

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With the Advanced Telesales course you will master your technique and remember forgotten concepts.

The Advanced Telesales Course is aimed at commercial managers and telemarketers who have between 1 and 3 years’ experience in sales.

The training will be carried out in-company or in e-learning mode using practical dynamics and seeking the participation of all attendees. The training dynamic is based on a previous study in which those areas that require greater reinforcement are analysed. The previous analysis allows us to use real cases from the client company in the training action.

In addition, you can get a 100% bonus from FUNDAE.

You can also complete your knowledge with the Sales and Business Skills course or with a business coach. Thus, in addition to perfecting your knowledge of how to build customer loyalty, you will learn how to close a sale or perfect your skills.

Course objectives

The Advanced Telesales Course will help you to achieve the following objectives:

• To perfect sales techniques of experienced telephone salespeople, improving argumentation, dealing with objections and offering advanced tools at the negotiation level to achieve an optimum closing.
• Increase sales and customer loyalty.

Training can help your company to achieve more sales. In addition, your employees will be more qualified to achieve large closures.

“We also tend to give too much importance to the closure. This is normal. We find ourselves on the edge of the abyss, where everything seems to come down to a YES or NO, and where a bad step can ruin our hard and impeccable work, dragging with it our self-confidence and self-esteem”.

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Increasingly, individuals, as well as companies as a collective entity, are becoming more and more aware of the importance of being emotionally intelligent.

Little by little, the discourse of the emotional has permeated society, awakening curious minds and gaining followers. So much so, that companies have begun to reorganise themselves around the importance of dealing with emotions in order to achieve greater benefits.

At Consulting C3 we have a course in Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. I invite you to get to know it or to discover the benefits that this course can bring you.

What only five years ago sounded almost like a joke among managers is now starting to be taken into account and gradually implemented in organisations. The so-called Happiness Departments have appeared, with their Happiness Managers at the head, busy and concerned with providing the best emotional conditions for workers, so that their personal and working well-being is translated into productivity.

No one disputes any longer that being emotionally intelligent provides benefits in all areas of our lives, in our level of satisfaction, success and effectiveness, and that it boosts our cognitive capacity, increasing our learning and our memory.

The equation is transparent: if EI (Emotional Intelligence) deals with human relationships, it is clear that it will influence any aspect of the company. Every decision, plan, product, service, team or customer will be affected by EI or the lack of it.

The imact

To make this impact more tangible, we will refer to Travis Bradberry and Jean Graves, co-founders of TalentSmart, who state that “a 1% improvement in a service’s work climate is equivalent to 2% growth in that service’s revenue”. Do the math.

On the contrary, a low mood, frightened workers or arrogant bosses are the cause of devastating effects that are often almost invisible to those not directly involved, but which take a heavy toll. These effects take their toll on the company through decreased productivity, poor communication, increased delivery delays, increased errors, and the drain of talent to more pleasant working environments.

To better lay the foundations, we can say that mastering basic emotional competencies helps us to be in good tune with the emotions of our colleagues, clients and suppliers, to be able to manage differences of opinion by avoiding conflicts, and to have the ability to enter into flow states in our work activity; three clear advantages that provide benefits in personal and professional well-being.

Commanding with the heart

Undoubtedly, much of the work of maintaining and enhancing that positive emotional state in organisations is part of the leader’s responsibilities. Leadership is not synonymous with domination, power or command, but with the ability to influence someone to help achieve common goals.

Leadership ability is not linked to intellectual ability or academic and/or technical preparation. Not even with experience.

A study by Daniel Goleman analysed the competence models of 188 companies, mostly multinationals and public bodies. The aim of the study was to determine which personal capabilities drove exceptional performance in these organizations and to what extent. The conclusions of the study were as follows:

• Intellect was undoubtedly one of the drivers of exceptional performance.
• Cognitive abilities were particularly important
• The proportion of related emotional competencies was twice as high as the intellectual and cognitive ones combined
• The higher the job category (where preparation and intellectual abilities tend to be equated), the greater the relevance for success of emotional competencies.
• 90% of the competencies that distinguished the “star” workers were related to EI competencies.

Emotional intelligence

On the other hand, David McClelland, an American psychologist focused on the study of motivation and professor of Daniel Goleman himself, demonstrated with a study carried out in 1996 in a multinational food and beverage company, that when their top managers had excellent skills in EI, their divisions exceeded the annual performance objectives by around 20%.

From the McClelland studies it can be determined that there are 6 main factors that influence the working climate:

• Flexibility, understood as the freedom that employees feel to innovate without the imposition of bureaucratic procedures.
• Sense of responsibility towards the company, i.e. engagement
• Quality level set by individuals
• Feedback: accurate feedback on performance and suitability for reward.
• Corporate culture: the clarity by which individuals see the company’s Mission and Values.
• Commitment: the level of commitment to the common goal.

The lack of flexibility discourages employees’ motivation by depriving them of creative mental space, thus preventing their expansion. When an employee does not feel that he or she participates in the company’s results, his or her performance tends to be the minimum necessary to comply and remains far from optimal. As a result, the quality level of the tasks does not allow the company to guarantee its competitiveness and the leader, overwhelmed by the lack of results, tends to transform his or her feedback into criticism, without generating the commitment of the employees, either to the company or to the objectives.

Whatever leadership style we exercise as leaders, leading from the heart should be our first commitment to ourselves.

At Consulting C3 we have a course in Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. I invite you to get to know it or to discover the benefits that this course can bring you.

Follow our accounts on LinkedIn and stay tuned.

 

The Elevator PITCH: How to Convince on the Spot course is aimed at managers of startups, corporations, SMEs and agencies. PhD students and teachers. And in general, anyone who needs to convince others in a short period of time.

The training will be carried out in-company, using practical dynamics and seeking the participation of all those attending. The dynamic is based on a previous study in which those areas that require greater reinforcement are analysed. With a previous analysis allows us to use real cases from the client-company in the training action.

Course objectives

The Elevator Pitch course: How to Convince on the Spot will help you to achieve the following objectives:

• Conceive content strategically and prioritise.
• Build the ideal flow and rhythm of the presentation
• Reinforce strengths and minimize weaknesses.
• Adapt the speech.
• Distinguish the priority of the speaker.
• Preview the processes.
• Asking the right questions and anticipating situations.
• Eliminating stage fright.
• Managing the voice, body and emotions appropriately
• To adapt oneself to the space and to the unexpected.

In addition, training can help your company to achieve more sales, and to make your employees more qualified to achieve great closures.

Follow our accounts on LinkedIn and stay tuned.

Interesting facts.