Career & Professional Development in Japan

It was the very hot summer of 2002, and we had just missed our exit at the internet start-up where I was working. A wave of finality had fully washed over that era’s internet boom-and-bust here in Japan 🌊

(NASDAQ Japan – a joint-venture with Softbank – withdrew that year with a write-off of approx. $20M USD 🫠)

Amazingly enough, I found myself with quite a bit of time on my hands 🤣

During one of my many trips to Good Day Books in Ebisu, I decided on a read that I half-expected to abandon: The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra 『タオ自然学 | フリッチョフ・カプラ』 📙

Around the same time, on a very different shelf at Kinokuniya in Shinjuku, I found Fumihiko Kojima’s The Coordinator’s Work 『コーディネーターの仕事 | 小島史彦』 📘

I was looking for something, anything, to provide a justification for my somewhat ill-advised decision to stick around without a clear path forward in one of the most expensive cities in the world 🤑

The former book was ostensibly about the study of quantum mechanics in the West ☣️ and unexpected connections with mysticism in the East ☯️

I had already built a skill-set for solid handling of teams with complex deadlines, checklists, and schedules as a Senior Coordinator / Project Manager.

Work moved from left to right on a timeline, and people moved up and down on the team and organizational charts 📉

At the time, that background was straightforward and comfortably mechanical. I was exceptionally good at it. But I could tell even then it definitely was not enough.

While Kojima gave those routines a name and a role, with Capra I could grasp a different aspect of the related metaphysics:

If particles only show up in relation to other particles, perhaps the “work” only really exists in relation to everyone else’s 💫

Seeing the world as an organic web and not a rigid framework unlocked another level of comprehension 💡

I could finally see how one off‑hand remark in a corridor could do more to move a project than in a formal meeting to cover a detailed presentation deck.

A true coordinator – whatever their foundational skills – excels as an adept socialite that can read currents between people and quietly redirect them 🔄

That description felt much closer to what I was actually doing than any job title on my previous business cards 🃏

It helped me shift my viewpoint from:“How do I manage this project?” to“How are these people, decisions, and moments actually connected?”

Along the way, I picked up many other texts to keep my skills relevant as a bilingual professional 『日📝英』

Those included a few mooks (a popular category of magazine + book) by Business Standard 『ビジスタ』, such as:

21 Professionals Will Guide You — 7 Absolutely Essential Work Skills That Will Help You For Tomorrow 『21人のプロがあなたを変える — 明日の仕事に絶対役立つ７つの仕事力』 📚

(The titles for self-improvement books are never over-the-top in Japan 😅)

It was a leap but I decided I’d go freelance in digital marketing once my batch of new cards arrived from Mojoprint Ltd in Osaka 📩

I then hit the networking circuit with the launch of my first studio in Tokyo, Genshoku: Design & Marketing Consultants 『原色: デザイン・マーケティング コンサルタンツ』 🚀

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Stay tuned as the journey continues across the challenges and opportunities in Japan and greater APAC 🌏

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