Ask Google, “Why no looting in Japan?” and it returns with well over 3 million websites asking that question. All over the world, people are asking why Japan is different than other places that have experienced devastating crises. It is a legitimate question, with a revealing answer.
Parts of Japan look like the aftermath of World War II—complete destruction with no infrastructure, no homes, no services like water and electricity but no massive build up of security forces to keep the population in check and safe.
It is a time of real crisis, yet the underpinnings of Japanese society have not broken down producing fear, panic, and the acting out of self-interest over everything else.
Japan seems to be demonstrating how humanity can rally round in times of adversity; how solidarity in a crisis prevents it from getting worse; how important are strong, deep and shared cultural values in weathering a crisis.
At its core, culture for a society—or any formal organization of humans—consists of the basic shared assumptions and beliefs that are learned responses to the group's problems of survival in its environment. To the Japanese, who have long confronted and overcame environmental problems such as earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and even the destruction of nuclear war, their strong cultural bonds and tight knit connected groups foster a society that has learned for survival to depend on each other, help each other and trust each other and their leaders.
The calmness and determination with which the Japanese have faced their latest crisis shows their inner strength, mettle, resilience, and ability to be cooperative and supportive. In a crisis they have demonstrated their real culture and its value to them.
Many believe that organizations too show their real culture during times of crisis. Crises, by their nature, bring out an organization’s underlying core values. Often, this is when the rhetoric meets the road—does the talk walk. Reactions to crises are normally highly visible, because everyone's attention is focused on the incident or situation. Disconnects between actions and words will usually be apparent, and actions always speak louder than words.
And it is in times of crisis that employees have their eyes turned on leadership. Employees look to their leaders for cues for the appropriate behavioral responses to a crisis; they seek to emulate the leadership’s behavior. The way leaders react to crises says a lot about the organization's values and culture: Is the culture strong, positive, supportive and deep or are is it proven to be weak, negative, unhelpful and shallow?
Consequently, one of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to create, maintain, strengthen and spread the elements of organizational culture that rewards and encourages collective effort.
Each day, LaserShip leaders and employees are confronted with many situations in their attempts to generate collective achievement—only some situations rise to the level of crisis, but all are complex in their nature and eventual solution. What supports us in these daily collective efforts to overcome adversity and achieve are the values that make up our culture: We trust each other, we are honest with each other, we communicate with each other, we collectively understand the correct ordering of priorities, and we share a long term perspective.
Just as the Japanese draw upon their culture to withstand the fury of nature, we too draw upon our culture in all nature of events to be collectively strong and supportive so that we can continue to fulfill our core purpose of connecting people with products and information; to always consider our customers and their customers in everything we do; to consistently provide our people with the resources and opportunities to achieve excellence; and to be forever be committed to each other’s success.”
