[2/2] Why are world-class elites developing an aesthetic sense? - art and science in a management - 2) Consumption style in the global market is becoming "self-actualization stage". You probably know Maslow's hierarchy of needs. As the world economy is growing, the level of living is being improved, meaning the customers' needs are changing. The products or services that only offer performance or function are no longer appealing enough to them. The people in this stage buy products or services in order to fulfil the desire that the one becomes the most by obtaining (and sometimes showing off) something, which is like the fashion industry. To stimulate their desire, the products or services must be yielded with a well-developed aesthetic sense. 3) The changing speed of the social system nowadays is too fast to be governed by making a new rule. Cutting-edge technologies driven by the latest computing is extremely hard to understand for ordinary folks like me. It is easy to imagine that lawmakers struggle to enact a new law, understanding that complex new-born system. Even there are no rules about the new system, companies have to make the most of that technology for their business, considering the risk that the activity could potentially violate the future law. How could he/she decide? It should be determined based on their moral, and the moral must be disciplined by their aesthetic sense. It really makes sense to me! Particularly, the first idea. The author does not regard logical or analytical thinking, which is classified into the science field, as unimportant. Both science and art, which involves a sense of beauty and intuition, are essential for the business to be competitive. Well then... Throw away your MBA textbooks, rally in the art museum!

[1/2] Why are world-class elites developing an aesthetic sense? - art and science in a management - This book is insane! I think this is potentially the best business book in this year (this book was actually published in 2017;). Okay... I'll try to translate and share the contents as plain as I can:) The main concept of this book is explaining, as titled, why world-class elites or future executives invest in developing the sense of beauty instead of business management skill like MBA, which, at least for me, is initially come up with when it comes to business. To answer this, the author shows three reasons why they or today's companies need an aesthetic sense. To support this concept, there is an article titled "The MFA is the new MBA" (MFA = Master of Fine Arts) in Harvard Business Review in fact. It's said that the importance of conceptual skill that the people study in the program of fine art is increasing nowadays rather than analytical skill learned in MBA. It is stressed that polishing our aesthetics is not to become a good-looking educated person but for the purely economic purposes. The three reasons are as follows: 1) The way of processing information in a logical and rational way is almost developed. It is not very difficult for a business person to pick up those analytical skills, in these days. However, we tend to reach the same answer when we solve the same market problem thanks to logical-thinking. Providing we reached the same answer, we would offer the same solution for our customers, meaning we enter into the so-called red ocean market where tons of suppliers struggle to take the limited market. This is, therefore, a problem of differentiation. Plus, the market issue nowadays is not as simple as we can handle logically. It is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. With only an analytical problem-solving, we would never reach a solution that the market would be satisfied. In this situation, business leaders need to catch essential voices from the chaotic market with his/her intuition and make a decision, with his/her creativity, about what kind of crazy idea they will create so as to give their customers pleasure. To do so, it requires to develop aesthetic sense.

Someone help! I can't sleep. I can't catch what the interviewer, I think who is a British guy, is saying on this Youtube video.

Could someone please transcribe that?

https://youtu.be/AbAvd_4g6fQ

1) We thought you’d want it a couple of racks before you did it.

2) You had a shot to ?, and then you kinda recreated it for the crowd afterwards. When that shot didn’t go in, did you think am I brown here?

Thanks,

Cross cultural communication (異文化コミュニケーション) | Erin Meyar - Culuture Map I met this book at a seminar where the speaker explained how different between Japanese and Thai. I'm currently stationing at a factory in Thailand, encountering cultural differences every day.

This book presents the relative positions of each country with 8 scales according to her research with interesting stories. Those are:

- Communicating

- Evaluating

- Persuading

- Leading

- Deciding

- Trusting

- Disagreeing

- Scheduling

The point is that there is not right or wrong in the culture, but just only differences. For instance, considering time scheduling, I'm from the country where people regard punctuality is important, and hence, being on the time or linear-time is always essential and efficient. However, the people who are from not punctual culture actually consider that "flexibility" to be more efficient in their lifestyle. Still, I can't 100% accept that idea, but I need to.

We can't change others' personally not to mention their culture. Knowing cultural differences enables to avoid unwanted conflict. I think this book is essential for the people like us working globally.

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この本は、タイ人と日本人の違いを知るというセミナーで知りました。私は今、タイの工場に駐在しており、毎日のように文化の違いと対面しています。

この本は、彼女のリサーチに基づきまた面白いストーリーを踏まえ、８つのスケールで各国の文化の相対的なポジションを示しています。 そのスケールは、 コミュケーションの方法 評価方法 説得の方法 リーダーシップのスタイル 意思決定の方法 信頼関係のスタイル 反対意思の表明方法 スケジュールのスタイル についてです。

重要な点は、文化に間違いや正解はなく、違いがあるだけという事です。例えば、スケジュールのスタイルの話では、私の国では時間厳守を大事に考え、したがって常に時間通りに動くことは基本的な事で効率的だと考えています。一方で、時間厳守ではない文化の方は、その柔軟性こそが彼らの生活様式においては、効率的だと考えているという事です。未だに100パーセントその考えには同意出来ないのが事実ですが、認めなければなりません。

他人の性格や文化を変えることはできません。文化の違いを知る事は無用な争いを防ぐ事になります。グローバルに働く我々のとってこの本は必須かと思います。