Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.64 1990年代のビジネストリップ（5）

グローバルリーダー協会の齋藤です。

昨日はカナダとマルタ。今日は南米のアルゼンチンとエクアドル。旅好きには、いや～うらやましい。

Argentina

カウボーイカントリー
I was able to travel to Argentina for the first time in the 90’s. I worked with both the Isuzu dealer and General Motors there. I got the feeling of being in cowboy country, with ranches, big steaks, and a wealth of natural resources. With its natural wealth, discipline and care for the environment seem to be lacking. Debt was a major problem in the country in those days and many manufactured goods, which were imported, lacked in parts and service support. So, they never were used to their full potential. This is true for the care of cars, truck, elevators, and a wide range of construction and maintenance equipment. I did off-road training for the Isuzu dealer and general manager dropped his vehicle in a lake!! We all laughed. For GM, I did truck training.



Argentina, October 1992

Ecuador

高地トレーニングに最適！
In Spanish, Ecuador is “the country on the equator”. I only traveled to Quito, the Capital. I worked with General Motors there. Quito is on the top of a plateau. It is the highest city I ever worked in, about 26,000 meters high. Needless to say, I had to get used to that height. I had headaches for several days. Once on my way back to Japan from Chile I stopped in La Paz, Bolivia, which is 45,000 meters high. I could hardly stand up there. Anyway, Quito is a very clean city with clean air. It has a very easy lifestyle. Ecuador has mountains and oil in the north. It has a warmer climate, flat lands and bananas in the south. Off the coast of Ecuador is the Galapagos Island, famous worldwide for diving. I didn’t have a chance but would love to visit there.





Ecuador is Equator in Spanish, and I visited it again, Jan. 1993

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齋藤信幸の生産財の営業はここ。

齋藤信幸のロングステイはここ。

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Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.63 1990年代のビジネストリップ（4）

グローバルリーダー協会の齋藤です。

本日は地球の割れ目がみられるというアイスランド。今、行きたい旅先の一つです。

しかし、私にはビジネス機会はなさそうです。

トラック業界がうらやましい。

個人旅行で行こう。

『湿地』『緑衣の女』『声』（いずれもアーナル・インドリダソン著）など最近の北欧文学（推理小説）を読むと少し様子が分かってきますね。

Iceland

In 1991, I also had a chance to go to Iceland. Reykjavik is the northern most capitol on the globe. Also, it is the farthest north I have ever been. I went there twice and unfortunately both were in the wintertime when it is dark most of the day. The sun comes up at about 10 AM and sets at about 2 PM. Like many islands, Iceland is very volcanic, and all of Reykjavik’s heating is from geothermal energy. There is steam piped to the city and throughout all the houses. I saw their geothermal plant, and it has one of the most advanced heating maintenance operations in the world. Very little of the heat is lost when being transferred to the city.

Another interesting thing about Iceland is their pools. As hot water is in abundance, there are swimming pools where people gather in the evening. People go to these pools in the evening, stand in the hot water and visit their friends. You can see the steam from these pools while driving down the road at night (I don’t know if you call it night, but it is dark outside).


　
Iceland, September 1991　

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齋藤信幸のロングステイはここ。

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Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.62 1990年代のビジネストリップ（3）

グローバルリーダー協会の齋藤です。

McあるいはMacがつく外国人に会うことがありますね。MacArthur（マッカーサー）やMacDonalds（マクドナルズ）などいろいろあります。McあるいはMacは「～の息子」という意味だそうです。

今回は、同じくMcFarlandの姓を持つ、Ronさんの先祖探しの旅でもあります。

Scotland

On a trip to the South Island of New Zealand, I learned of the many famous Scottish names. It was in Dunedin, New Zealand, a Scottish mining town in the old days. Now, it is just dairy farms and agriculture. Anyway, I went into a shop in town that had Scottish souvenirs. I bought a bookmarker with all the Scottish names, and there was MACFARLANE. So, I thought to myself that if I ever get to Scotland, I should look up the name, learning it was Scottish. What does an American know, right?



Edinburgh, Scotland 1990

Years later, I was doing work in Africa and had to transfer in London to return to Japan. I thought I should take time off and visit Scotland for a day or so, just to say I did it. Knowing nothing of Scotland, I asked where the flights go, and learned they go to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Not knowing one from the other, I just picked Glasgow. After arriving in Glasgow, I learned that the real history of the country and Capitol (and tourist spots for that matter) is in Edinburgh. Glasgow is only and industrial town.

In the hotel in Glasgow I learned you could easily take the train over to Edinburgh, so I did. While in Edinburgh I toured Edinburgh Castle as well as many other historic spots. I walked into a bookstore there and found a book on the McFarland’s! On the train back to Glasgow to my hotel I read the book and learned the McFarland clan was just an hour from Glasgow. So, the next day, I visited it. That was a visit I will never forget. As you can see from the photos the McFarland name is quite historic.

　



Mcfarlane clan north of Glasgow



Mcfarlane clan 1991

The McFarland’s were great in wartime, but hard to control is peacetime. A full moon was called the “McFarland’s Lantern”, as the McFarland’s would go around and steal their neighbor’s sheep. Due to all the trouble they caused, they eventually lost their official titles and left Scotland for England, Ireland, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, etc. It was a fascinating 2-3 days.

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齋藤信幸の生産財の営業はここ。

齋藤信幸のロングステイはここ。

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Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.61 1990年代のビジネストリップ（2）

グローバルリーダー協会の齋藤信幸です。

本日はアフリカのガーナとケニア。私の友達の一人もガーナ人で、なかなかフレンドリーで日本的な気遣いもあり、同じ肉好きのミートマンです。さて、両国はどのような国なのでしょうか。

Ghana

Unlike other countries in West Africa, Ghana is English speaking, and I thoroughly enjoyed the country. I went to Ghana twice in 1991. The people are very gentle and have a peaceful way of thinking. On one of my trips there, just before leaving the country, I spend a day with one of the salesmen I trained. He said he wanted to take me to a special place.

奴隷貿易の歴史
We drove for about an hour and a half and arrived at an old slave fort where captured people were processed, sold and shipped abroad over 100 years ago. The slave trade started with the Portuguese, then the Dutch got involved and finally the British stopped it. During the tour of the fort, I went through the fatiguing area where the captives were weakened, so they could be controlled. They were kept in concealed rooms with no light and poor ventilation for days. On top of that, they were fed just enough to keep them alive. Slaves were considered salable products, and a stronger one is the more valuable, but harder to control. It was a real balancing act and extremely inhumane. We also saw the auction area and dispatch area for loading on ships. Once sold and shipped, one in 40 would survive to their final destination. On my way to the airport after that tour, I felt terrible about how the white Europeans treated the people in black Africa, and I told this to the salesman who took me.

奴隷貿易のもう一つの歴史
As he had very advanced education in Ghana he told me another side of the story you don’t hear on the tours. In that time in history, all of Africa was caught up in the slave trade business which was very profitable. After tribal wars, the losing trade’s warriors were sold into slavery. Within a tribe, people who did not follow the rules or laws were sold into slavery. Therefore, it was not just a white man’s business. It gave me a whole new perspective of that period of history. I traveled to Ghana several times and always found it fascinating.



Sales People in Ghana, April 1992






Slave Fort, April 1992

Kenya

Along with South Africa, Kenya has some of the best safari wildlife parks in Africa. I traveled to the country several times, but it was that first trip that was the most memorable. I toured safari parks, visit local villages and went to Lake Victoria, the point where the Nile River starts. For East Africa, Kenya had a rather stable government, but in those years with all the problems in Ethiopia and Somalia, security has become a problem in Nairobi and other cities. Kenya’s economy is based on tourism to game parks as well as the beaches in Mombasa, coffee from Kilimanjaro, tea and sugar cane. Nairobi has high altitude as with many countries that have coffee. The country is an ex-English colony, and they drive on the right-hand-side like South Africa, Australia, India and many other countries.







GM Kenya Sales Seminar 1991

何もないのではなく家族制度の中に何でもある
I was lucky to visit a village and learn what it’s like to grow up in a jungle type environment. It gave me a whole new perspective on subsistence living, no electricity, no TV, no telephone, no education, no medical facilities. The Marketing Manager from GM Kenya took me to the house he was born in. He is from the second wife of a man with more than six wives. In Africa, there is no divorce. The man just moves out and gets married again, sometimes to a woman who has given birth to two of his children. In this way the man can test the woman before marriage. There is no doubt in my mind why AIDS started in Africa. That is the bad side. The good side is the families, believe it or not, stay pretty much together, even if you’re number two wife of six. Polygamy is all over Africa, and once I saw a long line of people walking along the road in Ghana wearing black robes. I asked what was going on. The man said it was a funeral, and that was the family. Like many countries, “family” is extremely important. Most western countries will not understand that “family” is one’s education system, career path, insurance policy for life, unemployment insurance, retirement program, housing for life, and more. It is not just the legal right to live together and produce children. It is culturally more binding than that.







Kenya, July 1991

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齋藤信幸の生産財の営業はここ。

齋藤信幸のロングステイはここ。

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Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.60 1990年代のビジネストリップ（１）

グローバルリーダー協会の齋藤信幸です。

本日から1990年以降のRonさんのビジネストリップを紹介します。

当時、日本はバブル経済が崩壊し、今では「失われた20年」と呼ばれる真空期間が始まったころです。

当時の各国と「今」を比べながらお読みになると面白いかと思います。

それにしてもRonさん、いろいろなところに行きましたね。やはりトラックのマーケットは広い。


Chapter #12: TRAVELING & TEACHING IN THE 1990'S

1990年代のビジネストリップです。すでに行った国もありますが、パプア・ニュー・ギニアなど初めての国々もあります。
1990 started with a lot of traveling to countries I have been before and a few new ones like Papua New Guinea, Chile, Paraguay, Morocco, and Sri Lanka.

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea was one of the most primitive countries I have ever been to. They are still very tribal, and there is a lot of conflict there. The government bureaucracy is mostly made up of foreign personnel, as there is very little local trust. So, mostly Australians run the government and provide the technical support. In the mountains there are exportable raw materials, including crude oil, so multinational corporations have an interest there.　オーストラリア人が政府を動かしていたとは知りませんでした。

Transportation between the islands is best by air. Even on a given island as the roads are not well developed, traveling by boat may be the ideal travel method.

物騒なので銃が必要
Because of security, people often have to carry a gun to insure their own safety. I gave training there in the dealership, and for the closing party, we were in a restaurant that was regularly attacked. The general manager of the dealership had to carry a gun. Every night he would also take his staff home in his car to insure they get home safely.

I spent the weekend on the general manager’s friend’s boat. He and his family live on the boat, as his yacht club is one of the safest places to be.

As you can imagine, I did not find it all that fun of a place.

Chile

Chile is a rather disciplined country for that part of the world. The economy is managed well, and it performs will in several industries and usually has enough foreign exchange to market globally. The people there are mostly from the Basque region of Spain. Also, there is a Germany community in the southern part of Chile. It is a wonderful country. I found them wonderful to work with and teach.
チリ南部にはドイツ人のコミュニティも。

Sri Lanka

In spite of its continual war in the north over the years, Sri Lanka is a very friendly country. Like Indian, life is not easy, and the country is very heavily dependent on outside aid. It does have tea and other export products, but not enough to support its population and war. I was only there once and found it very similar to India.




　
Sri Lanka, November 1990

Cameroon

Cameroon is an ex-French colony, and therefore French is the national language. I found the country rather hard to work in with all the social problems, education problems, and for me language problems. The people were friendly though.





Sales Seminar in French in Cameroon, April 1991

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齋藤信幸のロングステイはここ。

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Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.59 ディーラーのマネージメント(4)

グローバルリーダー協会の齋藤信幸です。

営業に必要な重要なスキルに、

　顧客の声を真摯に聴く「傾聴力」　VS　自社の主張を受け入れさせる「説得力」

　顧客の視点に立つ「共感力」　VS　自社・自己の利益を押し通す「エゴ力」

があり、相反するスキルセットでもあります。

これをどう組み合わせるかが営業の面白いところでしょう。

自分を知り、それをどう伸ばし、また、活用するか。

Ronsさんは心理的なアプローチを用いて「自己分析」を行ないました。

さて、Ronさんのマネージメントの話は、今回で終了です。

次回からは1990年代のRonさんのビジネストリップの話を始めます。

その中には、テロに会い飛行機が不時着する話もでてきます。

Ronさんは、その飛行機の乗客だったのです。

では、乞うご期待。

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UNDERSTANDING OTHER PEOPLE

心理学的タイプ？
I have an interest in psychology, and I identified a specialty in that field called Psychological Type. The concept of this area is that people are not sick mentally because they seem strange to a given person. They just have a very different psychological type. The system I studied is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which has four continuums (1-outward looking – inward looking [E-I], 2-Past/Present Oriented – Future Oriented [S-N], 3-Logical-Emotional [T-F], 4-Decision Oriented-Information Gathering Oriented) [J-P].

I had groups determine their type by a little evaluation test I put together. Then, each person would confirm his type. After that, they shared their types with others.

Then, I asked the group to try to “Type” the people they have trouble working with. Once they know the type, they can study that type and get a feeling how that person thinks. Armed with that information they can come up with an action plan to work better with them. This is very helpful when interacting globally with very different people.

Throughout the seminar I addressed issues like 1-Ideal job identification, 2-Goal setting, 3-Tips on resolving conflict and 4-Setting up the ideal organization chart by Type.

The interesting thing about this seminar is it crosses cultures, religions, languages, etc. and can be applied anywhere in the world. It helps bring people together and creates better understanding.

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齋藤信幸のロングステイはここ。

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