日本を代表するグローバルリーダーが亡くなられた。

元日本IBM社長椎名武雄（しいな・たけお）さんが19日に亡くなった。



1975年に45歳で日本IBM社長に就任。70年代、通産省（現経済産業省）の保護政策で力を付けた富士通、NEC、日立など国内メーカーに対抗し、日本IBM独自の販売・開発体制を敷き「日本化路線」で対抗した。87年に売上高一兆円を達成し、89年には初めて、米IBM副社長に就任した。

私が日本IBMに入社したのは1977年。六本木に本社を構えてはいたが、新規採用の決定権がなく、米国IBMの承認待ちの状態が続き、採用が決まるまでいらいらした記憶がある。

椎名さんの言葉で一番、思い出に残っているのは、「Sell IBM in Japan. Sell Japan in IBM.」。

外資系にいる方なら心に響くのではないだろうか。

日本政府の保護政策の中で、富士通等にどう対抗し売り上げを伸ばしていくか。

日本国内での会社としての認知度のの低い中で、どう良い人材を取っていくか、など悩みは深かったと思われる。

一方で、IBMの中で日本という国の実力を売ってくれたのが椎名さん。

製造拠点ばかりでなく研究所、さらには基礎研究所も日本に作ることができ、椎名さん自身も米国の副社長になった。

そんな椎名さんを10年くらい前だが、二子玉川の「つばめグリル」でお見掛けした。お孫さん、曾孫さんと一緒のようであった。

私が米国旅行好きになったのは、IBMのお陰。

海外出張や家族帯同でカリフォルニアに赴任させてもらい、旅行も含め米国生活を満喫させていただいた。

椎名さんのご冥福をお祈りする。

＜赴任当時に住んでいたサンノゼの家。いまもそのまま残っているが、恐らく価格は4倍に。＞

Ron McFarlandの Personal Journey (7-d): セールスセミナー＆トレーニングの成功

シンガポールで最初のセールスセミナー開催
After a year of study and writing, I conducted my first sales seminar in Singapore, in 1985. It was not the best seminar I ever gave, but I learned a great deal from that program and from that point the seminars improved and improved. While I was teaching, I was probing the best salesmen as to what made them so successful. I not only shared their thoughts with the whole group, I took that knowledge and used it to improve the future seminars.





世界各地でセミナー
From that first seminar, my training activities exploded, and I started traveling worldwide, particularly in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. I gave seminars in Europe only a few times and a couple of times in Canada. But, most of the time I was working in the jungles and desserts of the world. As of this writing, I have traveled to over 80 countries worldwide.

Over the years, although vehicle models have changed, basic sales techniques, sales management and general management have changed very little. Also, those principles are very universal and can apply in many countries and cultures. There are modifications required, but they are very slight considering the total concept.

トレーニングカストマイズ
Furthermore, as I studied how sales were made in many markets, I learned there is never one best way. What is best in one region might not be in another. Obviously a salesman would not telephone his customer if none of the customers had telephones. He would not send out advertisement if the customers could not read.

トレーニング大成功
I had no idea to this day why my presentations and seminars were so popular. I would guess it has something to do with my personality and the ability to communicate with people who have a wide range of education levels. Also, for some reason, my sense of humor seems to be successful in many wide and diverse groups. I guess that was just a gift from God. I know that my goals of globally interacting and understanding people were on the right track.

Ronさんのセミナーいかがですか。苦労の多かったRon-sanの青春時代やキャリア形成の話、来日後、特に、いすゞ自動車勤務でのカルチャーショックとグローバルリーダーとしての活躍など。それとRonさんが楽しみにしている出席者と皆さんとのノミュニケーション。今の時期だと花見、ではなくて新緑見物

皆さんがおやりになっている勉強会などに出張し講演させていただきます。本人の希望は、英語での発表です。

ただし、Ronさんが住んでいる東京都大田区から日帰りできるところとさせてください。

もっとも台湾でも日帰りは可能ですが。



＜仕事に疲れたら『武蔵野』でコトリップ（『武蔵野』リイド社、斎藤潤一郎著）＞

Ron McFarlandの Personal Journey (7-c): セールストレーニングの講師に必要なスキル・知識の習得

GMのコンサルタントと関係者からの学び
There was a Japanese domestic market GM Consultant from Chevrolet, Gardner Glenn, who was trying to improve Isuzu’s sales in Japan and spent time in Chevrolet’s training operation in the United States. When I approached him, he thought we could complement each other very well, as I was a Japanese speaker, and he had just arrived from the US with little background about Japan. Through our many discussions, he provided me a wealth of material from GM’s old training programs. That was just the raw material I needed to write my own international commercial vehicle and car sales training program.



Gardner Glenn consulting me

Also, Gardner had recruited the John Williamson Company to provide seminars in Japan. John Williamson owned a group of dealerships in the southern part of the United States. At that time, they had 22 dealerships and an in-group training center in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, there are mega-dealers owning hundreds of dealerships, but in those days dealership groups were rare.

米国でトレーニングに参加
John Williamson invited me to his training center to attend one of his normal US domestic 2-week salesmen courses and spend a week observing a dealership of my choice. That was very productive three weeks, as I then had all the material and techniques that I needed to do it all myself. Also, I received, for free, great material for a dealership sales manager seminar, my second program.

Over and above that, I read a dozen books on basic salesmanship.

As I had worked in Isuzu’s overseas sales promotion department and was a pretty good Japanese speaker at that time, I had a pretty good understanding of the Isuzu products, particularly the trucks. What I did not know, I could learn very easily by going into Isuzu’s Engineering and asking about it. One of the functions of sales seminars is to help the retail salesmen sell and to do that, they had to know the features and user benefits of buying the vehicle. Therefore, teaching about the product was critical and not just teaching basic salesmanship.

Ronさんのセミナーいかがですか。苦労の多かったRon-sanの青春時代やキャリア形成の話、来日後、特に、いすゞ自動車勤務でのカルチャーショックとグローバルリーダーとしての活躍など。それとRonさんが楽しみにしている出席者と皆さんとのノミュニケーション。今の時期だと花見、ではなくて葉桜見物

皆さんがおやりになっている勉強会などに出張し講演させていただきます。本人の希望は、英語での発表です。

ただし、Ronさんが住んでいる東京都大田区から日帰りできるところとさせてください。

もっとも台湾でも日帰りは可能ですが。



＜仕事に疲れたら『武蔵野』でコトリップ（『武蔵野』リイド社、斎藤潤一郎著）＞

Ron McFarlandの Personal Journey (7-b): チャンス到来

いよいよ国際ビジネスのチャンスが！

After being with the company for about three years, my chance to get into international business came. I was asked to go over to the Isuzu Training Center and help them write an English training manual about 1-2 days a week, as they were asked by top management to provide training to dealers around the world in the same fashion as they did for Japanese domestic dealers. So, I then had three desks to work from on different days of the week.

When I got to the Training Department, I learned that not only did they not have a training program for me to improve on. What they did have would not be acceptable in overseas markets. On top of that, even if they could use the material no one wanted to or was qualified to teach overseas. What they were trying to do was to build a case that overseas sales training could not be done in Isuzu Motors.

As the English training job in the Personnel Department was pretty well established, I only went there occasionally to set up classes. Also, the Overseas Sales Promotion job was changed to an as need be basis. That left me open to spend all my time to develop sales training program for overseas dealers’ salesmen.

For me though, that was a job I wanted very badly. I had the teaching background and experience. Also, I had a business education and experience. What I needed was a good sales program for vehicles. So, I approached the GM consultants within Isuzu.

Ronさんのセミナーいかがですか。苦労の多かったRon-sanの青春時代やキャリア形成の話、来日後、特に、いすゞ自動車勤務でのカルチャーショックとグローバルリーダーとしての活躍など。それとRonさんが楽しみにしている出席者と皆さんとのノミュニケーション。今の時期だと花見、ではなくて葉桜見物



皆さんがおやりになっている勉強会などに出張し講演させていただきます。本人の希望は、英語での発表です。

ただし、Ronさんが住んでいる東京都大田区から日帰りできるところとさせてください。

もっとも台湾でも日帰りは可能ですが。



＜仕事に疲れたら『武蔵野』でコトリップ（『武蔵野』リイド社、斎藤潤一郎著）＞

Ron McFarlandの Personal Journey (7-a): 英語の手伝いではなくビジネスでの貢献を！

マーケットコミュニケーションの手伝いを開始
I was not happy with my assignment in the Isuzu Motors Personnel Department and was always looking for ways to get more into the international business. It came first when I was asked to help with English written material in the Overseas Sales Promotion Department.

I was asked to spend every Friday in that department to rewriting English speeches, slide presentations, corporate catalogues, product presentations and video narrations. So, I had two desks and two bosses with very different assignments coming at me.

ビジネススキルを活かし、いすゞ自動車の海外営業を分析、弱点を発見
Through all the English rewriting, I learned the features on all of the overseas cars, trucks and other products. Armed with what I learned in business school, I could see some of the things that were lacking in Isuzu’s overseas sales promotional activities and the weaknesses in many of their overseas sales activities. Furthermore, learned most of the people in the overseas sales departments had weak selling skills. They were only able to process orders as the purchases came in from customers around the world. This was a source of friction between Engineering and the Overseas Sales Departments. The sales organization was separated by regions of the world and sales channels.

There were three main overseas sales channels, the IMODC channel, the GM channel, and the Isuzu channel. This is not counting domestic Japan, which in those days was about half the business.

The IMODC channel stands for Isuzu Motors Overseas Distribution Corporation. It basically distributed to the smaller countries of the world and was a joint venture with GM with Isuzu owning 51% of the shares and having management responsibility. The GM channel was made up mostly of GM’s overseas assembly plants in which Isuzu sold to in the CKD (completely knocked down) form. The Isuzu channel was its own network, mostly in Asia. Some of the countries had assembly operations; some only had dealers that imported completely built up vehicles.

Ronさんのセミナーいかがですか。苦労の多かったRon-sanの青春時代やキャリア形成の話、来日後、特に、いすゞ自動車勤務でのカルチャーショックとグローバルリーダーとしての活躍など。それとRonさんが楽しみにしている出席者と皆さんとのノミュニケーション。今の時期だと花見



皆さんがおやりになっている勉強会などに出張し講演させていただきます。本人の希望は、英語での発表です。

ただし、Ronさんが住んでいる東京都大田区から日帰りできるところとさせてください。

もっとも台湾でも日帰りは可能ですが。



＜仕事に疲れたら『武蔵野』でコトリップ（『武蔵野』リイド社、斎藤潤一郎著）＞