Western expatriate executives in Japan - rats deserting sinking ships?

During the past week since the 3/11 Japanese triple-witching disasters there has been a lot of talk and a certain amount of controversy over how expatriate heads of Western corporate subsidiaries are personally responding to the situation.

Quite a bit of “news” coverage has reported the large-scale retreat of subsidiary presidents and country managers out of Japan - supposedly leaving their Japanese teams to fend for themselves. As with much reporting there probably is a kernel of truth in there somewhere but more often than not it has been blown out of proportion wither by the journalist or more often the editorial head to give it more punch.

Alarmist announcements by the French Embassy were harmful and misleading, followed later by the US and British embassies offering government chartered aircraft to “evacuate” any citizens of their respective countries to other “safe-haven” countries did not do anything to help the image of the foreign corporation and their executives.

I am not a journalist nor am I an editor. I run the Japan office of a global consulting firm specialized in helping corporations build their top leadership teams. Over the past several days I have had telephone discussions directly with the Japan and regional leaders of several globally-known companies. As these were privileged off the record discussions I will not mention names.

One of the top multinational enterprise software companies, had been receiving criticism that 2 of the top 3 expat leaders were not in Japan. What was not reported is that the Japan CEO and his executive team immediately announced to all Japanese (and other) employees that they were not required to come to the office and could work remotely. Next the Japan CEO convinced corporate HQ to fully fund relocation of up to 100% of Japanese employees AND THEIR ENTIRE FAMILIES to other cities in Japan, specifically Osaka and Fukuoka where the company has significant offices - on a voluntary basis of course. Already they have secured around 250 hotel rooms and other living facilities in Osaka and are working on a similar amount in the Fukuoka area. Journalistic reports neglected to mention that the reason some of the expat execs were not in Japan was that they were already attending a global meeting offshore when the earthquake hit and it was decided they could be equally effective anywhere in the world - also not reported was the fact that several Japanese executives were also on overseas business trips and they were treated in exactly the same manner - recommended they stay offshore until the situation stabilized. As of yesterday afternoon the relocation of Japanese employees to Osaka and Fukuoka was well underway. The expat execs will be back in Japan in a few days - one of them in Tokyo, the other in Osaka.

A global communications consultancy Japan President moved quickly to announce to all it’s employees that no one was required to report to the office and in fact were encouraged to work remotely from home or other location of their own choice.

The European President in Japan of one of the best-known consumer brands had along conversation with me Monday - he had called to ask my opinion and learn what other executives were doing. at the end of our discussion he decided to move his family to the Kansai area (Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto) and he would stay in Tokyo. He personally felt that the top corporate executive leaving for a safe haven is analogous to the Captain abandoning his ship and crew in a violent storm.

In my own firm we had the entire team in the office half a day on Monday and decided to close the physical office for the rest of the week, encouraging staff to be with their families wherever in Japan they might be, and work remotely via email and mobile communications.

The true test of leaders often comes in times of crisis and extreme stress. This is one of those times. How is YOUR company and it's leadership responding to the situation?

We are sitting safe in Tokyo but feeling extremely strange as we see hour after hour of devastating footage on TV. The disaster area is only about 300 km (less than 200 miles) away yet it feels to us as if we are disassociated voyeurs. Images remind me of Cormack McCarthy’s book “The Road” http://amzn.to/gfS7yf

Daily multiple aftershocks of varying magnitudes are now a way of life. A quake of magnitude 3 that a week ago would have been news we now shrug off a just another small quiver. What is bothersome to me is the multiple shakes that are not technically aftershocks. The epicenters are reported from varying locations all over Japan. Just this morning we were shaken out of bed by a relatively mild M3 that was reported centered under Tokyo Bay – a highly unusual location. Although it may not be totally scientific, some of us can’t help but wonder if the whole Pacific basin “ring of fire” – or even a greater range of tectonic plates – has been unbalanced. After all, the main island of Japan itself is supposedly 2.4 meters East of where they were last Friday morning. http://bit.ly/fnEJCw

Not to mention the potential nuclear contamination issue and related power outages. The wildly varying analyses – not of what is happening in the reactors, but what the consequences are/could be/will be – is not at all comforting. Just because the Fukushima Daiichi plants are of the BWR type and therefore impossible (there’s that word again) to turn into a Chernobyl type of incident does not bring a feeling of comfort. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, the Japanese nuclear power regulator IAEA, and Tepco seem to be doing as good a job as anyone could expect under the almost impossible circumstances, yet their communication or lack of openness leaves much to be desired and does not increase confidence. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12733393

Other than that everything is fine here in Tokyo.