Pacific resource exchange center

公益財団法人 太平洋人材交流センター PREX

The world is built through the efforts of people
HOME > PREX island > Lecturers / Specialists > 【The Voice of Professional】Mr. Makoto RYOKE, Osaka Prefectural Government [2]

【The Voice of Professional】Mr. Makoto RYOKE, Osaka Prefectural Government [2]- PREX Island

Lecturers / Specialists Working style
【The Voice of Professional】Mr. Makoto RYOKE, Osaka Prefectural Government [2]

Last time, we posted the interview about the situations which you might face when going back to your countries.

This time, we are going to ask Mr. Ryoke about the relationship with superiors, staff and colleagues, about which you might be troubled or worried at work every day.

*Q. (Satomi OKUMURA, PREX staff)
*A. (Makoto RYOKE)

Q. 
We sometime hear from our participants, “My superior does not give us clear instructions”, “I have no authority, because I have superiors” and “My staff do not work hard.” How do you deal with these?

A. 
When you feel “my staff do not work hard”, you have not been able to make clear what the essential problems of your business assignment, share the problems with your staff, split the assignment into tasks to solve the problems, and assign the part of tasks to your staff. 

In my case, I used to look at the big picture of my team’s assignment and assume tasks that we should tackle to achieve the work.  I then decided the portion which I would be in charge of and the other portion which I would entrust to my staff.

Off course, I entrust the tasks to my staff by checking if he/ she could do or not after sharing the entire view of the work with them.

Even if I entrusted a part of the work to my staff, he / she might be ill or not be able to complete it, so I used to entrust a portion that I would manage to complete if I worked overnight. Fortunately, my staff who I entrusted managed by the deadline most of the time.

The final goal is to produce a result as a team or organization including me, so it does not matter who does or who does not from the outside point of view.

In the meantime, my superior sometimes leaves a whole task to me without clear instructions.  I feel it is a chance that I can built trust with my superiors. He/she will be glad if I achieve the assignment when he/she are in trouble. So I try to delegate as much work to my staff as possible so that I can afford to do the work for which my superior needs help.

Completing tasks for my superiors leads to a virtuous circle as I can obtain trust and enhance the reputation of our team.

In our current workplace, middle managers work as player-managers, so instead of dividing roles clearly like superiors and staff, producing positive results by groups is more focused.

If you don’t produce positive results, blaming superiors or staff, you will lower the reputation of your team after all.

Q. 
We also hear from participants, “Some workers don’t work proactively”, “They are not motivated to improve current situation”, and “They don’t display their creativity” . What do you think about their opinions?

A.
There might be people that don’t meet your expectation quantity-wise and quality-wise. However, when working in an organization, not every member needs to be either a star player or creative, do they?

Anyway, it is impossible, isn’t it? After all, good assignment of the right people in the right place is important.

Grasp who is good at what, think about who you can entrust and assign him to that role.

For example, assign a person who is good at booking a meeting room to the meeting room booking role.

There is always a person good at logistical support, even if she / he is not creative.

There may be many creative people who are not good at logistical support.

If you compare this with soccer, every player has something they are good at, such as shooting or defending. Moreover, soccer matches cannot be carried out just by players but also trainers, match organizers and analysts are needed.

If one person is asked what he is good at, then at least he will have less stress.

If your staff work in an unhappy manner, it can create trouble and unproductive results, you then just end up putting a lot of effort into managing them.

When you need to carry out creative tasks, work out how many people are necessary in the team and calmly identify the required quantity and quality.

You will then have three choices: training a person in charge to be creative, headhunting a creative person in your organization or headhunting someone from another organization.

【The Voice of Professional】Mr. Makoto RYOKE, Osaka Prefectural Government [1]
Jul 16, 2019

Did you enjoy this interview article? We would love to receive questions for Mr. Ryoke from you.
You can ask anything. Please send your questions to this email address.

prexglobalnetwork@prex-hrd.or.jp

(Interviewed by Satimi OKUMURA, PREX staff)

  • Date : July 16, 2019
  • Name : Okumura

関連記事