Training exposure
I am from the village. As a villager it is the norm for me to daydream, loaf around, postponed my work, take my own sweet time, giving excuses, wasting time, and not effective in most of my actions. I do not bother much whether my actions affected my performance or other related parties. I am lucky and thankful to Allah SWT for the fact that during the early days working in National Equity Corporation group, I was chosen a few times to join the JICA youth programme (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and training programmes under Nomura Securities, Japco and Furukawa Denco in Japan. In the programmes, the participants were taken on a study tour to various associations, departments, institutions and business organizations that were involved in the economic activities, communities and culture in 14 cities throughout Japan. We started our tour in Tokyo, moving on to Sapporo, Hokkaido the northern most island down to Kagoshima city in Kyushu island, the southern most island of Japan. The trip lasted for over 3 months in total.
While in Japan, we visited several government departments, MNCs, SMEs, various agricultural projects, animal breeding farms, fishing villages, various youth NGOs and camps. In the three months, our days were filled with programmes and activities. We rushed here and there. We took the bus, tube, community trains and shinkansen (bullet trains), Our time were not counted in 60 minutes like 6 o’clock, 30 minutes like 8.30 am or 15 minutes like 7.15 pm but in 5.11 minutes in the morning, 1.17 minutes in the afternoon or 9.39 minutes in the evening. Very precise to the last minute and second. Time and time again, our Japanese coordinator and supervisor reminded us the importance of punctuality of time to the last second. However, there were still those who took their own sweet time until our coordinator had to take him out from the study visit for that day and was left all alone at the hotel. After the incident, this friend who came from either Indonesia or Philippines if I’m not mistaken never repeated the mistake again. The daily regime started with waking up at 5.21 am, breakfast at 6.07am, assembled at the lobby 6.49 am, arrived at the station and took the tube at 7.19 am, commenced the MNC factory visit at 8.48 am and assembled back at the MNC lobby at 10.37 am. These were examples of the tightness and preciseness of our study tour and training programmes in Japan.
Work culture
During a briefing session at one of the MNC, Matsushita, in Osaka, the Factory Manager reiterated the incident whereby 10 workers from Matsushita factory in Shah Alam caused one of the production line in his factory to close for half a day. Initially, the workers from Shah Alam were placed in one production line, side by side with each other to undertake a continuous activity and production process.
The 10 Black Sheep
These 10 black “sheeps” were entrusted to assemble one component to a work in progress product. The assembling or assembly was a continuous process. When the first person completed his task, he will then pass it on to his next colleague who will fixed the next item and then pass it on to the next person until it reaches the 10th person. The 10th person will pass it on to the 11th and so on until the end of the production line. There were 20 workers in the production line, 10 from Malaysia and 10 more from Japan. What happened was that there was a bottleneck in the assembly line of the 10 black sheeps with overpouring of components and half completed products. The 11th, 12th up till the 20th worker were waiting for the half completed products to reach them at the set timing.
Slow Hand Movement
Not long after that the emergency siren sounded automatically and the production line had to be stopped. After an investigation, it was later found out that the incident happened due to the lag in the movement of the Malaysian workers hands compared to the normal conveyor belt speed that carries the half completed products to be assembled. When assessed, the delay was about 40% below the normal hand movement speed of the Japanese workers. These 10 workers were taken off the assembly line and had to undergo two weeks of separate training under the supervision of one Japanese supervisor. When the movement of their hands were on the average almost similar to that of the Japanese worker, they were then placed back on the assembly line. This time not together but separated with one Malaysian worker in each of the 10 separate assembly lines.
The 7 Minutes Late
Another incident in this program was when we wanted to make a courtesy visit to a Mayor from the Oita Perfecture in Kyushu island. Our appointment was supposed to be at 9.40 am but was delayed. The reason being, one of our team member did not report to our Japanese supervisor that he had to go to the toilet. He only appeared 7 minutes later than the appointment time. The appointment had to be cancelled. Eventhough we were given another chance to meet the Mayor, we had to wait for about two hours until the Mayor was free to see us. At that particular time we were supposed to have lunch with the Oita Youth Association. Our Supervisor had to apologised to the Mayor the Japanese way by bowing almost 6 to 7 times. As a result of the rescheduling of the programmes, our Japanese supervisor had to appeal to the youth association to have our lunch packed and we ate on the bus as after that we were scheduled to visit the one product one village programmes in different villages about 27 minutes bus ride from the camp.The project, cultivation of tempura leaf tree (used as fried tempura dish underlayer cover when served) This project was cultivated on a half hectare farming land only. The crops were cultivated 5 times in a year and the leaves harvested twice a month intensively. The tempura leaves were exported worldwide including to USA. According to the report, total income from the project was about 350 million Yen annually.
Omeiyage
Another incident which remained in my memory bank was the level of obedience displayed by a Japanese wife to her husband. In the JICA program, each participant was required to stay with their foster parents for about two weeks. My foster parents were cattle breeders in a village in Kobe in central Japan. My other colleagues stayed with different foster family background. The lucky ones stayed with multimillionaire corporate figure foster parents. Upon parting, my friend received a gold chain with a high quality pear pendant. I received a pair of shoes as omeiyage and 2 pairs of socks, Ahamdulillah. Some received camera, camera decoder, watch, clothing etc. and some even received cash money. Long after the program, we received news that one of our friend got married to his Japanese foster sister. Now that is fated and not omeiyage.
Obedience
What I wish to share on obedience is the respect bestowed upon the husband by the wife eventhough the husband is not with the wife all the time and regardless of her activity at the time. One morning I was helping my foster mother doing household chores at the kitchen. My foster mother was cleaning the fish for our lunch. Suddenly a voice called out requesting something from her. As soon as she heard her husband’s voice, my foster mother holding the knife and hands smeared with fish blood put the knife down and with her hands at her knees bowed three (3) times instantaneously responding to her husband’s call. Without washing her pair of hands which was filled with fish blood, she immediately bowed putting her hands at her knees eventhough it was not certain from which direction the husband’s voice came from. After bowing 3 times she rushed to her bedroom to do something quickly and came back to continue cleaning the fish. I later found out that it was only that my foster father wanted her to change the cassette (that time there were no disc even in Japan) to be aired to his cattle in the farm. Every two hours the songs were changed for different cattle breeding process. When milking the cows, a different song was aired. Cattle bred for their meat, a different song was aired. Cattle bred for their milk a different song was aired. For the calves, a different song was aired.
Time management
My experience in Japan taught me a lot about time management. Time management is closely related to our culture of immediate action, the implementation of a particular decision and our work. If before this I like to laze around and keep postponing my work but as soon as I got back home after the JICA programme in Japan I do away with all the negative culture of not bothering about punctuality. Same goes with my daily activities. I no longer laze around and keep postponing my work. There were times the decision and action taken were too fast and beyond time.
The Islamic Way
This is actually the culture in built in our Islamic religion. Sometimes when we emulate the Japanese or the Koreans or even the Western, it is easy for us to practice it. In actual fact time management and culture of immediate action is in our religion. The Ustaz is always asking us to perform the solat immediately after we hear the azan but most of the time we do not follow this teaching. There were times when we prayed, we combined 2 solat prayer times. Five more minutes to Asar solat prayer, we performed the Dzuhur prayer. This is not the culture of immediate action and it is non Islamic. If we observed closely the prayer times, it is not counted in terms of 60 minutes, 30 minutes or 15 minutes. The same goes with the Japanese practices. The Dzuhur prayer time is for example 13.23 minutes, Asar 16.47 minutes, Maghrib 19.31, Isyak 20.48 and subuh 5.49. What can be learned from the precise timing of the prayer times in Islam is nothing less than to ensure that the Ummah managed their time to the precise last second. There’s also 1 surah in the Al Quran that teaches us time management i.e. surah Wal Asri. Allah SWT sworn in this surah that human beings are in a state of loss except those that have faith, do righteous deeds enjoined together in the mutual teachings of the truth and patience. We cannot afford to waste time. We cannot ignore and shirk our work and responsibilities. Denying work and responsibilities will result in a great loss to the Ummah.
Action First Talk Last
A nation that is successful is one that takes priority of its action, not those who talk a lot but no action, not those that argue much but also has no plans of implementation, not those that has a lot of theories, discussions, seminars, brainstorming and meetings but no action. We can do all that but the bottom line is after all the conclusions and decisions have been made and agreed upon, we need to put it into action. Don’t fill up the cabinet with piles of files on various resolutions and decisions but none of it being carried out effectively. We are good at making resolutions but when it comes to implementing it we direct someone else to do it.
Snatching Opportunities Upon Smelling It
We do not want our countrymen loafing around and not doing some meaningful work. We want to use every inch of the space and opportunities available to us to receive the benefits and the gains. Every inch must be filled up before someone else does it. We must snatch every opportunity before someone else grabs it. We must be smart to smell the gain for us. We need to act fast. Not taking too long to decide, too long to research, too long to calculate, not taking too long on the subject matter. We need to act fast, or else our customer or our stakeholders will have to wait for a long time. To become first class and world class citizens, organizations or communities must become an entity or nation that act instantly. We need to think big dream high and have a strong heart. We need to practice CIA, the “Culture of Immediate Action”.
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