Synergies to Embrace Our Life and Empower Our Career -Thoughts on International Men’s Day

What “hard to ask” really means

Japan is known for its low ratio of paternity leave which is only 17%, and more than half takes less than 2 weeks, before returning to long working hours again. In such society, it could be “hard to ask” for necessary work adjustments against the invisible pressure, such as “why would men prioritize family and adjust their work?” and/or the concern of negative impact on evaluation due to work adjustment, especially if long working hours are highly regarded.

However, as a manager leading my team, this “hard-to-ask” issue is much riskier than it sounds, distorting essential and organizational challenges. Even if he manages to hang in for a while, things will become more challenging and complicated as stakeholders increase, and/or the duration becomes longer. Then, things might fall apart – forcing a sacrifice to his family, or his progress might fall behind that makes other team members covering the tasks, and eventually causing organizational issues such as the project delay etc. It all starts with “hard-to-ask”.

“Work-life synergy” as human values

To solve this situation, trust relationship and psychological safety are crucial – including trust and safety that work adjustment will not impact your evaluation.

In Japan, there are sayings such as “Selfless devotion (Messhi-boukou)” or “Mixing private and public matters (Koushi-Kondou)”, which encourages to separate “public” (work) from “personal” (life) and often used in a context that “work is more important than personal life” or “personal life should not be mentioned at work”. Of course, having a rule to separate personal from work for compliance and professionalism is crucial, but when we look at each individual, “personal” and “work” mutually exist, synergizing each other in various ways. Having said that, it may be the time for us to discuss how we can diversify our evaluation axis to achieve “work-life synergy” -aiming to bring core values from combining “personal” and “work” as a unique human values in this age of Artificial Intelligence. 

Thoughts on International Men’s Day

Former Minister of the Environment, Koizumi returned to work with a comment, “Paternity leave is not a leave -it is a full time work” and stated that he would leverage his learning and perspective from paternity leave to his work as a Minister. 

If we strive to create a society where personal experiences are valued and evaluated as well as professional work -as we further develop work-life synergies, I believe more men will take paternity leave in Japan, which will also lead to gender equality.

International Men’s Day reminds us of gender equality issue, and furthermore, our societal goal to develop in a sustainable manner. I believe one of the challenges we need to tackle now, is diversifying our values that were based on male-dominated world. Diverse values and evaluation axis will lead to diverse talent to thrive with diverse ideas to solve challenges and find out various opportunities and risks, which makes organizations more competitive and resilient.

As one of the male managers in Japan, I would like to keep empowering so that one day, we will be able to look back to this day and reflect as a paradigm shift for gender equality and DEI empowerment.

See HERE for reports on other DEI-related events.

Related stories: 

• "What is masculinity?" -Thoughts on gender roles and paternity leave upon International Men’s Day
• International Men's Day (Part1) : "Future team management with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for better outcomes" | DEI Reports | Deloitte Japan
• International Men's Day (Part2) : "Future team management with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for better outcomes" | DEI Reports | Deloitte Japan