Tokyo2020

Can Japan Meet the Talent Demands in 2020? Hint: Demands Aren’t Being Met in 2016

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From the 2016/2017 Manpower Talent Shortage Survey

Another study has revealed another issue in planning for Tokyo2020. According to a Japanese Sports Agency panel, there are concerns that Japan won’t have the necessary manpower to ensure drug testing is handled effectively and in a timely fashion.

According to a recently released report, Tokyo2020 will need approximately 200 analysts rotating in round-the-clock shifts every day during the Olympic Games, in order to complete an estimated 6,500 tests. Each test has to be completed within 24 hours of receipt of the sample.

Currently, there is only one lab in Japan that can conduct drug tests to the standards of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and they employee 15 analysts. Their turnaround time for a drug test is 10 days.

I have no doubt that Tokyo2020 will figure out how to efficiently and effectively process the required drug tests by the time the Tokyo Olympics roll around, but it will not be easy to find the talent. As a Human Resource professional working in Japan, I am fully aware of how fierce the war for talent is in this country. Manpower.com, in its most recent Talent Shortage Survey, announced that the country where employers are having the most difficulty filling roles is Japan, by far. In fact, Japan has been the most difficult country since 2010.

Japan, in comparison to other countries in Asia, has a significantly low level of English capability, which impacts all organizations in Japan that require involvement in international endeavors or global markets. The technical sales, managerial, IT, engineering or design skills may exist in Japan in abundance, but the inability to communicate efficiently in a common global language like English can often slow down the pace of cross-boundary projects. And one of the biggest cross-boundary projects to hit Japan, perhaps the biggest, will be the 2020 Olympics.

Right now, the number of people in the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) who can interact with members of the IOC and individual National Organizing Committees has got to be low – in other words, so much is dependent on the few people who can speak English.

In 2020, who will be the ones who will coordinate with all of the visiting national teams, the international press, the highly technical demands of the dozens of international sports federations, the thousands of foreign athletes, and the tens of thousands of foreign tourists that arrive en masse for a few weeks in July, 2016?

More interestingly, what innovative ideas will emerge in the coming four years that will help Japan meet the demanding requirements of Tokyo 2020? What technologies will emerge as game changing? What tweaks to hiring or immigration policies will be revealed?

The Olympics can be a wonderful opportunity for change and growth in Japan.

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Junko Tabei: The First Woman to Climb Mount Everest Passes Away

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Junko Tabei on top of Mt Apo, December, 2005

“She would have to make a downward traverse of this ridge for about 14 or 15 meters — knowing that one mistake would send her plunging 5,000 meters on the northern, Chinese side or down to around 6,400 meters on the Nepalese side, where she could just see her Japanese Women’s Everest Expedition’s Camp II.”

That was the situation on May 16, 1975 that confronted Junko Tabei as she attempted to become the first woman to conquer Mount Everest, according to the Japan Times. Upset that there had been no mention of this treacherous path as she prepared for this ascent, she gritted her teeth, and with her Sherpa guide, made her way on a ridge with the narrowest margins for error.

Tabei survived Everest, but could not survive time. She passed away on October 20 at the age of 77.

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Junko Tabei at the top of Mount Everest

Since Edmund Hillary became the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, Tabei would become the 36th person. She would also become the first woman to climb the so-called Seven Summits: Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Aconcagua in Argentina, McKinley (Denali) in Alaska, Elbrus in Russia, Vinson Massif in Antarctica, and Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia.

Japan is a mountainous land and so mountain climbing is popular among all age groups. And with the growing global popularity of sports climbing, the IOC granted Tokyo2020’s request to make that sport’s debut at the Tokyo Olympics in four years.

There’s really no comparison between the Olympic-sponsored sports climbing events and the death-defying challenge of the Tabei’s of the world. But her spirit to ascend will always be an inspiration, at the climbing walls of the Tokyo Games and beyond.

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Recalling the Pitch: The Making of the Handover from Rio to Tokyo

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For those of us in Japan, now thinking of how we are going to get ready for Tokyo 2020, the handover ceremony from Rio to Tokyo still resonates.

For eight minutes at the end of the Rio Olympics, Japan was given the spotlight. And the light shone brightly on Japan’s technology, fashion, arts, children and of course, Tokyo. They even made the solemn national anthem somewhat modern and uplifting with the stunning focus on the hi-no-maru, the red circle on white that symbolically represents the country.

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Tokyo2020 recently shared a video of this ceremony’s production, which is fascinating. These are the kinds of intense, complex projects that I would absolutely love to be a part of.

Global marketing and advertising powerhouse, Dentsu, was hired to create the closing handover ceremonies for Tokyo2020 for both the Rio Olympics and Rio Paralympics. Dentsu was paid JPY1.2 billion (USD12 million) to produce these segments, and of the big decisions they made was to include globally reknown cartoon characters: Doraemon and Super Mario.

Clearly, the transformation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe into Super Mario and back again was the highlight of the handover ceremony. And interestingly, Nintendo is reported to have paid nothing to have one of its characters be front and center.

Four more years to go. So much to do, so little time.

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