Going Long on the ACCJ
As Japan’s most active and influential international business community, the ACCJ plays a vital role in improving the country’s business environment. As an ACCJ leader, you can put your experience to work to create lasting benefits that extend far beyond the scope of your present role.
Investing yourself in the chamber is a great investment in Japan
In keeping with this issue’s theme, I’d like to highlight an alternative form of investing in Japan that is uniquely available to members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ): taking on a leadership role at the chamber.
As Japan’s most active and influential international business community, the ACCJ plays a vital role in improving the country’s business environment. As an ACCJ leader, you can put your experience to work to create lasting benefits that extend far beyond the scope of your present role.
With more than 60 active committees and a broad, best-in-class advocacy program, the ACCJ’s true strength is the expertise and engagement of its members. Serving as a leader in an organization with such bench strength and influence is an investment that can pay meaningful dividends.
For younger executives, it is a way to develop leadership skills and networks to help build your career. For mid-career executives, it can be a great stepping-stone toward future board engagements, career advancement, and professional fulfillment. For senior executives, it’s a chance to give back to the communities in which you’ve flourished, leverage your skills in a more diverse environment, and help mentor the next generation of leaders.
Continuity
This year, the ACCJ board and I have launched a new focus on the resilience and sustainability of the chamber. We appreciate our active leadership and want to strengthen it by encouraging development opportunities in which others—including new members—get involved as leaders. We’ve asked committee chairs and vice-chairs to develop succession plans and to create openings for more members to take on leadership roles.
We believe that having a pipeline of leaders and encouraging rotation will lead to a more dynamic and vibrant chamber. The ACCJ has long been a leader on the diversity front, and we’re challenging ourselves to energize our organization with even greater diversity at all levels. Both these initiatives create tremendous opportunities for interested members to invest their time and expertise in the future of business in Japan.
Payoff
Having a leadership role in the chamber can provide a different experience compared with one in the private sector, as well as opportunities to hone your skills or develop new ones. The ACCJ is much less hierarchical, and more consensus-driven, than many private-sector organizations. As a volunteer body, the chamber can provide a refreshing change of environment as the use of persuasion more than authority is key when navigating the diverse opinions and priorities of the membership.
For many, the ACCJ represents a great opportunity to fine-tune the type of management skills required to meet the needs of today’s workforce. For others, it offers a “mental gymnasium” in which to focus on something outside the usual routine. And for all, it’s a great way to expand your network, get involved in meaningful change, and broaden your professional experience.
Get Started
How do you get involved? A great first step is to speak to members who are in leadership roles today. Ask them about their experience and seek their input on areas where your skills might be put to best use.
For committee roles, speak to the ACCJ programs team or the current leaders of the committees in which you are interested. For Board positions, the Nominations Committee launched their self-nomination campaign in July and is seeking members who would like to put forward their name. We highly encourage self-nominations and welcome anyone who would like to contribute their time and energy.
I have been involved with the ACCJ in various capacities for the past six years, was a member once before—when previously living in Japan—while my parents were both governors in the 1980s. I can tell you that it has been a very rewarding and productive relationship for me, and I know that my parents were proud to be part of the positive changes the chamber has helped to foster in Japan. I want more members to have that experience, and I invite you to take on a leadership role. It’s an investment with a guaranteed high rate of return.
Digital Transformation of Committees
When the ACCJ kicked off the transformation of its website platform early last year, the process sparked a conversation among members of the Chubu chapter about what digital tools our committee leaders need to succeed in bringing value to members and addressing pain points.
Removing barriers and ensuring continuity through centralized tech
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When the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) kicked off the transformation of its website platform early last year, the process sparked a conversation among members of the Chubu chapter about what digital tools our committee leaders need to succeed in bringing value to members and addressing pain points.
Following ACCJ President Jenifer Rogers’s directive to improve succession planning, the Chubu chapter reviewed the impediments that committees were facing. The takeaway was that the committee chair usually has all the documents, templates, and contact lists on their computer, and no one else has access.
As Chubu Programs Committee Chair Ray Proper explained, “I have years’ worth of information about my committee activities on my own shared drive—for my current and past committees—that I think would be much more useful were it accessible to others as part of a formal arrangement.”
Sudden Shift
Often in the past, without warning a committee member may have had to move out of Japan for work. This made it difficult for the remaining members to continue with the committee’s activities. Similarly, if the chair had a sudden medical event or accident, the committee would tread water until they could get back on track. This meant that the bus factor—the minimum number of people who can be hit by a bus before a project comes to a stop—effectively has been one.
Lastly, for committee leaders, an ongoing issue has been new member retention. Sometimes, a person joins a committee, attends a meeting, then never attends another. The feedback we have received from such members to date is that it’s hard to get up to speed, because they don’t know what has been discussed in previous meetings, are unsure how they can contribute, and don’t know what tasks need to be carried out.
Centralizing
To address these issues, the Chubu chapter began piloting the use of cloud storage for the Chubu Walkathon. This was then rolled out to the other committees.
Chubu Community Service Committee Chair Erin Sakakibara shared how the move made a difference this year: “Thanks to cloud storage, we were able to organize all our content and collaborate. It was particularly valuable in providing a base and continuity to build on in subsequent years of the Walkathon,” she said.
“But to be honest,” she added, “though technology is the tool, it also takes human management. You need someone who is organizing files and providing guidance for the team to get the full benefit of the technology. We couldn’t have pulled off the Walkathon without the cloud capability or our captain, who kept us organized and honest in our tasks.”
Having a cloud drive reduced the amount of management required on the part of the chair, as individual members could update and share documents on which they were working. This also eliminated the question of whether a document was the latest version—a crucial timesaver for an event with 220 files, scattered among more than 45 folders, being worked on by 20 people over the course of six months.
Onboarding
Getting new committee members up to speed becomes easier when you can point them to a cloud drive and they can review all the materials and meeting minutes. This helps them quickly get an idea of the committee’s activities, as well as how the group is organized and managed.
The Chubu chapter has also created LINE groups for each committee, allowing speedier communication while also making things more accessible to new members, increasing engagement by adding more touch points.
For successor planning, cloud storage moves the breadth of knowledge from the chair into a repository that all can reference. This can remove the barrier to entry for members and allow current chairs to step down with minimum disruption.
The Chubu chapter will continue to look into other technologies to address issues as well as assist leaders and members, so that the chamber can provide more value to everyone involved.