Transforming Corporate Culture by Harnessing Employees' Passion

In recent years, the environment surrounding companies has changed dramatically, with rapid globalization and digitalization, and the spread of remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Against this backdrop of change, more companies are tackling the transformation of their "corporate culture."

In this article, Dr. Yoshiki Ishikawa, a preventive medicine researcher at the forefront of well-being studies who also advises various corporate management teams, and Ms. Yuko Yoshiba, Chief Branding/Culture Officer at "dentsu Japan" (comprising approximately 150 companies within the domestic Dentsu Group), engage in a dialogue. They discuss the usefulness of developing corporate culture transformation by starting from employees' spontaneous "likes."

Yoshiki Ishikawa: Preventive medicine researcher. Graduated from the Department of Health Sciences, University of Tokyo Faculty of Medicine; completed the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; earned a Ph.D. (Medicine) from Jichi Medical University. Representative Director, Wellbeing for Planet Earth Foundation.
Yuko Yoshiba: Chief Branding/Culture Officer at dentsu Japan; Executive Officer (Branding/Culture) at Dentsu Inc. After joining Dentsu Inc., she gained experience across diverse fields before assuming her current role.

 

Why do executives want to transform corporate culture?

Yoshiha: My mission is to cultivate the culture within the domestic Dentsu Group. I hope this conversation with Mr. Ishikawa will offer insights into transforming corporate culture. First, beyond our company, more businesses are now considering corporate culture transformation. What's the background behind this?

Ishikawa: There are various reasons, but one is that companies are re-examining the fundamental question: "Why does our company exist?" Japanese companies are currently under pressure from financial markets to improve profitability. However, focusing solely on profitability risks making management decisions based purely on whether something is profitable or not. I sense companies are now asking, "What lies beyond profitability?"

Yoshiha: I see.

Ishikawa: "Culture" is a term with a very broad definition, so "corporate culture" can feel vague and hard to grasp. Since culture is embedded in daily experiences, I think it's clearer to reframe the question as: "Which companies are strong based on the daily experiences their employees have?"

Yoshiwa: You're absolutely right. When considering corporate culture, I feel the most important thing is what each individual employee thinks about while working every day, and what meaning or purpose they find in what they do.

Ishikawa: That said, it's not always necessary to transform corporate culture. For a company to continue generating economic value, it's crucial to shift the focus from the company itself to society: what kind of society do we want to see, and what kind of social contribution can our company make towards that? If changing the corporate culture is necessary to achieve that, then we transform it. Conversely, there are times when preserving the current culture is better.

Yoshiba: Changing corporate culture itself isn't the goal. I think companies face problems when they need to evolve in some way, but the culture doesn't change—meaning the individual thoughts and actions of employees don't keep pace.

 

Creating systems where the bottom 20% can thrive is crucial

Ishikawa: When you say you want to change corporate culture, I think you probably mean you want to change employees' mindsets and behaviors. To put it bluntly, corporate culture can change quickly if you drastically replace the workforce... But the question is how to do it when that's not feasible.

The "2-6-2 Rule" is sometimes discussed regarding organizational talent composition. This rule states that organizations consist of 20% top-performing talent, 60% average mid-level talent, and 20% underperforming talent.

Companies tend to focus on the top 20%. But even when top performers achieve great results, it often ends with just "Wow, that's amazing." While it becomes a source of company pride, it doesn't inspire other employees to think "I should try harder too," and thus doesn't drive transformation. For example, seeing Shohei Ohtani perform brilliantly might make you think "Wow," but you wouldn't believe you could do the same starting tomorrow, right?

Yoshiha: It's a different dimension, isn't it?

Ishikawa: Two things are crucial for a company to truly transform. First, the company must recognize that it exists on the foundation of the countless efforts made by its average, mid-tier employees. It needs to show them respect and gratitude. Without this, they lose motivation. Second, there must be a culture where the bottom 20% can achieve significant results. Here, "bottom" doesn't mean unmotivated employees; it refers to those who aren't generating much profit within the company's current business framework.

Companies with a culture where this bottom 20% can thrive are strong in the long run. Everyone sees these individuals persistently striving despite not reaching average mid-level talent, so their success energizes the entire organization. For a company to sustain profitability and creativity, it must create systems enabling this 20% to excel. One company formed a special task force with its president and the bottom 20% of employees to develop a groundbreaking product. This product not only achieved high profitability but also excelled in quality, winning a prestigious award.

Yoshiha: That's very interesting.

Ishikawa: The bottom 20% have the motivation, but their thinking differs slightly from the company's current systems. From an innovation perspective, leveraging these individuals makes new initiatives easier. Furthermore, if these people can achieve something remarkable, it instills courage and energy throughout the entire company, making others think, "If they can do it, maybe we can too." Observing this from the outside, one likely senses, "That company's culture seems to be changing."

 

Not "Turn Your Passion into Your Job," but "Turn Your Passion into Your Strength"

Yoshiha: When it comes to transforming corporate culture, I believe focusing on employees' "passions" is crucial. The Dentsu Group has always attracted people with strong convictions like "I want to do this" or "I want to be like this," and I see that as a strength. In recent years, our business scope has expanded significantly, with clients now totaling around 11,000 companies worldwide. We can handle projects across diverse industries, making it easier for everyone's "passions" or "desires" to manifest in some form.

My job is to create environments and systems that allow employees to express their "likes" and "desires" as much as possible. Doing so also leads to providing greater value to society. Ultimately, I believe people cannot sustain their work unless they are engaged in something driven by intrinsic motivation – that is, something they genuinely want to do or aspire to become.

That said, I feel "turning your passion into your job" is slightly different. Saying "I do this job because I love it, and I won't do anything else" – as an organizational member, I think that's fundamentally misguided.

Ishikawa: When you turn what you love into work, there's a risk you'll stop loving it. The easiest way to kill someone's motivation is to give them a reward. Rewards turn intrinsic motivation into extrinsic motivation. Things you initially did for free because you loved them can become burdensome when you have to constantly think about money. Furthermore, once you start getting paid, you might start questioning why you have to do work that pays less or involves providing services. So, you could even say it's better not to turn what you love into your job.

Yoshiha: Rather than "turning your passion into a job," perhaps "turning your passion into strength" is more accurate. To harness your passion as strength, engage in dialogue with various people and consider how your feelings and passion can benefit the team. It's about leveraging your "passion" as strength without becoming self-centered.

Ishikawa: Yes, I think "turning your passion into strength" is absolutely right. Taking it a step further, in work, you need the mindset to separate cash points from value points. For example, Google and Facebook have advertising as their cash point, but their value point is search or connecting people. Turning your passion into strength should be the value point; how to monetize that should be considered separately.

Yoshiha: At Dentsu Inc., not just the creators, but business producers and people across various roles have an incredibly strong ability to develop a genuine fondness for the products and services of the clients they handle. Sometimes, they even come to like the client more than the client likes themselves. In a way, it's a rather peculiar group.

 

Understanding what people like and dislike as a set

Ishikawa: Considering it in another context, "liking" is essentially an employee's subjective feeling. From a management perspective, valuing employee subjectivity starts with "satisfaction" – whether the company is satisfying its employees. The reason we started valuing this subjective satisfaction is because it impacts turnover rates. However, employee satisfaction isn't directly linked to productivity.

That's why the concept of "engagement" emerged as a metric strongly linked to productivity. Engagement, in other words, means being "absorbed." Being absorbed in one's work or company leads to high productivity. Furthermore, in an effort to value employees' subjective perspectives even more, "well-being" is now gaining attention. Well-being looks at how employees feel, not just about work or the company, but also about their lives outside the company. Well-being is strongly correlated with various metrics like productivity, creativity, and turnover rates. Therefore, companies with high well-being are said to have strong recruitment power.

In other words, valuing subjective experiences from a management perspective has evolved from employee satisfaction → engagement → well-being. So, what constitutes well-being from the employee's perspective, and how can management and team members grasp it? It ultimately comes down to the employee's subjective experience.

We need to understand what they like, what they dislike, and what causes them stress as a set. In fact, liking something and feeling stressed are often linked. Grasping this helps us understand an individual's well-being, making "liking" a key point.

What they like varies from employee to employee. Some find it intrinsically, while others develop a liking through their relationships with others. Liking doesn't necessarily have to come solely from within.

Yoshiwa: That's true. Even when interviewing Dentsu Group employees, not everyone says, "I do this job because I like it." Some people continue working because they really enjoy contributing to the team.

Ishikawa: There's a theory called FFS (Factor-Factorial System) that categorizes human traits into five factors: "Condensation," "Receptivity," "Discrimination," "Diffusion," and "Conservation." By comparing the number of each factor, it measures the reactions and behaviors a person exhibits. According to this theory, people with strong receptivity enjoy contributing. They're the type who feel happy when you feel happy. Essentially, your special skill isn't necessarily the same as what you like, and what people like varies.

Yoshiba: Given that what people like varies, I sometimes wonder if aiming for corporate unity is really the optimal solution. While sharing a common direction is important, maybe it's better not to be so unified.

Ishikawa: That sense of unity naturally emerges when there's a clear rival. For example, in world championships like baseball or soccer, even people who don't usually think much about Japan become conscious of it when they see their country competing against others. However, in multi-sport events like the Olympics, the sense of unity around Japan isn't as strong; instead, people tend to empathize with the athletes' personal journeys. Similarly, in companies with diverse businesses where each unit does different things, that sense of unity doesn't really emerge.

Yoshiba: You're right. In the case of the Dentsu Group, with its diverse range of businesses, I feel that a sense of unity isn't strongly emphasized. Instead, it shifts toward empathy for the individual lives of each employee.

Ishikawa: However, without a sense of corporate unity, the company risks being viewed as a collection of separate businesses. This can lead to the mindset that if a department isn't profitable, it should simply be cut off. Therefore, we must collectively hold onto something fundamental: the question of "What is a company, and what is its value?"

 

A culture of interest and respect for people is essential

Yoshiha: Earlier, you mentioned "turning passion into power." How can companies, not just ours, effectively harness employees' passions?

Ishikawa: In this era where companies prioritize employee well-being, it's essential to understand employees' subjective experiences—their state of mind, what they enjoy, and what causes them stress. This means showing more interest in colleagues, superiors, and subordinates. That said, amid calls for work-style reform to boost productivity and heightened awareness of harassment, fostering communication outside of work has become more challenging than before.

But having a culture that shows genuine interest and respect for people is crucial. If you want employees to perform at their best, you naturally need to take an interest in them and listen.

Yoshiha: Absolutely. How someone works is only one part of who they are. You won't see what they believe in or how they live their life unless you try to understand it, and without that understanding, working together as a team becomes difficult.

Hearing your insights today, I understand how "turning passion into power" enhances corporate profitability and creativity while contributing to well-being. I also grasp that building a culture where employees can "turn passion into power" requires truly knowing each individual. Thank you for today.

Next time, we'll introduce examples from the Dentsu Group where employees' passions were harnessed to achieve results.