As societal conditions change, the challenges companies face have become increasingly diverse. When considering corporate management and new ventures, how should companies identify their own challenges and transform them into valuable assets for the future? Many companies are likely still searching for answers.
In the second part, they delve deeper into methods for identifying challenges through communication and approaches to engaging with client companies that lead to new value creation.
New things are born not from the head, but from visceral intuition
Tanaka: In the first part, we touched on the power of listening. When people—including clients and internal members—can express their genuine interests and questions, it often leads to new ideas and the discovery of challenges, right? Do you have any specific approaches or techniques for fostering that?
Dentsu Consulting Inc. Hiroshi Tanaka
Obuse: I consciously strive to create a relaxed atmosphere. In meetings where there's an unspoken pressure to sound smarter than others, people tend to pretend they understand, become defensive, or even hide their true thoughts to avoid being contradicted. This leads to discussions that only scratch the surface. But the essence of things rarely comes from the head, right? It often emerges from much deeper within, from visceral intuition. It's about connecting viscera to viscera, not head to head. To achieve that, I prioritize creating an atmosphere where people feel safe to speak their true feelings without overthinking it.
Tanaka: I see. Reducing that pressure to "give the right answer" is key, isn't it? Another fundamental concept in consulting is "critical thinking." Generally, it means "thinking objectively from diverse angles, not relying solely on experience or intuition." I interpret critical thinking as "not negating what the other person says, but rather trying to imagine or uncover what lies beneath their words, starting from a zero-based perspective." I strive to embody this, and it's also very important.
Obuse: That's right. When everyone in a meeting expresses similar opinions, it often indicates they're constrained by something. I frequently employ the approach of identifying the underlying common bias and then questioning it. When discussing this with my friend, researcher Professor Yoshiki Ishikawa, he mentioned that "to create a new normal, you must first identify the existing norm that should be questioned." This is a theory for generating conceptual shifts, so I believe exploring everyone's shared biases is crucial. This is difficult to do alone, making it an approach that truly requires a group effort.
Tanaka: Changing the subject slightly, frameworks like "3C Analysis" or "SWOT Analysis" are often cited as effective tools for organizing corporate management challenges and issues. However, simply thinking through and filling in the items of these frameworks is a significant task in itself. It's not uncommon for people to spend a lot of time on this step or even feel satisfied just completing it. I believe frameworks are merely a starting point. The quality of consulting hinges on how well you can leap from the hypotheses organized there.
The Approach We Should Aim For: Shifting from "Teaching" to "Torching"
Obuse: I often feel that the proposal style of horizontally deploying and communicating "correct answers" found somewhere else doesn't truly solve problems.
Recently, I visited a business school in Copenhagen. Their approach focused on "drawing out people's agency." Ultimately, people rarely get truly invested in answers given to them by someone else; they only become genuinely committed to ideas that arise from within themselves. The technique involves drawing out that inner will, layering ideas onto it, and elevating it into new value that didn't exist in the world before. They call this technique "Creative Lead," and I deeply resonated with it.
Our approach is quite similar. Through dialogue, we draw out what our clients hold within themselves but haven't yet recognized. We then layer our ideas and perspectives onto that foundation, crafting it into unique, one-of-a-kind value. To achieve this, we hold meetings focused on creation, not just sorting. This differs from the approach where consultants possess the correct answer and simply teach it. Instead, it's an approach where we embark on an adventure together to discover value that hasn't been seen yet. It's an adventure to excavate answers that don't yet exist anywhere, guided by the compass of intention, rather than providing or organizing answers that are already out there. When the executives we work with consistently tell us, "This is fun," we consider that the highest praise.
Dentsu Inc. Noritaka Obuse
Tanaka: The ability to extract various challenges within that is valuable, right? When business growth is the premise, I don't think clients face just one challenge. It's also important to lead them to various realizations like, "This kind of initiative might also be necessary."
I believe that through the collaboration between Dentsu Consulting Inc. and FCC, we can realize a new form of consulting—one that isn't purely strategic or purely design-oriented, but something different from what has come before.
Maintaining a big-picture perspective. Breaking aesthetics.
Tanaka: If I could offer one piece of advice to young people about to dive into consulting... it would be the importance of viewing yourself objectively. There are various ways to express this – seeing with an eagle's eye, viewing the big picture – but when working on projects, it's easy to get stuck in a narrow focus. It's crucial to step back, objectively see where you are within the overall situation, and then consider where you should go next from that elevated perspective.
Obuse: As you take on various jobs, you develop your own sense of aesthetics. But I believe it's crucial to dismantle that carefully cultivated personal aesthetic at a certain point. It's not easy. It involves self-negation. Yet, the more you cling to your own aesthetics, the harder it becomes to become a new version of yourself.
The world you see is surprisingly narrow. The question is whether you can recognize that. Build an aesthetic, then dismantle it, and go searching for the next one. I think maintaining that stance is what's truly important.
In an era of rapidly changing market conditions and uncertain futures, where corporate management challenges are diversifying, a new approach is being sought—one that goes beyond traditional consulting based on applying past success stories and experience.
What the coming era demands is an approach that draws out the client's autonomy and elevates it to something better. The importance of consulting that provides diverse insights into corporate challenges and connects them to business growth is expected to increase significantly.
The information published at this time is as follows.
Engaged in projects across marketing, promotion, and creative domains with various companies. Appointed Director of the Future Creative Center in 2020, supporting the creation of future value. Handles grand designs for management strategies, vision formulation, symbolic action development, and branding and communication initiatives that enhance corporate and business value. Recipient of Cannes Lions 2023 Gold, Silver, and Bronze Lions; ACC 2024 Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards; and the Japan Marketing Grand Prix 2024. Also holds numerous other domestic and international awards.
After graduating from university, I gained experience in business valuation, strategic planning, and operational improvement consulting for corporate revitalization at two major foreign accounting-based consulting firms before transitioning to an operating company. At a major U.S. chemical company and a major U.S. e-commerce company, I implemented initiatives for business growth through roles in the president's office, corporate planning, business planning, and sales/marketing within business divisions. Following this, I worked at a branding-specialized consulting firm before assuming my current position in 2022.
