Safe work is the door to all work

The Toyota mantra is "Safe work, reliable work, skilled work. Safe work is the door to all work. Let us pass through this door first."

As a simple expression of a risk management philosophy which all workers can understand it has worked well until the wheels started metaphorically coming off the Toyota juggernaut.

Some Toyota workers consider that the recalls are down to having recruited people who do not have the Toyota work ethic, but the recall problems are not the result of shoddy workmanship which would be rectified by recalling batches made by a particular shift in a plant. The problems are rather a matter of design. Some of the design problems are down to the enthusiasm with which Toyota cuts costs, an approach which, unless the emphasis on safe work is maintained can compromise the vehicles' safety and this appears to be what has happened with the jammed accelerators. The fix could have been designed in and is now having to be laboriously and expensively retrofitted. "Just in time" needs also to take into account "just in case".

The design problems with the hybrid cars are different. This is new technology and as it develops there will be problems or perception of problems which will need to be addressed. Toyota's reputation has been severely damaged by all these problems across their range coming together at the same time. There is now a view that all Toyota cars are suspect, which knocks the second hand market and the demand for its new cars too. Nothing that Toyota has said to date has calmed the concerns. They need to get back to their mantra.

Suicide risk

France Telecom has experienced 24 suicides in the last 18 months amongst its 100,000 employees. Several of the employees have left notes blaming the company's culture change since it was privatised for their action.

The French put great store by solidarity with their fellow workers, far more so than in the UK. Yet the suicide rate was 17.6 per 100,000 people in France in 2005 (the latest date WHO data available on wikipedia) against the UK rate of 6.8 for a similarly sized population. In real lives this is a difference of over 6000 a year.

I do not have a simple answer for this difference.

Low tolerance of ambiguity

For those amongst us who have low tolerance of ambiguity, who are only really comfortable when they have certainty in their lives, petty rules are a great comfort. They take the place in a secular society of the religious certainties.

The recent story of two policewomen who were adjudged by Ofsted of having broken the law because they were taking turns looking after each others children is a case in point. The people at Ofsted appear to have abandoned discretion and common sense because they want certainty and the comfort that they cannot be blamed if something then happens to one of the children.

Fact is that by such rigidity they have been blamed for being petty. You have to learn to live with risks and to distinguish which are really important. It is not easy but it is very necessary.

The pigeon's revenge

"Do you eat pigeon?" asked my dentist from Tipperary." They keep dentists in business, because the lead shot wrecks havoc on the molars."

Just one more risk to be aware of.

Do it at home.

Continuining the theme of Japanese risk management there are moments when the micro-management tendencies in Japanese life start to grate.

There is sense is setting out angled lines on narrow platforms to encourage orderly queues three abreast and something that London underground should consider. However the posters suggesting that people pay attention when walking and texting because their line of sight is curtailed seem rather excessive, unless there are lots of manholes left uncovered, which there aren't.

Most Japanese of all was a large poster displayed prominently at many of the subway stations in Tokyo which showed a drunk salaryman ( office worker) lying across several seats on a train having just vomited . The message is "Don't do it on the train, Do it at home". This does not seem to support family values and is just an example of trying to sweep the problem under the tatami.

Gullible grannies

There has been a 60 minute documentary on Japanese morning TV to educate Japanese grandmothers on the dangers of a telephone scam. The con artists dial at random and just by saying "Hello it's me" persuade elderly women that they are talking to their grandson. They then tell her that they are in trouble with their company and need money,usually around Yen 4 million (Stg 30,000 at present exchange rates) or face the sack. They give details of where the money should be sent.

Despite checks at the banks where they try to explain that this is a scam the grandmothers have parted with over Yen 14,200,000,000 (over Stg 100 million) this year alone. The TV progamme is yet another way of trying to protect them from this scam. It is doubtful that it will have much impact.

Blogs and senile dementia

With very large numbers of people living beyond the age of 80 the Japanese have a series of initiatives designed to reduce the incidence of senile dementia. Besides the community clubs for the elderly they also have a Silver Centres which supply 70+ aged workers for jobs such as tidying up the roadside verges or clearing out streams . Japanese society does not have the charity culture of the UK which provides so many people with a worthwhile voluntary activity, nor, in the cities does it have allotments.

There are daytime television programmes dedicated to exercises for the aged and you will have seen the adverts for Japanese computer games to exercise your mind on a daily basis. These are yet other examples of how the Japanese are tackling the risk of senile dementia. Me, I write a blog.

A sign of age

Drivers in Japan from their 75th birthday need to display a momiji (Japanese maple leaf) sign of autumnal red and gold on the windscreen or on the back of the car whenever they get behind the wheel. There is no rule as to where the sign should be put which means that it can get overlooked. Presumably the thinking is that, like learners, elderly drivers need to be identified so that the other road users will drive more defensively. There will come a time if it hasn't already when momiji signs considerably outnumber learner signs as the elderly have perhaps 15 to 20 years to display whilst learners are usually finished within six months.


As the display of these signs will be soon compulsory it will be interesting to see if "age discrimination" issues arise or whether insurance is declared invalid if an elderly person has an accident when no momoji sign is displayed.

After 75 no one fails a driving test

Awaji Island, where I am currently staying, is linked by very grand bridges to the main Japanese island Honshu in the North and one of the three other main islands , Shikoku in the South. This rural area is famous for its onions and chrysanthemums. It has a slowly declining population, first because like the urban areas of Japan the birth rate is below replacement level, but also because many young people do not want to be farmers and leave for the bright lights of Kobe and Osaka.

The small population of Awaji and its relative isolation until the bridges came means that there are no railways and in most areas only three buses a day. This means that old people have to drive if they want to go anywhere.

In Japan you have to take a driving test every 3 years from the age of 75. In Awaji those about to be tested are told that "no one fails"! Those who have had so many accidents that they can no longer get insurance have the government as insurer of last resort. There are no convictions for dangerous driving such as facing your friend in the passenger seat whilst driving on the wrong side of the road. As Awaji people drive rather slowly, 40 mph is really going some, it appears that the accidents that occur are not usually severe. However there are almost no pavements in the villages and the chances of being run down would be high except that when they see you walking ( I have done 11 kilometres in the last 2 days) the drivers cross into the other side of the road if there is nothing coming.

In many ways this deliberate fudging by the authorities is a humane response to the difficulties old people face in getting about. It will be allowed until someone runs over a school party and then the authorities will start enforcing proper tests. Maybe there should be silver roads where super senior citizens can drive, knowing that the risks to children have been properly accounted for.

Some 80 year olds still have mothers

In Kobe, last Saturday, where I am visiting with my wife, 4 of the 9 dinner guests, all aged over 60, had mothers still living. Amazingly not one but two of them, one aged 80, have mothers aged over 100. The other two mothers are 94 and 90 next January (this last is my mother ). The only other Brit present lost his mother when she was 98, so we represented at that table the future, not just of Japan but probably of all developed societies.


As I travel around Japan over the next two weeks I shall be looking for examples of how Japanese society, the world leader in the number and percentage of senior citizens, is managing its aged population risks. The Japanese joke that once someone gets to 90 they forget how to die.

Florence Nightingale sets the standard for ERM

On Tuesday this week I went to the Florence Nightingale Museum, just across Westminster Bridge from the Houses of Parliament, tucked behind St Thomas' Hospital to view their archives which they very generously made available.

FN didn't go in for snappy titles but her "Notes on matters affecting the Health,Efficiency, and hospital administration of the British Army" packs many punches that a tabloid editor would relish. Some she borrowed

"If you don't send shoes, the army can't march." Wellington.

Some she coined herself

" But habit and ignorance make all men in all professions wonderfully acquiescent in evils, which, if once known and felt are remediable."

What comes across is that no detail relating to her subject was too small to be considered and then improvements proposed. In three hours of reading I noted her observations and proposals on sanitation, barracks and hospital construction, ventilation,statistics' use and veracity, medical education, clothing and equipment, laundries, procurement, diet, cooking facilities ( bread should be baked by the regiment), recreation and discipline, sick transport,climatic considerations, finance, malingering ( there isn't any to speak of), soldiers' wives and their treatment, the need to remit soldiers' pay home and then, as you would expect, proposals for nurses and their training.

There really was nothing that escaped her eye, except perhaps mental health issues and probably that is covered in another volume. If you want to understand how thorough enterprise risk management could be you need look no farther than this book.

Long term survivor

Some years ago, to celebrate an anniversary, I decided to plant a tree.

I chose a Ginkgo Biloba, which are to be found all over Japan and whose nuts when fried are delicious. They have a downside in that in season the females can be quite pungent so I have planted the tree well away from the house and close to the fence, so it will create a problem for any new neighbours if the farmer ever develops his fields for housing.

Not only is the tree fruitful, and very beautiful, particularly in Autumn when its leaves change to bright yellow, but also it is an example of one of the great survivors in nature, for there were ginkgo biloba trees growing over 270 million years ago when the dinosours were around. Some individual specimens can live to more than 3000 years; there are some ginkgos still living which were only 1-2 kilometres from ground zero in Hiroshima.

It seemed to me that anything that could survive the vicissitudes of such a long period would be a good bet against whatever climate change could come up with. It also appears in today's newspapers that ginkgo extract halts the onset of alzheimers - good risk management all round.