On Friday afternoon in the Funabori Hall auditorium, grades one to three students put on a memorizing show. The students themselves were well-practiced, but I have to thank the teachers for producing segments that renewed my faith in what I plan to do next. In perfect choreography, the students of grades one and two demonstrated different energetic dances from the regions of India and a comedic dance of clowns and Minions. The second grade reminded us of some of the significant challenges in the world today. And finally, in the grand finale, grade three students put on a rendition of It’s a Small World.
Besides being the week of the Global Indian International School’s 17th Annual Day, it was also the week we chose to announce my retirement from Discovery Japan as president and representative officer. In 2022 “retirement” is all relative. I’d prefer to say I’m moving on to a second life after a first that spanned nearly 25 years of digital media, from the first days of i-mode in 1999 to streaming media with YouTube and then Discovery, and recently seeing through Discovery’s merger with Warner Media.
The choice of It’s a Small World for my daughter’s grade three class could not have been more appropriate. It’s a Small World is an iconic ride at Disney theme parks worldwide. It started as an attraction at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, sponsored by Pepsi-Cola, with proceeds going the UNICEF. It was designed on the simple theme of an easily repeatable and translatable song, with almost look-alike dolls wearing the clothing of their countries. It was designed in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis and opened during the escalation of the Vietnam War. With the current climate of 2022 – the Ukraine and tension in Asia – we need some of the same sentiments today.
Paul Turner, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
My first encounter with It’s a Small World was during a 1978 trip with my grandparents and mother at the age of five to Disney World.
My grandfather and I road that attraction again and again. He was a soldier of the Second World War and the early Cold War, deploying to the United Nations mission to Korea and later peacekeeping in Cyprus. As has my father, too; he was a hero to me.
While it’s difficult to believe that digital media will never enter my plans, as I think about my ikigai want to focus my second life on leveraging the 40 years of global experience from the first half of my half, to bring people together. Born in Canada, I arrived in Germany in 1983, fresh after Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire speech, and experienced a Cold War Europe as a teenager. Settling permanently in Japan in 1995, I have lived and worked actively in 11 countries and visited another 30 countries. I speak English and Japanese fluently. and can communicate in French. How to best contribute those experiences, and the ability to communicate cross-culturally is top of mind.
What saddens me is that in my own lifetime, we have become closer as a global community with the technology to communicate but possibly farther apart than at any time in our history with the skills. While satellites, the Internet, and social media connect us, the true nature of cross-cultural communication – the global mindset – escapes many of us. The results are increased geopolitical tensions and war, unnecessary business competition, and failure. In the worst case, hate.
I believe that developing a global mindset, defined as leveraging similarities while recognizing and embracing differences to influence others, is the true secret of business success in the 21st century. While initially a term for cross-cultural management, the global mindset applies to all forms of diversity and inclusion – culture and ethnicity, gender and sexual identification, and others. My goal is to help others develop that mindset for success in business and life.
While my ikigai, and my business plan, may still a work in progress, I thank the teachers and students of grades one to three of the Global Indian International School for reminding us that it is indeed a small world after all.
