=SUM(Japanese Company+Change Management)=#error?

When I accepted my most recent short-term assignment, my company told me it was to help a Senior Manager with a presentation he was going to give in English. "OK", thought I, "easy money".

When I showed up and sat down with the student, he broke out my resume and said, "I am very interested in your HR background..." My first instinct was to flee with the wind at my heels, but instead I nodded and thought - "Uh-oh". He then went on to say that he was interviewing with a Manager from the overseas (french) head office of the company that bought out his company and wanted to know, from an HR and recruiting perspective, what this Manager would want to hear in order to assign him to head-up a change-management project. At least that's what I thought he wanted.

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I was shit at HR and Recruitment. I have little patience for sales or touchy-feely politicking rhetoric. My HR experience is one phoenix not meant to rise from the ashes, and should be shot down at the first sign of singed feathers.

Now here I was, in a little room with no idea of this company's HR policies or structure (he spent a bit of time explaining them, but he really just wanted to get on with the interview), with an HR Manager who wanted to implement some hard-core cultural changes in an old-school Japanese company. Hmm, did he have any idea what he was up against? Well, yes, actually he did.

I asked him what his company could do to activate change. He said, "Get rid of traditional top management." followed by, "...but its impossible". And therein lies the rub. This man had a lot of exciting ideas but it all came back to one thing, "How are you going to convince top management to accept change?" He would sit back and muse, "that's a very good question." Pause. Longer pause. Change of subject. He was nothing, if not an artful HR professional...

I, for one, hope he manages to sell himself to the overseas manager for this assignment, because his ideas and charisma would really help this fairly mainstream conservative company in the Global Market. But he's gonna have one hell of a time.