The wa forward

摘要

MICHAEL WOODFORD, the first non-Japanese president of Olympus, likened the camera-maker's board members who sacked him in 20U to "children in a classroom". Mr Woodford had confronted Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, the company's imperious chairman, over a $1.7bn hole in its finances. Mr Kikukawa responded by orchestrating a show of hands in a boardroom coup that sent the Englishman packing. It all fitted a cliche of Japan's boardrooms as an all-Japanese, all-male club where wizened bosses ruthlessly enforce wa, or harmony.