To capable young professionals, JTC-style (Japanese traditional corporate) practices look like trash.
Read the original article (in Japanese):
Introduction | The Crisis Signaled by the Term “JTC”
While the term “black company” peaked in the mid-2010s and has since declined, “JTC” has seen a sharp rise in search volume in recent years.
This trend, as shown by Google Trends, indicates a shift in worker frustration—from overtly illegal labor practices to outdated, rigid corporate culture.
JTC—Japanese Traditional Company.
Being reprimanded over the angle of a stapled document, lining up to greet the CEO, holding elevator doors open indefinitely, stamping documents at a specific angle…
These “bizarre practices” are endless.
They may sound like jokes, but in reality, they are serious organizational pathologies.
These hollow rituals appear costless, yet in fact generate the greatest cost.
At their root lies either the will—or indifference—of top leadership, spreading through management to the very edges of the organization.
There is a phrase: “learn new things by studying the old.”
But today’s JTCs lack the ability to discern whether the old truly holds value.
Chapter 1 | Waste Is the “Greatest Cost”—Yet JTCs Fail to See It
In JTC workplaces, countless meaningless rules still persist.
Stapler angles, morning chants, mandatory social events, waiting lines for executives, holding elevator doors…
These are treated as “culture” and appear to carry no cost.
But in reality, they are the greatest cost.
They erode productivity.
They distort information and prevent truth from reaching leadership.
Excessive deference breeds even the seeds of quality fraud.
And most critically, they waste employees’ time, inflating opportunity costs.
JTCs fail to recognize this—or choose not to.
“They’ve always been this way,” they say, turning a blind eye.
In organizations where pointing out waste is taboo, form inevitably consumes purpose.
Chapter 2 | Young Talent That Avoids Waste Won’t Stay in JTCs
As labor shortages intensify, JTCs face a serious hiring and retention crisis:
promising young talent does not stay.
Why?
Young workers clearly split into two groups:
- Those who recognize the waste but silently endure it for pay (“quiet quitting”)
- Those who cut their losses early and leave (“job hopping”)
The most engaged and capable individuals leave first.
They cannot tolerate environments that waste their time and effort.
The moment they conclude “this company won’t change,” they quietly submit their resignation—often without explanation.
What remains are those satisfied with hollow rules.
The organization loses its growth engine.
Energy declines, and within a decade, competitiveness collapses.
This is not about changing values among the young.
It is a clear structural defeat of the organization.
Chapter 3 | Nobunaga’s “Redefinition of Value”
During the Sengoku period, Oda Nobunaga faced a crisis: land, the traditional reward for retainers, was finite.
His solution was the “tea utensil reward” strategy.
By collecting prized tea items and leveraging the expertise of tea masters such as Sen no Rikyū and Tsuda Sōgyū, Nobunaga assigned them the value of entire provinces.
This allowed him to reward merit without relying on land.
Retainers came to desire these items as proof of recognition.
The long-standing value system—“reward equals land”—was overturned.
The key point: the top leader redefined value.
Because Nobunaga reshaped the value system itself, ambitious talents like Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Maeda Toshiie gathered under him.
In contrast, Ashikaga Yoshiaki clung to formality and lineage, lost capable talent, and saw his organization collapse.
Then as now, talent gathers where it finds a worthy environment.
Chapter 4 | The Harsh Reality: Only the Top Can Change the Organization
Organizations cannot be changed by anyone other than the top.
Managers act according to leadership’s evaluation criteria, and the front line reflects those priorities.
If leadership implicitly values outdated forms, managers enforce them even more strongly.
Psychological safety also originates at the top.
Unless leaders explicitly say, “It’s safe to point out waste,” silence prevails.
As long as leaders fail to recognize rules that exist merely for their own comfort, hollow practices will persist.
Statements like “we want young employees to change the company” are fundamentally incorrect.
Organizations mirror leadership’s will.
No matter what employees propose, change depends on whether leadership accepts it.
Again: only the top can change the organization.
Chapter 5 | The Criteria for Rational Selection
Not everything traditional should be destroyed.
Long-standing practices may still hold value.
What matters is not emotion or precedent, but rational selection.
| Category | Traditions to Preserve (Value) | Practices to Eliminate (No Value) |
|---|---|---|
| Culture & Practices | Genba focus and continuous Kaizen improvement | Stapler-angle rules, tilted stamp practices |
| Human Relationships | Long-term customer trust | Waiting lines for executives, holding elevator doors |
| Organizational Management | Strong team cohesion | Mandatory long social events, ritualistic morning meetings |
| Values | Meticulous quality control | “We’ve always done it this way” mindset |
The criteria are simple:
- Contribution to organizational purpose
- Relevance to the current era
- Whether it exists merely for the comfort of leadership
Even practices that hold value today may become obsolete due to AI, automation, remote work, side jobs, and project-based structures.
Management must constantly update its criteria.
Chapter 6 | Creating Modern “Tea Utensils”
What leaders must do is recreate Nobunaga’s strategy in a modern context.
They must clearly endorse what has value and eliminate what does not.
- Publicly abolish worthless practices and act first
- Recognize those who identify waste and improve productivity as the new “tea utensils”
- Shift evaluation from form compliance to results, initiative, and psychological safety
- Demand the same standards from managers—and act through personnel decisions if necessary
Through consistent repetition, organizational values will change.
Seeing this, young employees will think, “This is a place where I can prove my ability,” and engagement will follow.
Conclusion | The Final Choice for JTC Survival
The difference between Nobunaga-type organizations and Muromachi-type organizations is already becoming clear.
Nobunaga-type firms attract talent and grow by continually redefining value.
Muromachi-type firms decay within hollow forms.
Tradition should not be discarded simply for being old.
But whether an organization can identify and eliminate what has no value—and refine what does—will determine its fate.
Ultimately, whether a company becomes a JTC depends on this choice.
An organization can change with a single decision from the top.
And that responsibility lies with leadership.
Read in Japanese ↓（For Japanese learners!）↓
JTC（日本的伝統企業）的慣習に有能な若手は付き合ってくれない（2026.4.24）
Read more articles (in Japanese)↓
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