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Nagori or the end of summer
Nagori is a Japanese word for the nostalgia of something coming to an end, and the uncertainty of experiencing it again. A reflection on the end of summer, leaving people and places behind, and allowing ourselves to remain attached even as we move on.
Nemawashi – When It Looks Like Nothing Is Happening
I thought I understood influence.
That was before I moved to Japan and learned about Nemawashi.
Before Japan, I would ask: are we moving fast enough? After Japan, I ask something else first: are the right people already part of this — before we move at all?
Japan gave me that question. I haven’t stopped asking it.
What Should a Leader Wear during the Hot Days of Summer?
This is about my observations about suits, ties, and Cool Biz in Japan. In many Western countries, the debate around workplace attire has largely disappeared. In Japan, however, the issue still becomes national news. If clothing is merely personal expression, changing it is easy. If clothing is part of the social fabric and a strong signal about professionalism, changing it becomes a cultural negotiation. A national debate on how to adapt to climate change.
The more I use AI, the more my own voice matters.
Two years ago, I started experimenting with generative AI out of curiosity. This year, it became part of my writing practice. Not because I wanted AI to write for me, but because I discovered it could really help me find and amplify my own voice.
“The Cloak does not make the monk… Or does it?
In any culture, wearing the appropriate clothes is a strong sign of showing up as a professional. It signals that you understand your role, your competence and what is expected about you. But nowhere is it as true as in Japan.
The Long Way Around
A journey through Japan that begins with an unexpected encounter and ends somewhere I never expected: a different way of understanding leadership, people and myself. Because sometimes the longest journeys are the ones that quietly change how we see the world.
One Year In: The Moment No One Talks About
One year after a relocation, most people ask a simple question: “Is this working?”
It sounds reasonable. But it’s the wrong question.
The one-year mark does not call for a neat conclusion, but for a more honest form of reflection—one that resists the temptation to tidy up the experience into something coherent, and instead lingers on what has actually unfolded: what worked, what did not, what has shifted.
It invites a different kind of question, one that is less concerned with whether expectations and goals have been met, and more attentive to what this experience is now asking in return.
When Competence is not enough: What Japan Taught Me About Leadership
Most leaders think working abroad is about learning a new culture.
In my experience, the deeper challenge is something else entirely.
Living abroad quietly shakes the assumptions that made you feel competent in the first place.
Sometimes, it even cracks your professional identity.
Coaching International Leaders
Coaching international leaders is not a specialization you acquire by adding a cross-cultural tool to a generalist practice.
The question is not whether you have lived internationally.
It is whether you have done the personal, cultural, and psychological work required to coach in this terrain without simplifying it, projecting onto it, or prematurely reframing it.
What follows is not only a “must-have list”. It is the minimum bar I hold for myself when working at this level.
🧡 Reviving the Spirit of the Ajumma
Since moving to Seoul, I keep crossing paths with the same kind of women — small, determined, often wearing floral pants and a big sun visor.
When I described these scenes to a friend who’s lived in Korea for years, she smiled knowingly. “You’ve just met ajummas,” she said — and with that single word, a whole world of meaning opened up.
