welcome to disrupting Japan. Straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Things are not normal in Japan right now. Japan is one of the countries that is being hit the hardest by the Corona virus, and the rest of the world is watching Japan because it has a modern health care system, an active response to the virus and a government that could be trusted to release reasonably accurate information about infection and mortality rates. How things play out in Japan over the next few months is quite likely how they're going to play out for the rest of the world over the next year. So, yeah, everyone's watching Japan as they should be. People are nervous in Japan, but things are calm and orderly. Of course, Japan tends to do calm and orderly really well. Public gatherings like graduations, business conferences and sporting events have all been canceled. As I'm recording this,

no official decision has been made about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but it seems likely they're going to be postponed. Two weeks ago Sunday, I was walking back home through the nearly deserted streets around our kills and I saw a young couple doing their wedding photography in the atrium there, masks nervously being taken off and put back on between shots. It's gotta be a frustrating timeto have a wedding scheduled on the business side. Most large companies, including Dentsu, Panasonic, Mitsubishi and, of course, Google as well are either requiring or encouraging their employees to work from home, which is good. Almost all business travel is cancelled, and that's also for the best. In fact,

three weeks ago, when I was returning to Japan from Singapore, I coughed while walking through the airport on the way to my gate. Not a big, sick, hacking cough, but just like I mean, I'm a human being, and sometimes we just cough right? Anyway, a few seconds later, someone from security wearing a mask walked up to me with the heat sensor to take my temperature. He was very polite about the whole thing, and I was fine. Of course, it's good to know that Singapore is taking things seriously,

but just f Y. I don't cough in the Singapore airport in terms of disrupting Japan. Well, I've not been scheduling interviews for the obvious reasons and honestly, right now, most founders air focused on Corona virus countermeasures. If the situation continues, I may try videoconference interviews again or continue to do these commentary episodes. The feedback I've been getting on my last few has been overwhelmingly positive. So so So maybe today, however, I want to talk about the nature of innovation itself. You see, the Corona virus has the potential to teach us a valuable lesson about innovation. No, no,

it's not the one you think it is. It's not the standard fare about how innovation and ingenuity will get us through humanity's worst problems. Now it's something a bit less on message, but it's an insight that's far more important and in a way far more reassuring than the standard trope about innovating our way out of a bad situation. Unfortunately, it's also a lesson. I think, that all of us innovators will completely forget the minute the Corona virus crisis has passed and the world returns to normal. The thing is, innovation is almost certainly not what is going to get us through this pandemic. Innovation is great. The ability to innovate in tow widely pass on that learning is something that is uniquely human, We even like to say that that modern societies based on layers and layers of past innovation, but but that's not quite correct. That leaves out something very important these days. We talk about innovation in general and and disruptive innovation in particular,

far too casually. In fact, over the past 20 years, the word disruption has been diluted to the point where it's practically lost all meaning. We frequently hear people say things like, we're disrupting the Japanese gaming industry when what they really mean is that they're competing in the Japanese gaming industry or that their game is for sale on the Japanese app store. That's not disruption. And hey, yeah, I'm not blameless here. The name of this podcast is disrupting Japan, and I've had plenty of promising and interesting but non disruptive startups on the show. But when I actually refer to a technology or as a company is disruptive, I try to use the term and at least something like how Clayton Christiansen originally defined it in The Innovator's dilemma were enchanted with the idea of disruption. But disruption has a very real and painful dark side. People suffer,

companies and industries disappear. People lose their savings and their health. Now that we tend to brush aside those negative effects of disruption because over the long term and on average economic disruption leads to a greater overall good. We gain more than we lose, but it doesn't have to work that way. It's not an iron law. Of course. Our fascination with disruptive innovation is easy to understand. There's drama, there's conflict, there are winners and losers. And when we're talking about technological disruption, the innovators are almost always the winners, and everyone loves to root for a winner. But the thing is, the innovators are not the ones who are going to get us through this Corona virus crisis.

Oh, some CEOs and politicians may get some credit when it's over, but innovation won't be. What gets us through what gets us through is going to be everyday competence. It's the doctors, nurses, school teachers, janitors and millions of other people who've just been doing the same job the same way for decades and doing it well. They are the ones who will get us through the disruption caused by this virus. And as you'll soon see, they are actually the ones who get us through disruptive innovation as well. That might seem like a strange claim to make, particularly from an American where where there is practically a cult of innovation. But while innovation is what drives us forward, everyday competence is what keeps us on the road. It's the teachers and taxi drivers and maintenance workers in mid level managers and health inspectors and waiters and nurses who keep society functioning.

Everyday competence provides the stability and the direction that allows disruptive innovation to utterly destroy an entire industry without damaging society as a whole, we don't tend to think about everyday competence. Much the stability it provides is like like air. It's mostly invisible. We don't think about it much. It's always just there until it's not, of course, then we start thinking about it a lot. Then we start to panic. The truth is, we can't really help it. Our brains are hardwired to seek out the new and to discount the familiar. One of the most powerful ways we have of containing the spread of this virus is simply washing our hands a lot. But it's surprisingly hard to get people to do that, because when we hear this advice our brains First reaction is, Yeah,

yeah, I already know that. And so many people discount that information. They don't change their behavior because our instincts tell us that new problems require new solutions. But our instincts are wrong. And a maybe some farmer company will innovate to come up with a treatment that will reduce the symptoms or speed recovery. That would be great. They'll make billions of dollars, and the international press will proclaim them heroes hero. That's That's another word that's lost almost all of its original meaning. Let's face it, the people who are really getting us through this pandemic are the thousands of doctors and nurses working 70 hour weeks, the consumers who remain calm and don't buy hordes of masks and toilet papers, and the millions of school teachers who are getting the kids to just wash their damn hands. It's not the heroes or the innovators. It's just good people with everyday competence.

But our love for innovation, particularly in America, often leads us to overlook that right now. President Trump is being quite rightfully criticized for his firing of the American Pandemic response team back in 2018. After all, they were just sitting there sucking up taxpayer money. They were not producing or innovating anything who needs everyday competence. But of course, this is not unique to trump. We all tend to elevate innovation and downplay everyday competence. But we Americans in particular, practically fetishized innovation, you know, actually, I think the best example of valuing innovation over competence came in 2018 when 12 Thai teenagers and their soccer coach became trapped in a cave. The rescue efforts started with a small team of divers and eventually involved several 1000 people trying to apply their individual decades of skill and experience to come up with the best way to rescue those boys.

But a frustratingly large percentage of the US media coverage focused on innovator not just innovator but billionaire innovator coming through step aside Elon Musk, elbowing his way into the spotlight to teach these so called competent experts how things should really be done. When he was politely told that while his efforts were appreciated, they would not be needed, must clashed out, insulting the intelligence, morality and even the sexuality of those who did not hail him as a hero or proclaim his innovation is the obvious solution to the problem these six cold plotters were trying to solve. He was innovating, for God's sake. Why weren't people appreciating that? In the end, of course, all the Children were rescued not by daring innovation or disruption, but by a team of people working together using the skills they had. They were saved by everyday competence. In fact,

two divers gave their own lives in order to save the lives of 12 boys that they'd never met. The word hero may have lost most of its original meaning and gravity, but I mean, yeah, I think that qualifies. In times of crises, people don't come running to the innovators for help. Nor should they. What hold society together through crises like these and through disruptive technological innovation, is everyday competence. We innovators tended, downplay everyday competence because, well, that's what we're disrupting, right. Our our whole identity is innovators is being the people who replace today's everyday competence with something better and more efficient.

And that's great. Innovation drives civilisation forward, but everyday competence hold it together and let's step back and take a hard, honest look at what we call innovation. Let's for for the sake of argument. Let's say that San Francisco is the most innovative place on the planet. What percentage of the population are doing anything that's actually innovative, not not competent and not creative, mind you, but actually innovative. Be honest. Now I think 1% would be a gross overestimate, maybe 0.5% probably less than 0.1%. Most people in Silicon Valley, just like most people everywhere else, are not innovating but operating with everyday competence or in,

in some cases, exceptional competence. They're driving cabs, writing code, making sales calls, giving status reports, fixing plumbing, teaching kids and, you know, just generally keeping society running. The companies and cities who always seem to be asking about how they can create more innovators would be better off if they focused on empowering and connecting the innovators they already have. And we innovators well, most of us should probably be a lot more thankful than we usually are, because the truth is we need them a lot more than they need us. A society made up only of innovators of rule breakers and disruptors that could not survive. It would fall into chaos immediately,

but a society without innovators well, there would obviously not be much progress, but society could be just fine. There have been plenty of cultures that thrived without innovation. I mean, many consider the Edo period to be the high point of traditional Japanese culture, and that came about when Japan was closed to outsiders, and all innovation pretty much stopped for a few 100 years. Turns out people can get along just fine without us innovators. And as I sit here, I am deeply grateful to the hundreds of innovators who gave me the tools needed for for me to talk to you right now and for you to listen. But I'm also grateful for the millions, perhaps billions of people with everyday competence that provide the framework that allows innovation to flourish. Now maybe somebody will innovate a way out of this pandemic, but probably not. In all likelihood,

this will be solved by competent people using existing tools that they already understand because in reality that's how most problems get solved. I love innovation. It's what I live and breathe. But now might be a good time for US innovators to reflect and acknowledge that disruptive innovation can Onley deliver value when There's a lot of competent people holding society together and repairing the damage caused by disruption. Innovators take bigger risks, and when those risks payoff receive oversized rewards, and that's a good thing. Money and recognition motivate innovators and for the system to work and for society to move forward, there has to be winners and losers. But that doesn't mean that on Lee, the winners are important because after decades of playing the innovation game and and loving it, I've come to realize that in the end, the goal is not really to win the game. The goal is to be able to keep playing. If you want to talk more about innovation or everyday competence, or just how you're getting through this pandemic,

I'd love to hear from you. So come by disrupting japan dot com slash show 1 61 And and let's talk about it. If you leave a comment, I guarantee you I'll respond. And, hey, if you like the show, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. That's one of the best ways you can support the show and help me get the word out. But most of all. Thanks for listening. And thank you for letting people interested in Japanese startups know about the show. I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for listening to disrupting Japan.