• Message from Mariko Ohsato

  Training Teaches the “How”; Education Teaches the “Why”

  Arc Communications launched its very own English training service this fiscal year. In order to avoid creating a situation like the proverb “the cobbler's children go barefoot,” we have increased the opportunities for our employees to undergo training. Here are some examples.

  
  
  

  Team-oriented Workshops

  Every one of our teams—the Translation Team, Web Team and Temporary Employment Team—have decided on a theme of focus to undertake for 1 year, with progress being periodically reported. The Translation Team is hard at work at establishing and optimizing a new process: the preparation of project descriptions that will help inventorize every translation. The Web Team, on the other hand, is working towards the standardization of the Website development process. Now in the third year of the Arc workshop initiative, the selection of themes that can easily applied to practical business is resulting in just that—the fruit of related efforts being applied directly to work rather than its becoming something done just for the sake of study.

  
  
  

  Two-Day External Training Sessions

  While utilizing subsidies, Arc employees are participating proactively in two-day training session offered externally. In the past, the majority of such training had been half- or one-day sessions. However, we felt that studying in a completely different environment was also an important factor for learning. So, many employees have been undergoing such training during spring and summer—which is a relatively slow season for Arc Communications. The sessions range from knowledge-based training like those on “Linux” to ones that may alter individual business-styles, such as those themed on “Leadership”

  
  
  

  All-Employee Workshop Utilizing “LEGO Serious Play”

  Using an entire Saturday, all 36 Arc staff members participated in a “LEGO Serious Play (LSP)” workshop on working proactively, which is a behavioral guideline at Arc Communications. The characteristic feature of LSP is that it uses Lego blocks as a learning tool. It is based on the Constructionism learning theory developed by Prof. Seymour Papert of MIT Media Lab. In this theory, the acquisition of knowledge is most effective when part of constructing something tangible. Unlike conventional meetings, it enables the participation of every single attendant and their commitment to carrying out actions for the achievement of an agreed-upon result. NASA adopted this method as one of the means for forming survey teams to resolve issues after space shuttle accidents, bringing LSP immediately into the limelight.

  Although how “beautiful” a resulting Lego creation is has nothing to do with how effective an LSP workshop has been, some of the works created by our Web team members were, as expected, highly creative and showered with praise from other employees. Incidentally, this is my creation (and, no, it is not an octopus!)

  We tend to think of all of these collectively as “employee training.” However, there are those that are high in the “training” elements and show immediate results, and those that are focused on the “education” elements and enhance basic skills. I believe that there is a need to be aware of these differences when considering the expectations and results of respective training sessions.

  Training is about learning how to do something whereas education aims at furthering one’s understanding of why something is the way they are. This was something that I learned eight years ago while supervising the translation of D. Quinn Mills’ “Principles of Human Resource Management.” It is still proving useful when planning training courses.

  Follow this link for more information on Arc Communications’ English training service.
  http://www.arc-c.jp/e-training/index.html  (Japanese only)

  Mariko Ohsato
  President & CEO
  Arc Communications Inc.

• Message from Mariko Ohsato

  Back Numbers

  • Training Teaches the “How”; Education Teaches the “Why”
  • Arc Communications Year in Review: Top 5 “Globalization” News (Winter Greeting 2012)
  • Friendly Competition with New Comrades (Summer Greeting 2012)
  • Top 10 News Items for 2011 -- Official and Unofficial Versions (Winter Greeting 2011)
  • Communicate Locally, Market Globally (Summer Greeting 2011)
  • What Kind of A Country Is Kazakhstan? (Spring Greeting 2011)
  • Message from the President (Winter Greeting 2010)

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