P-Will at DISCO

Ethan  Bernstein; Naoko  Jinjo; Yuna  Sakuma

Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018

P-Will at DISCO

by Ethan Bernstein, Naoko Jinjo and Yuna Sakuma

Abstract

From the outside, DISCO—a Japan-based manufacturer of precision tools for semiconductor production devices—appeared to be a rather ordinary company that had achieved rather extraordinary success: it had simultaneously achieved 70% global market share, had lifted its profitability from 15% to 30% over the past seven years, and was consistently selected as a "Best Workplace" in Japan. The secret to DISCO’s success, according to CEO Kazuma Sekiya, lies in its truly individualized management of human capital, which they called the P-Will (Personal Will) system.
P-Will was a proprietary managerial accounting system based on Will, a currency that enabled internal market transactions. At DISCO, every hour of labor and every good was associated with a price in Will. Employees were expected to act like independent business owners; they used the P-Will system to manage their own revenue contributions and business expenses in Will. Four times a year, the balances of individual P-Will accounts were converted to real currency and paid out as bonuses.
In the last couple of years, about 10 companies, including other companies in the semiconductor industry, had visited Sekiya wanting to replicate DISCO’s enviable success and introduce the P-Will system at their companies. However, none of these companies had actually implemented it. Seeing off another guest who had visited DISCO, Sekiya asked himself: Why don’t other companies adopt the P-Will system? What were the conditions under which P-Will would work—and not work?

Keywords: human capital; P-Will; DISCO; semiconductors; Self-Managed Organizations; Governance; Human Resources; Selection and Staffing; Management Practices and Processes; Management Systems; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Semiconductor Industry; Japan;

Language: English

Format: Print

29 pages

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Citation:

Bernstein, Ethan, Naoko Jinjo, and Yuna Sakuma. "P-Will at DISCO." Harvard Business School Case 419-035, October 2018.

Making good hiring decisions is a critical management activity, yet many leaders just “wing it” when interviewing candidates to fill openings by having an organic conversation to assess the candidate’s fit, unknowingly subjecting the process to unconscious bias. Instead, organizations should employ structured interviewing techniques to carefully assess the skills needed for a given opening, to determine a consistent approach for fairly evaluating candidates’ skills, and ultimately to make the best possible hiring decision. This note aims to help the reader acquire the skills necessary to be an effective interviewer and to champion best-practice interviewing within his or her organization. Beginning by briefly summarizing the pitfalls of unstructured interviewing, the note proceeds to explain three types of structured interviewing techniques, the steps hiring managers should undertake to prepare for and conduct interviews, and tips for making evidence-based assessments.

Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2015 (Revised February 2020)

Trouble at Tessei

Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Buell

In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the demands on Tessei continued to grow.

Given previous leaders' failed attempts to fix Tessei's problems with increased managerial monitoring and controls, Yabe seeks a creative approach to overcome the motivation, capability, and coordination challenges facing his organization. Like many contemporary leaders, he selects transparency as his tool. He is, however, unique in adopting a highly nuanced approach to implementing transparency. In the process, he not only leads a fantastic organizational turnaround but even helps to make otherwise "dirty" work more meaningful for Tessei front-line employees. The case therefore presents students, particularly in leadership, organizational behavior, operations management, and service operations courses, with an opportunity to think through how a well-crafted transparency strategy can act as a powerful leadership tool.

Keywords: service operations; service management; employee engagement; employee motivation; leadership and managing people; leadership; quality improvement; efficiency; Japan; operational transparency; employee coordination; transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan;

Citation:

Bernstein, Ethan, and Ryan Buell. "Trouble at Tessei." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 616-031, October 2015. (Revised February 2020.) View Details

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Video Supplement for "Coaching Makena Lane," product number 418-031. Videos include a collection of ~3 minute animated videos of 5 celebrity coaches answering the same 2 questions participants are asked in the teaching plan: 1. How would you evaluate Makena Lane’s coaching process?, and 2. If you were Mills, would you promote Lane? Why or why not? There is also a video with comments by Lane's coach, Betsy Hale, about her coaching pedagogy and engagement with Lane. These videos are described in detail in Appendix D of the Teaching Note (product number 419-082).

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P-Will at DISCO

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