Japanese airline president and CEO "shares the pain"

[Kittamaru]

http://www.wdrb.com/story/9283503/japanese-airline-president-and-ceo-shares-the-pain

The airline industry is going through rough times, but Japan Airlines is still managing to fly high, winning the "Airline Turnaround Award" from the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation.

JAL's chief executive is largely responsible for maneuvering his company through aggressive reforms as he takes "sharing the pain" to a whole new level.

After his morning commute on the city bus, Haruka Nishimatsu heads into the office and gets busy at his desk with the rest of his Japan Airlines co-workers.

At lunch, he lines up in the cafeteria and hopes his meal doesn't get cold as he waits to pay. It's not exactly the glamourous life you'd expect from the CEO of one of the world's top ten international airlines.

Perhaps that's why, then JAL slashed jobs and asked older employees to retire early, Nishimatsu cut every single one of this corporate perks. Then for three years running he slashed his own pay. He made about $90,000 last year, less than what his pilots earn.

Nishimatsu says, "The employees who took early retirement are the same generation and age as me. I thought I should share the pain with them. So I changed my salary."

Nishimatsu shrugs it off, saying it's not a big deal. But that certainly stands in contrast to CEOs in the United States being grilled by Congress over perceived corporate excesses and balooning salaries and bonuses.

When Nishimatsu was told the top-paid U.S. CEOs make tens of millions, in some cases nearly $200 million a year, he expressed surprise, and when he was asked whether he could imagine making that much, he said, "Noooo."

In Japan, says Nishimatsu, there's less of a pay gap between the top and the bottom: "We in Japan learned during the bubble economy that businesses who pursue money first fail. The business world has lost sight of this basic tenet of business ethics."

He says his airline has a long, difficult recovery ahead. As far as his pay, he's dug into his savings like many other people. "The air conditioning broke, and the water heater, and the car. My wife is still telling me, this is all your fault."

But relating to what his employees and his passengers are feeling and living in the global slowdown might be the ticket to his own airline's survival.

I think this kind of move is huge for a companies morale... to see your C-level execs stepping up to shoulder their part of the burden, to know they are right there with you, fighting the fight rather than giving lip service, must do wonders for the employees, who would then feel like they have a reason to put in their best. Certainly, it is less painful for the CEO to take a pay cut than for a line-level worker; none the less, the CEO has every ability to choose not to do so, while a line level workers choices boil down to "deal with it" or "find somewhere else to work." Having the CEO make the choice to take at least some of that burden away from the workers...