Tokyo Syndrome describes the behavior of office workers who, over time, become sympathetic to their most horrible office environment. The name derives from a 1966 office incident in Tokyo, Japan. At the end of the regular eight hour workday, several workers actually resisted going home, and even refused to be paid overtime.
Symptoms: Captives begin to identify with their office environment, initially as a defensive mechanism, out of fear of going back home. Small acts of kindness by the managers or coworkers are magnified, since finding perspective in a workplace is by definition impossible. Telephone calls by family members are seen as a threat, since this is perceived as hindering their career within the company. Tokyo Syndrome is a survival mechanism. The men and women who get it are not lunatics. They are fighting for their lives. They deserve compassion, not ridicule.
Treatment: The treatment of Tokyo Syndrome, has two stages: first, the victims need to feel welcome return home. To do this they (a majority of the victims are male), need to cure their wives of the Cockroach Husband Syndrome, which in itself is a tremendous task. The second stage is the use of group therapy in which the victims should be helped to integrate both disassociated ‘sides’ of the work environment. The therapy should assist him in giving up his dream that the relationship will become what he had hoped it would be. Japanese companies, under pressure from governmental groups have introduced drastic and far reaching methods, the most radical being switching off the lights in their offices after midnight.

Desk envy: A new employee notices the strikingly visible and well-proportioned desk of a manager or senior executive immediately recognising it as the superior counterpart of his or her own little desk and from then on he or she is subject to desk envy. They have seen it, knowing that they do not have it, and want it.

Symptoms:
In desk-dominated organizations, patients displaying the symptoms of desk envy express a wish to take possession of a larger desk at any cost. Management within these organizations have learned to use this uncontrollable urge for a large desk as a motivational tool and have started introducing a variety of desk sizes within the office, while keeping the largest desks for themselves. To paraphrase Jean Cournot the thing about which there is most consensus in this world—much more than the notion of common sense—is the difference between desk sizes. Recent research has empirically shown that emphasizing the difference in desk size can become fatal to an organization.

Treatment: The cure is very simple by keeping all the desks the same size the organization will avoid desk envy. Care however should be taken not to make the desks too small as this might lead to a desk inferiority complex. Patients who suffer from a desk inferiority complex might catch, while visiting other companies, office envy.

Functionalitis is a very common condition, affecting up to 70% of the workforce in an organization. A sufferer of functionalitis is under the illusion that an office should have functional requirements only. Care should be taken when diagnosing the diseases as often the upper management including the CEO has been infected. The exact cause of functionalitis is still under debate, but it is believed that the roots can be traced to Frederik Taylor’s Scientific Management and Josef Stalin. (Stalin was admirer of Taylor and suffered from functionalitis, but in most books on Stalin his condition is called: a five year plan)
Symptoms:
The disease is extremely infectious and it will spread throughout a company infecting staff without discrimination. The sufferer will at an advanced stage of functionalitis isolate him or herself by creating a wall of boxes, stacks of paper and files. When the topic of removing documents, printers from the workplace is discussed sufferers will often violently oppose any change. Patients with functionalitis often have other types of mental disorders including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and substance abuse (usually excessive printing).
Treatment:
Only very drastic measures should be taken to root out functionalitis. Due to its high contamination it is useless trying to isolate individual patients. Due to it complex nature, functionalitis usually requires a comprehensive treatment plan including verbal and nonverbal communication about thoughts, feelings and emotions related to the work environment. Receiving support from the upper management and outside consultants is important because often patients with functionalitis are in denial and resist treatment, believing they do not need help.

Please contact us immediately if you think you and your organisation is suffering from Functionalitis

Yesterday I attended an ACCJ breakfast event, Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of the Gallup Organization. An interesting presentation, first No Powerpoint, which was refreshing. The topic was Employee Engagement, and we were told that according to Gallup Japan and Singapore have very low levels of employee engagement.

After the presentation I had lunch with a few friends and one of them pointed me to this article in Yahoo news.

Some excerpts:

“LONDON (AFP) – French workers are the world’s biggest whiners, according to a study published Monday which said the Irish complain least about their lot.Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia. Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but don’t complain so much.

The lowest levels of whining were found in the Netherlands, Thailand and Ireland, according to the study by the FDS research group.

“It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world’s biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income,” said FDS chief Charlotte Cornish.

In terms of worker morale, Dutch workers are the happiest, followed by their Thai and Irish counterparts. The lowest morale of all is found in Japan, followed by Germany, said the study.