Motorcycle Sam: American Journey (Episode 17) Resistance to Japanese Companies

Having lost World War II, Japan experienced rapid economic growth from the mid-1950s, and in the 1960s, Japanese motorcycle manufacturers began to seriously attempt exports to the world market, especially the huge North American market. Kawasaki, now a leading manufacturer of large-displacement motorcycles, opened its first North American representative office in Chicago in July 1965. In October of the same year, Kawasaki completed its long-awaited large-displacement model, the W1, and finally began to focus on exports to North America. This is the story of the four-year struggle of a young samurai, Tsune Tanegashima, who went to America alone during the dawn of Kawasaki's overseas expansion. This experience would later play an important role in the birth of the Mach and Z, but we'll talk about that later. *This article is an excerpt from "Motorcycle Sam. Comes to America: America Comes to America" (Tsune Tanegashima, published by Diamond Times, June 25, 1976). Although there are words and expressions that would be considered inappropriate today, they are published as-is out of respect for the originality of the work and considering the historical context at the time of writing.

Talent Acquisition

Hinky-panky is American slang. It means 'trickery' or 'shenanigans.' The Eastern operation, which was rushed to meet the season, was precisely hinky-panky due to compromises between trading companies and general distributors. The most fatal problem was the lack of human resources. Skip was a salesman and Bal was a manager, so they were not interested in talking about management issues. One of the reasons we decided to locate in the Newark area was the expectation that it would be easier to find American businessmen in the New York area, and the search for businessmen had begun when I was working with Skip. Kawasaki's future, with Allen as the general manager of sales, needed someone who could become the general manager of the management department. The automobile and motorcycle businesses were similar in terms of management, and it was the easiest field to find American talent. Through Joe's introduction, I visited a headhunting firm with an office in the heart of New York, which only dealt with executive positions. It was an interesting occupation that did not exist in the Japanese business world at the time. When I showed him the sheets I had typed myself, containing job descriptions, qualifications, salary levels, and other information, he pulled out five documents from various files. I showed him the job descriptions, qualifications, salary levels, etc. that I had typed myself. When I said I wanted to meet all five, he immediately called them and asked to schedule interviews. I interviewed them on Saturday and Sunday at the headhunting firm. It was my first time conducting this type of interview, but they were all robust men from all over the world. They were all excellent men and seemed to meet our requirements. They were all enjoying considerable status and good incomes at the time, but they were people who had registered with the headhunting firm to challenge themselves for better positions and better incomes. → See the full article

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