Rakuten Today: Mickey's Voice

October 30, 2015 2 min read

Memo from the boss: Smile

Why should a boss want to see employees smile? I’m not talking only about customer-facing employees. We’re all familiar with the “service with a smile” rule. I’m talking about all employees: operations, assistants, designers, analysts, any employee. Any boss should care about whether or not their employees smile. I travel a lot, visiting companies around the world. When I visited a company in Sili…

Think like a leader and change your perspective

To get ahead in any business setting, you must think like a leader – even if you are far from that rank today. In Japan we have the expression, “Salaryman perseverance.” The expression is used to describe people who only think of themselves as employees. They follow their instructions, do only what they’re told and never take initiative. That is not a mindset that will get you ahead at work. To ad…

To innovate globally, locate locally

To generate great innovation in a global marketplace, you must source innovation talent from around the world. Rakuten recently opened new research centers in Boston and Singapore. The Boston-based site will focus on machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence. The Singapore branch will focus on mobile and social innovations. They join our existing research posts in New York, Tokyo…