Monday. 08:42. I drive into the office garage and find Manolo's car… parked literally in the spot closest to the door, at a sort of diagonal, taking up almost a whole extra space, as if the guy had landed there in a helicopter.
I ALWAYS park at the far end, out in the back of beyond.
Because I like starting the day with some emotional cardio, and for a reason I'm about to tell you...
At the door I run into him.
—Have you seen how well I parked today, Jose? Front row. Like a champion.
—Yes, Manolo. Like variable-rate mortgages in 2007: comfortable today and painful tomorrow.
He looks at me funny, as if he suspects I've just blamed him for the subprime crisis. But he carries on.
—Man, if I get here first, I park close. That's how people can tell who gets up early, who arrives first, damn it. The culture of hard work!
And this is when I decide to explain to him that Japan exists. Not the Japan of anime — the Japan of grown adults who know how to live together.
I tell him about an unwritten rule: those who arrive earliest park farthest away to make life easier for everyone else.
Omoiyari.
It's a very simple evolutionary mechanism: if today you can make a small effort so you don't screw over whoever comes after you, you make it.
Not because you're a good person. But because you understand that we are a system.
And a system in which everyone maximizes their individual comfort or performance ends up killing a company's culture. There's no empathy.
Manolo's eyes go wide, as if he'd heard the word "empathy" for the first time without "in KPI format" right behind it.
—But that's a waste of time, Jose.
—No, Manolo. That's understanding that not everything is about you.
And here comes the fun part — the guy follows me to the elevator, turning the whole thing over in his head. I'm afraid he'll have a stroke if he puts all his neurons to work at once. These things happen....
—But if I give up the spot… what do I get?
—You get something you can't buy even with stock options: people working with you because they want to, not because they have to. It's imperceptible, but it compounds...
And one day, when you need something, someone will do the same for you. Because you started the cycle.
That's how it works, Manolín.
Manolo frowns at me. It's his "this sounds like Jose's humanist stuff, so it's probably expensive" face.
—Jose, but at the company we can't all go around parking symbolisms. People here have to work — if I get in earlier, I'm working earlier....
—Precisely, Manolo. Culture starts with the gestures nobody sees. If in something as simple as where you park you're already selfish… imagine something complex like splitting the budget or prioritizing features.
Silence.
—Besides —I add—, you're always talking about "leading by example", but you come in driving like Vin Diesel and park as if the garage were yours alone.
Here he laughs. Finally.
—In Japan they've understood this for generations, Manolo. I didn't invent it. The sociologist Takeo Doi explains it very well.
Omoiyari is the foundation of sustained social cooperation. If culture has foundations, they start there.
And then THE SCENE happens. The elevator opens. Out comes Laura, seven months pregnant, panting.
—Ugh… I had to leave the car on basement level five. There was no room up top, and the elevator only runs from basement level three.
Manolo looks at her. Then he looks at me. And there, for the first time in months, I see Manolo's lightbulb switch on...
That lightbulb that always arrives late — but when it arrives, it shines.
Because he has that capacity: his lightbulb could light up an entire street... when he wants it to...
—Tomorrow I'm parking far away.
—That's leadership, Manolo. Not your talks about "culture". Not your LinkedIn posts with sunrise photos or the PowerPoints full of corporate BS. This is; that isn't.
A small gesture. Invisible. But it changes a team's dynamic more than any badly written OKR.
> A company's culture isn't measured by the values on the wall. It's measured by who leaves the close spot free when they arrive first.
This time Manolo actually moved me... it doesn't always happen, but when it does, I remember why I write this newsletter — and it gives me energy for ten more issues.
Thanks for reading, have a good Tuesday.