A company that dismisses small talk as a waste of time has no future. Here's why we didn't treat reporting, contacting, and consulting as a means of efficiency.
A company that dismisses small talk as a waste of time has no future. Here's why we didn't treat reporting, contacting, and consulting as a means of efficiency.
According to a survey conducted in May 2026, the most effective measure to enhance psychological safety in the workplace was not "1-on-1 meetings" but "casual conversation," with 45.0% of respondents citing casual conversation, almost double the 23.3% who cited 1-on-1 meetings. When I saw these numbers, I couldn't help but slap my knee. I once read that independent researcher Shu Yamaguchi defined casual conversation as "an informal information flow circuit in the information processing system of an organization." He pointed out that discomfort and true feelings that cannot be picked up through formal routes such as meetings and documents only reach management through the informal circuit of casual conversation. Our company runs a branding agency in Nagoya, and this view of "casual conversation = information circuit" surprisingly overlapped with a certain company custom that we have cherished for nearly 20 years. That is "Horenso" (reporting, contacting, and consulting). Today, I would like to talk about management theory that has emerged from these two seemingly unremarkable themes: casual conversation and Horenso.
The "invisible information wall" created by hierarchical organizations
As organizations grow larger, more companies opt for a "functional organization," dividing departments according to their specific tasks. While specialization increases, this can lead to difficulties in inter-departmental collaboration, a stronger emphasis on prioritizing one's own department's interests, and a stagnation of information sharing—a problem that any business leader has likely experienced at some point. The vertical chain of command may be solid, but horizontal information flows surprisingly poorly. This isn't limited to large corporations; it happens commonly even in small and medium-sized enterprises with only a few dozen employees. In companies like ours, where members from different fields such as design, marketing, and engineering collaborate, this wall can quickly become thick if left unchecked. Small feelings of unease or seeds of ideas that haven't yet been put into words usually disappear before they even reach the agenda of an official meeting. That's why I believe it's necessary to intentionally create "gaps for information flow" outside of official channels.
Why we didn't use "reporting, contacting, and consulting" as a means of improving efficiency
Horenso (reporting, contacting, and consulting) is a uniquely Japanese business practice and is often said to be a concept that is difficult to translate into a single word in English. In many companies, Horenso is positioned as "a means to carry out work accurately" and "a rule for superiors to grasp progress." Of course, I don't deny its function. However, at our company, we deliberately position Horenso not as a means of efficiency, but as "the simplest way to create smiles that even new employees can start doing today." Our management philosophy is "creating smiles," and we believe that Horenso is the first step that embodies that philosophy, something anyone can do. If you view Horenso as a means of efficiency, it tends to become "a troublesome obligation that must be done." However, if you reconsider it as an act of cultivating trust with customers, partners, and colleagues, the meaning of Horenso changes completely. In fact, even when new employees are not yet producing significant results, I have seen many instances where diligent Horenso itself leads to trust, such as "this person is really paying attention to me." Rather than imposing rules as a means of efficiency, we should frame them as actions that foster trust. This is our way of cultivating an informal information network.
How can we utilize the survey result that "being able to have casual conversations makes people feel at ease" in our business management?
Another survey revealed that 75% of respondents cited "being able to have casual small talk" as a reason for feeling psychologically safe at work. Conversely, this suggests that in workplaces where small talk is not possible, psychological safety is unlikely to take root, no matter how well-established the systems are. When we talk about psychological safety, we tend to focus on "systems" such as evaluation systems and the design of one-on-one meetings, but the actual entry point for employees to feel safe is often something much earlier, like casual conversation. I feel this is data that managers should be a little more humble about. We have also put considerable effort into designing our evaluation systems and meetings, but honestly, it has only recently come to accept that the sense of security that cannot be captured by those alone lies in the casual conversations of everyday life. I believe that psychological safety can only be truly felt when both systems are in place and space is intentionally left for small talk to occur.
The job involves deliberately "designing" an environment where casual conversations can naturally occur.
When I heard about companies like Kokuyo's "CULTURE SNACK" and Suntory's "President's Treat Vending Machine," which intentionally create mechanisms to generate casual conversation, the first thing that came to mind was the office branding work we do every day. Office design is often thought of as being about aesthetics and optimizing traffic flow, but what we value most in spatial design is the perspective of working backward from "where will casual conversations occur?" We intentionally place break spaces in locations that must be used across departments, and we intentionally make traffic flow intersect. We see these kinds of innovations not as a matter of appearance, but as an act of physically embedding the organization's information circuits into the space. If we assume that casual conversations do not occur naturally if left unchecked, but only when the environment provides the space for them, then the design of the office space itself becomes part of the management strategy. In fact, when we work with client companies on office branding, we always make sure to confirm in the initial interviews not only the visual tone and manner, but also "where, with whom, and how can we create a situation where people can naturally stand and talk?"
How to incorporate factors that cannot be measured numerically into business decisions?
The effects of casual conversation and reporting, contacting, and consulting don't immediately show up in numbers like quarterly performance figures. That's why, if you try to measure them only by short-term productivity metrics, they tend to be categorized as "waste that can be cut." However, what we've learned from nearly 20 years of practicing values-based management is that values and behavioral guidelines only become meaningful when they are actually "used" in daily decision-making, not just when they are declared. The same goes for reporting, contacting, and consulting; it's not enough to just design them as systems; whether or not they take root in the company depends on whether the management team treats each one as an "opportunity to build trust." Managers of small and medium-sized enterprises often find it difficult to implement psychological safety training and systems with the abundant resources of large corporations. That's why I believe that simply changing the meaning of existing, mundane habits like "reporting, contacting, and consulting" and "casual conversation" can strengthen the organization's information channels without incurring costs, and this is a management lever that is surprisingly often overlooked.
What exactly does it mean to "value reporting, contacting, and consulting"?
When fellow business owners ask me for advice on the importance of reporting, contacting, and consulting, I always tell them, "First, don't evaluate reporting, contacting, and consulting." It may sound paradoxical, but the moment you start evaluating the speed and accuracy of reporting, contacting, and consulting, it reverts back to being an obligation for the sake of efficiency. Instead, I believe it's far more essential to respond with "Thank you, I appreciate you letting me know," simply for the fact that they reported, contacted, and consulted. It's not about whether or not you're evaluated, but the accumulation of the feeling that sharing information is appreciated that allows it to function as an informal information channel. The same can be said for casual conversation. Instead of issuing a command to "let's have more casual conversations," we need to consider how management and supervisors respond when someone casually strikes up a conversation. I believe that it is only through such accumulations that an organization's information channel can be nurtured. If I have the opportunity to talk with fellow business owners who are facing similar challenges, I would love to exchange opinions on this paradox of "not evaluating." Precisely because it's such an unassuming topic, there should be great value in knowing how other companies are dealing with it.
WRITTEN BY
Ichikawa Atsushi
Representative Director and Chairman
After starting his own business at the age of 26, he has over 20 years of management experience in the design and branding fields. In 2016, he moved with his family to the Philippines and established a local IT outsourcing company, leading its global expansion. Currently, as a "GLOBAL BRANDING AGENCY," he supports the growth of companies while also actively working on organizational reforms within his own company. Based on the real-world struggles and firsthand information he has faced in organizational development and overseas management, he shares practical branding and organizational theories that are thoroughly aligned with the perspective of business leaders.
