In this monologue, the speaker uses the case of Japanese death‑row inmates—who were kept unaware of their execution date—to illustrate how uncertainty harms employees. He notes that in 2021 the inmates sued the government over this lack of certainty and possibly won. Drawing a parallel, he argues that leaders who do not communicate macro‑economic realities leave their reps in a similar state of anxiety, leading to poor sleep, reduced performance, diminished creativity, and increased job‑search activity. The core recommendation is to schedule regular, transparent updates (e.g., a monthly call on the second Tuesday) that acknowledge both what is known and what is unknown, thereby providing “certainty around uncertainty” and improving employee well‑being and productivity.
Chapters
For all the leaders on the phone thinking about the macroeconomic situation, why wouldn't we talk about this? But let's talk a little bit about Japanese death row for a minute. I mean, because it's, it's so appropriate. But, you know, like, if, if you ever got sentenced to death row in Japan, that sucks, right? But, you know, you're on death row, like, what a nightmare. However, there was something very specific about Japanese death row that they literally didn't tell the inmates what day it was going to happen. So every day when they went to bed at night, they were wondering, is tomorrow morning when I wake up, like, is this going to be the day? And so in 2021, so two years ago, the Japanese death row inmates, they got together with their lawyers and filed a class action lawsuit against the Japanese government. Not about death row, but about that specific piece of it, that there was this uncertainty around when the actual death row is going to happen. And I believe they may have won that. But the reason I bring up that story is for all of you leaders right now. Are you being communicative to your teams around what's going on? From a macro perspective? Own it, right? Like your reps. If you're not saying anything about, hey, here's where we are, here's what we know, here's what we don't know. Your reps are essentially going to bed like Japanese death row inmates, where, if there hasn't been any talk about this, they go to bed at night going, hey, I just saw on Twitter and LinkedIn another layoff, another rift going on. Is that going to be me? Because no one's saying anything. They don't sleep as well. When they don't sleep as well, they don't perform as well. When they don't perform as well, they're not as creative. They get desperate. They spend half of their time polishing up their resume. And so for all of you, just like the one tip that I can give you right now on this is schedule a meeting where you embrace what you know, but also embrace what you don't know. Because there's no way to predict how deep and how long this is going to go. But then schedule certainty around the uncertainty, meaning, hey, on a monthly basis, the second Tuesday of every month, we're all going to get on the phone and we're going to give you updates. So they know when to expect it and they'll sleep better. And that transparency will bring people together, especially during times of uncertainty.
