The pressure of targets that feel almost impossible to hit. The instability of an industry that rises and falls with the market. An organizational culture where it can feel genuinely hard to be recognized fairly for your work. In an environment like that, there are moments when a vague anxiety about your career and your future settles in, and you can even start to lose your passion for the work itself. I understand the harshness of this industry firsthand, because I have lived it myself.
And yet I will say this plainly: if you are struggling right now, that is not a problem at all. That experience is the whetstone that sharpens you into the kind of "jinzai" — the term we use at INA&Associates, written 人財, for talent treated as treasure — that you are capable of becoming. There is, however, one absolute condition attached to that. It is the soil of an "organizational culture" that genuinely believes in each individual's potential and throws its full weight behind their willingness to take on a challenge.
In this article, I want to explain why we place investing in "jinzai" at the very core of how we run this business, and why words that express belief in a person's potential are ultimately what build a winning organization — along with the philosophy behind that conviction and how we put it into practice.
What are the structural problems the real estate industry has when it comes to people?
Many of the problems in the real estate industry trace back to three structural causes: a short-term, results-only culture; organizational structures stuck in old habits; and slow adoption of technology. These are "environmental" problems that cannot be solved by individual effort alone.
Behind its glamorous image, the real estate industry is also one that presents its workforce with a great many difficulties. These are not problems that people can simply will their way past through individual effort; they exist as structural problems built into the organization as a whole. The place to start is by looking honestly at the reality we need to confront.
Problem 1: A short-term, results-only culture and a "disposable" attitude toward people
At many real estate companies, quarterly or even monthly sales results feed directly into how an individual is evaluated. There is nothing wrong, in principle, with rewarding results fairly. But when the evaluation criteria lean too heavily on short-term numbers, employees end up prioritizing the deal in front of them over building long-term trust with a client. The result is that employees who have burned themselves out, physically and mentally, get labeled as people whose "numbers aren't good enough" and eventually leave the company. I believe this kind of "disposable" culture, if I can call it that, is one of the biggest reasons the industry's image suffers and talented people fail to stay.
This will sound familiar to anyone who has read about the "eat what you kill" commission culture found in American real estate brokerages and some Wall Street sales floors, where compensation is tied almost entirely to short-term closed deals. The difference is that in much of the English-speaking world, this model is at least openly named and debated as a trade-off; here, it has often simply been treated as the unquestioned way the industry works.
Problem 2: Organizational structures stuck in old habits, and a career path that feels like a dead end
The real estate industry still holds tightly to traditionally top-down organizational structures. Employees are expected to faithfully carry out instructions from above, and junior staff and people on the front line have very limited opportunities to propose their own ideas or take on new challenges. Career paths, too, tend to be rigid, and in many cases the only route on offer is a single track: perform well in sales, then become a manager. This sense of a closed-off career path is precisely what drives away the most ambitious and capable people, the very people the industry can least afford to lose.
By comparison, many American and British companies — particularly in technology and professional services — have spent the past two decades deliberately building "dual career ladders," letting an individual contributor rise in seniority, pay, and influence without ever having to become a people manager. That kind of structural alternative is still rare in Japanese real estate, which is part of why the sense of a dead end feels so acute here.
Problem 3: Slow technology adoption and an inefficient working environment
In recent years, the term "real estate tech" has attracted a lot of attention, but across the industry as a whole, technology adoption is still very much a work in progress. Paper-based contracts and old-fashioned, shoe-leather ways of gathering information remain the norm, and a great deal of time still goes into inefficient tasks that technology ought to be able to handle instead.
This kind of inefficient working environment normalizes long working hours and drains employees of the time and the mental energy they would need to do genuinely creative work. Technology should not exist to replace people; it should exist to free people up to do work that is more human, more creative. I believe that this shift in thinking is exactly what will bring real change to the industry.
Why does a company need a management philosophy built around "investing in jinzai"?
A management philosophy that treats people not as a cost but as an "asset," and invests in their growth accordingly, addresses the real estate industry's structural problems at the root. Technology, in this view, does not replace people; it becomes the wings that let people focus on more creative work.
Facing these deep-seated industry problems, we have set ourselves a clear vision — to become "the world's No. 1 company for investing in jinzai" — and we mean it as a direct counter-argument to the status quo. The word "jinzai," written with our own characters (人財) rather than the conventional ones (人材), is not a piece of wordplay. It is our management philosophy itself: that people are not a cost, but the company's most precious "asset," carrying limitless potential. This is roughly the distinction English uses when it separates "human resources," a phrase that treats people as an input to be managed, from "human capital," a phrase that treats people as something a company actually invests in and expects a return from over time — except that we have built an entire company identity around insisting on the second reading.
Technology as the wings of "jinzai"
We are actively adopting cutting-edge technology and pushing hard to make our operations more efficient. AI-based property appraisal systems, VR-based property viewings, an automated follow-up system linked to our customer relationship management (CRM) platform, and an electronic contract platform — these technologies free our employees from repetitive tasks and long hours, becoming the wings that let them focus on the deep, consultative work with clients and the creation of new value that only a human being can do. The time and mental space that technology creates stimulates our employees' creativity and makes it possible for them to invest in their own growth. The result is that we are able to raise customer satisfaction and improve our employees' work-life balance at the same time. Framed in the language more familiar to English-speaking readers, this is our version of "augmentation, not automation" — a phrase widely used in Anglo-American discussions of workplace AI, but one we treat as an operating principle rather than a slogan.
How do a leader's words shape the future of an organization?
Words from a leader that express genuine belief in someone's potential are exactly what draw out an employee's sense of ownership and build a culture of psychological safety. Systems and structures alone are not enough; it is the accumulation of a leader's everyday words and actions that ultimately determines an organization's culture.
No matter how well-designed a system or structure might be, the organization will not fundamentally change unless the mindset of the people who operate it — especially its leaders — changes as well. An organization's culture is formed by the words a leader speaks every single day, and by the accumulated weight of their actions.
Why do words that express belief in someone's potential matter so much?
What I value most as a leader is believing in each and every employee's potential more strongly than anyone else does. When someone reporting to me is struggling, I do not interrogate them with "why can't you do this?" Instead, I sit beside them and say, "I know you can do this. Let's figure out together where you're getting stuck." When a result does not turn out the way we hoped, rather than saying "I told you so" and stepping back, I ask, together with that person, "What was valuable about taking this risk? What can we learn from this failure, and how do we put it to use next time?" Being on the receiving end of a steady stream of this kind of positive language, language that expresses belief in a person's potential, is what allows someone to trust the strength they already carry inside themselves and find the courage to face down a difficult situation. This is the true substance of psychological safety, and it is a precondition for any organization that wants to generate genuine innovation. Anglo-American leadership writing tends to describe almost the same behavior under the banner of "coaching leadership," as opposed to "command-and-control" leadership — the vocabulary differs, but the underlying instinct, to ask rather than to interrogate, is identical.
Leadership training that develops leaders
We also put real effort into developing our leaders. When leaders themselves understand the importance of "words that express belief" and put that understanding into practice, the positive effect ripples out to every corner of the organization. As leaders grow, new leaders emerge from among them, and a strong organization ends up reproducing itself.
Summary: your market value is shaped by your environment
Throughout this article, I have tried to lay out the problems the real estate industry faces, our own philosophy at INA&Associates as a response to those problems, and the importance of an organizational culture that believes fully in the potential of its "jinzai."
Let me bring the key points together one more time.
- Many of the problems in the real estate industry stem from an "environment" — a short-term, results-only culture and organizational structures stuck in old habits — that cannot be solved through individual effort alone.
- For a company to grow sustainably, it needs the perspective of "investing in jinzai": treating employees not as a "cost" but as an "asset," and investing in their growth.
- Technology should not replace people; it should be used as wings that let people focus on more creative work.
- Words from a leader that express genuine belief in potential are exactly what draw out an employee's sense of ownership, encourage them to take on challenges, and ultimately build a winning organizational culture.
If you feel that you are not being fairly recognized in your current workplace, and that your own potential is being shut off, that is not because your ability is lacking. It may simply be that the "environment" you are in has not been able to draw the full value out of you. Your market value changes enormously depending on the environment you choose to place yourself in. Your experience, your struggles, and the passion you carry inside you will, given the right environment, absolutely bloom into something significant. If anything in our philosophy or our way of thinking has moved you even slightly, I hope you will take some time to think deeply about your own career.
We wholeheartedly support you in taking on a new challenge.
Frequently asked questions
Q1. What does "investing in jinzai" actually look like in concrete terms?
A1. It means using technology to make operations more efficient, freeing up employees' time, and then building an environment where that time can be spent on self-growth, skill-building, and deep consulting work with clients. It also includes support such as leadership training and career development.
Q2. Is there room to thrive here even without prior experience in real estate?
A2. Yes. We place more weight on a person's motivation to grow and their potential than on experience. Through the use of technology, we have built a system that lets even someone without experience learn the work efficiently, and our leaders and senior staff put their full effort into supporting each individual's growth.
Q3. What does an organization with a high degree of psychological safety actually look like day to day?
A3. It is a workplace where failure is shared as a learning opportunity rather than something to be blamed for. It is an environment where people can voice their own opinions and ideas with a sense of safety, and where the process of taking on a challenge is evaluated fairly, whatever the outcome. It is not a "lukewarm" environment; it is a culture in which people hold each other to high standards while continuing to grow together.
Q4. Is there a risk that introducing technology will eliminate jobs?
A4. We introduce technology not to replace people, but to let people concentrate on work that carries more added value. Once employees are freed from repetitive tasks, they are able to spend their time on the work only a human being can do — building trust with clients and sharpening their ability to make proposals, for example.
