TOKYO (TR) – Stiff, hierarchical corporate meetings in Japan are getting a radical makeover courtesy of a Shibuya Ward-based startup that forces company employees to ditch their honorifics and brainstorm like members of the fashion-obsessed gyaru (gal) culture, reports Jiji Press (May 6).
CGO Dot Com, headed by 29-year-old “Bubbly” (real name Rikako Takeno), has introduced its unorthodox “Gal-style Brainstorming” to approximately 120 companies and municipalities seeking to break out of creative ruts.
The meetings operate on five strict rules designed to smash traditional corporate hierarchy: participants must call each other by nicknames, speak in casual Japanese (tameguchi), keep their job titles a secret, allow no silences longer than five minutes, and wear their favorite casual clothes.
During a late March new product meeting at the Shibuya headquarters of food manufacturer Ajinomoto AGF, the concept was put to the test. CGO staff decked out in bright pink hoodies and heart-shaped cheek makeup kept the boardroom energy high, peppering the executives with rapid-fire slang like “That’s lit age!” and “Yabai, that’s so good!” to stimulate the discussion.
Rikako Takeno“Completely different world”
Freed from the constraints of corporate rank, participants embraced the chaos. “It felt like I had stepped into a completely different world,” said a female Ajinomoto AGF employee in her 50s. “We were able to have a really fun discussion.”
The concept was born from Takeno’s own teenage rebellion against Japan’s rigid educational expectations. Pressured by her parents to study for a prestigious university, she became a truant and ran away from her home in Kofu City, eventually drifting to Osaka.
It was there she had a chance encounter with “Gals”—a flashy Japanese street subculture known for its defiance of traditional norms—that changed her life.
“Gals determined their own values and expressed them through their fashion,” Takeno recalled. “They had their own opinions, and I felt their strength.”
“Formal discussions push people apart”
After finishing a correspondence high school and attending university in Tokyo, Takeno realized that the “Gal mindset” of relying on positive intuition could trigger real social change.
She launched CGO Dot Com in May 2022, and the company has since expanded to offer a “Gal-style Studio” that assists major corporations with new business development from ideation to realization.
“Many people out there are just playing the role of their job title,” Takeno said of Japan’s corporate culture. “Formal discussions push people apart. By actively sharing ‘vibes’ and stripping away a person’s ‘mask,’ we want to broaden the range of their ideas.”
AloJapan.com