Among my personal highs and lows of 2024, the standout experience was going to Japan.

I am sorry to say I have never encountered a Japanese Asset Manager, but thanks to GFMAM I got to hear a rep from the Japanese maintenance societies at the IAM UK conference in London last month.

Despite what we hear about its economy, the country is still doing very well on total maintenance and quality in manufacturing. Some days it seems every other car on our roads is a Toyota.

And my overriding sense of Japan? That along with the incredible food and gardens and manufacturing, it’s simply the most sensible society I have ever seen.

Starting with the toilets at Tokyo airport when we arrived.

I have long suspected the most important thing about Asset Management is that it is sensible. Don’t spend where you don’t need to, but do what you must to sustain what we need to thrive. Don’t preach growth for its own sake, and be wary of ‘innovation’ (think of ‘the Maintainers’ and their 2020 book The Innovation Delusion*). What does the evidence tell us? What risks are we really running with our assets? Cut through the lobbying and classical economics – and make sensible decisions.

Sensible is not necessarily glamorous; AM is not glamorous. It doesn’t pander to fantasies, of engineering or entrepreneurs.

As several Western countries seem to lose the plot, even caught up in what can only be described as fascist dreams, it was wonderful to experience somewhere that has a much stronger sense of its limits. A lot of people in a limited space, and some of that physical space quite dodgy: how can we organise food, rub along with millions of strangers without pulling guns on each other, love nature (trees!), create beautiful things? Value education, and don’t take our gods too seriously.

Take what we need, and reject what we don’t.

Yes, I am hopelessly romantic about Japan, ever since my father worked there when I was a child. But I didn’t expect to come away with sensible.

PS not sure I will ever be happy with cold toilet seats again.

* The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most

Note: Japan, like many countries including the UK, USA, China and France, not to mention Germany and Russia, has some dismal history. Unlike some of those countries, it appears to be able to learn from its past, but this is not to excuse its treatment of Korea and China and prisoners of war in the past.