The LIXIL Headquarters has moved to a new location as of November 14 2022
Walking through the doors at LIXIL’s former Kasumigaseki headquarters in 2015, it would be hard to differentiate the office from any one of the traditional Japan Inc. or government offices that dominate the central Tokyo neighborhood. The long rows of desks and top-down corporate culture were at odds with the company’s focus on developing innovative water and housing products to make our homes more comfortable and livable.
After taking over as President and CEO in 2016, Kinya Seto set LIXIL on a new path to become a purpose-driven entrepreneurial company. The aim was to radically transform from being a complex and often-times inefficient conglomerate, into an agile, consumer-focused organization that understands and meets consumers’ fast changing needs.
For LIXIL, this would be achieved through a combination of concrete structural changes to create a simpler, stronger organization, as well as by embedding a more agile, empowering, and open culture that enables employees to succeed to their full potential.
One of the first signs that old ways of operating were changing came when Seto abandoned the company’s dress code. There was a clear message; the focus would be on the work, not the formalities of corporate Japan. This was just the beginning of a transformation journey to create a more agile organization. Since then, the company has unified globally around a standard set of LIXIL Behaviors and transformed internal collaboration through new digital platforms and global integration. LIXIL also divested non-core businesses and will soon formally transition to a simplified operating company structure.