There are a lot of things the Japanese do that set good examples for the rest of us--live healthier lives, honor and respect their elderly family members and pack convenient and delicious bento boxes for lunch. Here's another good example--Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) president and CEO Masaaki Nangaku voluntarily proposed that he give back 10 percent of his May salary for the three-and-a-half-hour trading outage the bourse suffered May 12. Needless to say, the exchange accepted Nangaku's offer.

What a novel idea: a CEO offering up his own money as compensation to those that suffered for an error his firm failed to prevent and fix quicker. Although TOCOM issued a lengthy statement detailing the cause of the trading halt and the remedies taken to prevent a future outage, Nangaku’s gesture was an honorable thing to do, even if it doesn’t fix the technical glitch that caused exchange officials to shut trading down.

There are a few CEOs and company presidents in the U.S. and the U.K. that could learn a thing or two from their Japanese counterparts when it comes to reconciliatory gestures that were not prompted by thousands of protests, regulatory pressure or angry threats from former employees. Not buying jets or decorating offices with lavish furnishings would also have helped.

By , US Reporter for Dealing With Technology