I'm not so surprised that they got such good results in Japan, where traditionally the business culture has been extremely demanding compared to most places. It would be interesting to know whether they did ever try similar experiments in other parts of the world with more "normal" working hours, and if so, whether they managed to repeat the successful result.
The Japanese work ethic of working yourself to the bone is puzzling to me. A culture driven by deep traditions, they need to stop once in a while and re-evaluate some. Not all traditions are worth keeping, like working all day every day, or using fax machines - another tradition that is refusing to die in Japan.
