Linda Xie pfp
Linda Xie
@linda
Interesting Reddit post on Japanese business culture re: disagreement (never experienced it myself)
7 replies
0 recast
25 reactions
Kenji pfp
Kenji
@kenjiquest
This is a westerners approach to Japanese business... I'm not advocating the Japanese way of business (it can be quite pedantic), but westerners are all Upfront/Verbal/Obvious Visual clues only and miss out on the subtlety of Japanese personality and culture. For a Japanese company doing international business, I don't think this is great, because it leads to said post's frustrations and business mistakes. But fact of the matter is, for Japanese they are actually being quite open in their standards via body language, facial signals and trigger words which actually mean they are in opposition to your idea or think it's going to be a hard sell... politely. It's just that their hardwired "saving face" culture stops them from openly opposing or refuting someone, especially if its a customer/guest. If it was an internal, there may be more back & forth. There is a word called "Nemawashi" in Japan, where in meetings you don't go in to a meeting to have robust discussion, brainstorming and make decisions. You go in to meetings to agree on everyone's pre-organized consensus. Nemawashi is the act of meeting with everyone BEFORE the meeting to ensure they are onboard, so that you can all agree IN the meeting about what you spoke about earlier. Yes, tedious... but this is the old way of earning agreement. I will finish this rant with a little story about Kyoto... the most read between the lines people ever. A Japanese person visits their Kyoto acquaintance for a business catch up. After some time and chat, the acquaintance smiles and offers to the man "Can I give you another cup of tea?" The man understands that in Kyoto, this is your que to leave and says "No, thank you. It was nice seeing you" Next an overseas man visits the same Kyoto acquaintance for a business catch up. After some time and chat, the acquaintance smiles and offers to the man "Can I give you another cup of tea?" The overseas man says "Sure, I'd love another one". "What a nice fellow" thought the overseas man as he drank his 3rd cup of tea.
1 reply
0 recast
3 reactions
Dee pfp
Dee
@dee21
Honestly just another example of a cultural nuance that westerners fail to understand and even audaciously get angry at, people have to understand that culture and behaviour isnt the same everywhere and even if you cant fathom that behaviour this is how they live their life and you have to meet them where they’re at if you want to do business with them, its also the same way I would expect a Japanese person wanting to do business with a western company to try and understand western company culture. And this cuts across all cultures and another example of a westerner thinking that just cause things are done differently their own way is better although i can see the Japanese way being frustrating to me, this is how they are comfortable so I’ll just keep this in my mind for anytime im interacting with them
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction