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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
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