Work Organisation
Enjoy the silence
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Stephen Pearlman
Senior Consultant
Ana World Tours
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One of the frustrating things for a non-Japanese person in a meeting is the lack of exchange of ideas. It's quite typical for it just to be a place to report information, so it's not the kind of aggressive throwing around of ideas that you probably experience in a non-Japanese meeting.
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You don't negotiate in public. What you do in meetings is find out the position of the other side. You compare positions and then you negotiate outside the meetings, so don't expect too much from meetings. You've got to make private appointments and meet in the evenings in bars and then they find out what people really think.
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Richard D. Lewis
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Let's discuss this over a drink
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Jane Ashton
Marketing Director
Sony Broadcast
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There are many people that have to be consulted and there is often this process they go through of pre-consultation. And then you have a meeting to actually take the decision but the decision has in fact already been taken, but you can't act on it.
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Bonnie Williams
Managing Director
Waterbridge International
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During the nine-to-five hours they will preserve their formality and they will hold their emotions in and will show respect according to hierarchies.
But after five they'll go out drinking - boss, junior, or with your office mates. That's when they say: hey, I really liked what you did this afternoon.
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That's a very common way to negotiate. It would be normally done through younger men. Their seniors have met and there's a difference of opinion, which they wouldn't show in public.
They'll inform their subordinates what the situation is and they instruct the subordinates to go out with the younger men from the company and thrash out the sticky points in the bar. And this is where they'll talk in a much more friendly way and be much more frank about the company position. Then they come back to their superiors and report what's happened.
And the superiors will say, "Right, tonight when you go out with them, suggest this and this," and gradually you can see points in an informal way and if there's a refusal, the seniors don't lose face. And that's why there's a lot of evening activity.
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Richard D. Lewis
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- Never negotiate in public. Use a business meeting only for the exchange of positions.
- The Japanese like to take their time during meetings. Silence is used to create a space for thinking. After they've finished their thinking process they'll speak. Don't put pressure on people.
- Use the relative informality of the evening hours to socialise and gently negotiate.
- The decision making process involves the consultation of the whole team, but the decision will be made by consensus, therefore no person will display any individuality.
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Being there index |
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Being there