Managing for Creativity in Japan Talking with Foreign Executives in Japan

Be Wary

When I first went and talked to people here they all told me that if I couldn’t speak Japanese I wouldn’t get a job. I asked them if they spoke Japanese and they would always say no. So, I thought that they were either lying to me or they were trying to hold on to their own jobs and were afraid of competition. I found that a lot of people were incredibly threatened by me when I first came. I had never experienced that before because I had always felt that if I was good enough for the job then I should get that job, but here there is only a certain amount of jobs going for gaijin and people really want to hold onto what they have got and they get really nasty. My advice for people when they come in is to be wary of that, first of all.