Managing for Creativity in Japan

“(CB: Do you think that specific cultural training, experience or language skills are necessary or helpful? You mentioned earlier that the people who are really well versed in the language and culture are not the ones that are really successful…..)

Well, if you are coming in at Senior Manager level or something you will have come up through the ranks in your home country. People who are more acculturated to the Japanese environment will tend to be at the junior levels. There are cases where people do succeed because there are more job opportunities and different roles for people with a deeper knowledge of Japan and Japanese – you might look at a CV and be surprised that five years ago that person was teaching English. That’s a good thing but I think that there is a reason why you are being brought in as a foreigner. You’re not brought in because you’re able to fit in. Just because you’re able to understand the language it doesn’t mean that you are of the culture it just means that you have been sensitive to your environment. (C: So those skills are not a prerequisite for success in Japan?) No I don’t think so. I think that you need the curiosity to understand that people are different and that they may not always tell you what you want to hear……that they may not be that good at expressing their positions. When I say you need to listen, I mean that you’ve got to be sensitive to the vibe. Take a more holistic approach. I think that people will give you their best if they don’t feel threatened.”

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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

“If you followed the advice I just gave your head office might view you as a weak manager. If, when they asked you how things were going, you said that you were still ‘working things out’ they might view you that way but actually you would just be doing your job properly because once it’s agreed it will be fully implemented. But it won’t be even partly implemented until it is fully agreed. (CB: So it is important for the head office to have some kind of understanding of the particulars of the Japanese environment?) Yes, but they don’t, it’s just not the nature of the beast. If you look at the big international companies that have prospered in Japan you will see that they have all had very long periods where they were investing and not taking any money out of the market at all….for 20, 30 years some of them. But now they are established and are making money. Anybody who is coming into the market thinking that they are going to make a quick profit in two years is just delusional. I mean, we were profitable in our first year when I first moved here but that is not usual.”

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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

“I would advise them to look upon themselves as more of a learner than a teacher; To approach their situation with humility; To become more sensitive to their environment and to work on their listening skills; To be respectful of the culture that they are working in and the values of the people that they are working with; To not impose their ways of thinking. I say this not from a moral point of view but from the point of view that if you don’t (do these things) you’ll fail.

Working in Japan is a very humbling experience for arrogant people. So if you value your success then you have to become more receptive. And believe me these would be rare characteristics among expatriates. However, just because you have to do these things and perhaps change the way you communicate and relate a little bit it doesn’t mean that your objectives become meaningless or that you are will not be able to do what you need to do. It’s just that you can’t come in with a sheet of paper and say “now, here’s our new strategy. It’s been dictated by head office and it’s what we will be doing in Japan”. It can’t be like that. It’s got to be workshopped and even though you are now a ’sensitive new age manager’ you still need to understand when someone really is opposing you and get rid of them if necessary.

There is a mix of receptivity and sensitivity…and perhaps ruthlessness as well. The issue that can arise is that you could come over as so receptive that people think you are not prepared to wield your power, but that’s a question of judgment on your part. That’s why managers are paid high salaries, because they are able to make those calls.
Is someone being genuinely obstructive or are they simply failing to understand where you are coming from? You need to be prepared to do a lot of ‘nemawashi’ (kind of informal preparatory negotiations/discussions). If you do not prepare properly you can issue all these directives but no one will follow them and that’s often surprising for foreign managers here. I often hear things like “but I told them not to do that…I told them I didn’t want it done that way and they agreed…..and then it was done the way that we agreed we wouldn’t do it” – I hear it all the time. Of course I not saying that it is all the manager’s fault but it’s much better if you can get people to do what you need them to do of their own free will. Then, they will be very motivated and you will get a high level of performance. But you have to get that alignment – you have to listen. It’s not just a case of getting them to do what you want by speaking softly. It’s a case of really, genuinely, listening, and that’s a challenge.”

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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

“The first characteristic is probably the ability to receive advice – the ability to identify allies and build a team of people who are able to influence the organization. It is also important to be able identify who the opinion leaders are and who the change agents might be, and to work with them effectively.

I also think that the ability to create positive dissonance but still maintain harmony is important. In a way that has to do with generating goodwill, so it’s a personal characteristic - being warm and human and at the same time creating understanding of the need for change. I guess a lot of that comes down to good communication skills. But before communication comes listening, so the ability to listen well, and listen well across cultures is important. I think you can learn that in other countries, not just in Japan. I’ve worked with CEOs who have never been to Japan before, but who have a lot of global experience. The successful ones have the abilities I just mentioned.”

“The leadership characteristics are not so different from what you would require for success as a leader in any other culture, but there is probably a heavier emphasis on the ability to trust and rely on others, and to listen intuitively.”

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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

I think that if you don’t know Japanese it will be tough but I wouldn’t say that it’s impossible because I’ve achieved my dream here. You just have to re-work your head because when you are in this country things don’t run your way, they run the Japanese way. So you have to rewire the way you think, not get irritated by it and find out how you can help. As a Westerner, people here are actually really interested in what you are going to say but the issue is working out how to communicate your message. You need to be really mindful and respectful. Understand that they may not understand what you are talking about even though they may understand the words that are coming out of your mouth – it’s a different way of thinking.


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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

“In terms of being a manager of Japanese staff, my experience has been that it is very different to get local staff to be creative in their problem solving. Not impossible, people do differ, but there is a general bias against taking risks. People want to discuss everything and make sure everybody agrees with a particular course of action before they take it. This has influenced me to a degree and over the years here I’ve become much more collaborative in the way that I make decisions. I used to just dictate but now I hardly ever dictate, I suggest. It’s better that way, it works better. If you have a culture where people are afraid to make a mistake that’s like death to creativity and in Japan when you’ve got fear of being shamed, fear of being shown up, fear of making a mistake, fear of making someone else look bad, fear of making yourself look bad it’s hard. I want to be very careful about making those blanket judgments but nevertheless if you are in a culture where people are afraid to make mistakes and they’re nervous, and they feel like someone will come down on them if they make a mistake…..and you also don’t want to make your clients look bad by knowing more than them…… That’s fatal to creativity.”

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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

“You have to like working in Japan to be successful, you have to like Japanese people, and part of that comes through understanding things and not finding it frustrating. If you constantly find everything they do totally frustrating you probably just don’t get why they are doing it. This is a factor of both cultural awareness and also personal characteristics. You have to be a bit of a fan of the culture I think, with an open mind and tolerance for different ways of doing things. High tolerance for ambiguity also helps – working within the big picture without understanding it all. You really have to be able to work within shades of grey in Japan because you often don’t know exactly what is going on behind the scenes, no matter how long you have been here.”

****************************************************
This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

“You have to be enormously thick skinned. When a client says “no I’m not interested in that” three months later you have to be able to ask them what they are interested in. Then you need to be able to get enough information from them so that you can write a proposal. If you are entrepreneurial you have to be able to not take no for an answer and think about how you can make it a yes. I have been told ‘no’ so many times but I have turned them into a ‘yes’ a lot of times.
Perseverance is important. Client relationships take a long time to establish. If they don’t happen in five minutes (and they won’t) you have to believe that they might happen in a year’s time. You need to be able to keep up the cheery demeanor the whole time because it might turn into something.
Never burn bridges and never piss of a client. Once trust is broken it’s pretty much permanent. You can’t go back – this is true for all clients but particularly for Japanese. In Japan people tend to stay in their jobs for 30 years but overseas that marketing role is going to be filled by someone different in two year’s time, you know it is.
Also, don’t discount your rate too much. If you discount they might wonder what your problem is and start thinking that you might not be very good. Always have a good attitude about your pricing and stick with it. It’s not a barter society and I don’t think people are overly impressed if you come back with something cheaper because that is an indicator of being substandard.”

****************************************************
This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail

“There are advantages to not being Japanese though. You can start jumping up and down and yelling ‘come on!’ but you could not do that if you were a Japanese person. There would be too many rules and obligations. Being a foreigner means that I can break those rules. I’ve been in brainstorming sessions with Japanese people sitting there silently and me thinking that the whole thing is rubbish. In order to liven things up a bit I have been able to say ‘come on, we can do this’ and start getting excited and acting like a cheerleader. And you know what? You start to get results. Maybe they feel that they can talk because it’s not a formal Japanese room.
We’ve done workshops in Japanese with foreigners in the room who spoke fluent Japanese and it’s learning the devices that people need to use – the icebreakers etcetera to get things moving. It’s having that cultural knowledge that the ‘brainstorm’ in the classic sense of the word does not work in Japan. You need to understand what works and what doesn’t work, and how you get the same results but in a different format. I don’t think that a Japanese person would put themselves in the same positions that I do. Sometimes I have seen moderators here, when we have used them to facilitate conversations and I have wanted to go over and shake them and tell them that we’re not getting what we need…that’s a bit frustrating….”

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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in relation to this topic. Please feel free to comment directly on this site or get in touch at chris@a-small-lab.com (Chris Berthelsen)
All content on this IDEAS and DISCUSSION blog is provided by a-small-lab under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License: You can SHARE this content as long as you CITE this work, and TELL US about your work (and send us a copy or link!). See Creative Commons for more detail