Feb 3, 2010
On Being a Foreign Employer
“First of all, it’s a risk to work for foreigners. Two, it’s not a safe, established Japanese company – there isn’t that cliché status of working for a well known Japanese company. Even if you are an established company like Unilever or something people still think ‘oooh no, a foreign company’ even though they are like the biggest manufacturer in the world.
Also, people like security and hierarchy and they like to know their position. They don’t like to know that they have to do a bit of everything whereas in a foreign start-up they do have to do a bit of everything. Our people who do research do have to do client presentations and this, that and the other and you know what? If there are bowls in the sink at the end of the night we don’t have an office manager who just sits there all day waiting for people to go home so he can wash the dishes we wash our own dishes. For some people that is shocking.
Also, younger companies, especially foreign start-ups, tend to be a lot less structured. We don’t say ‘this is what you need to do, this is the checklist’ we tend to be a bit more creative and say ‘this is your time, we need you to achieve this…and what else can you come up with’. People don’t know what to do with that. (CB: So how have you dealt with that in your company?) There has to be a lot of mentoring and that’s an area that we really need to improve on. You have to mentor people, hold their hands, give them the confidence to say ‘I know I’m doing this but there is a possibility that I could do this or this’. In contrast, I think that people in London and New York are very keen to prove themselves. They also know that it’s not a job for life and they want to get the most out of it that they can and then go on to the next bigger, better place. Here the attitude is that you join a company and might possibly stay there for a long time. So perhaps they have a view that longevity is better than immediate results.”
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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.
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[...] “Even if you are an established company like Unilever people still think ‘oooh no, a foreign company….even though they are one of the biggest manufacturers in the world”.(i) [...]
[...] Client relationships are perceived as being very resource intensive in terms of (1) communication/interaction and (2) prescription. High communication and interaction requirements result in little time for reflection and low margin for error, increasing employee risk aversion. Perceived over-prescription of project details (according to proven methods and approaches (see ‘Need for Structure’) decreases flexibility to utilize the supplier’s specialist knowledge to explore alternative solutions – “If there is no demand for creative response then there will be none. I think that the whole structure of the way decisions are made mitigates against creativity”.(ii) This effect may be compounded by (1) the relative importance of trust and relationships over experience and skills in Japan – “It is harder to earn trust here [and get people to take a risk]….whatever experience you have in the West doesn’t really matter, it doesn’t translate”(iii) and (2) fear. It is important to note that in the client role non-Japanese managers may face difficulty with the expectation of prescriptive-ness from suppliers. Compared to the “here’s what we need done, you’re the experts I’ll come back when it’s finished” relationship which was perceived as more typical in the West there may be a lot more ‘hand-holding’ and ‘face time’ involved as a non-Japanese client of Japanese suppliers. Fear Fear of shame, failure, standing out, being shown up, showing someone up, or making a mistake is considered a factor in high risk aversion. Fear of making clients ‘look bad by knowing more than them’ increases the intensity of the client relationship noted above (and the intensity of the client relationship reinforces the fear). To deal with this fear, change is avoided, and consensus through discussion is sought. Need For Structure Japanese employees (unless specifically hired for their flexible thinking skills) are seen as having an innate difficulty with ‘managing something that they don’t have a formula or template for’. ‘Need for structure’ is perceived to be rooted in (1) the education system and (2) the rule-based nature of art/culture of Japan – “If you study Japanese art like sumi-e or ikebana you will notice that everything is run by rules”(iv). This necessitates the provision of security and structure around a creative idea or process. This need could be higher in foreign companies due to the risk inherent in working for them. YOU are the Risk “Even if you are an established company like Unilever people still think ‘oooh no, a foreign company….even though they are one of the biggest manufacturers in the world”.(v) [...]