“Clients in this country do not want to take risks, and they have a need for control and detailed input. That can tend to kill the creativity”.(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.
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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 difficulty with this is that, if you really want to manage change, you have manager who has been rewarded his whole career on creating harmony and we know that it takes some positive dissonance to create any change. You have to push people out of their comfort zone to create change of any kind, and creativity and innovation are kinds of change. So it would be very difficult for a Japanese manager to reverse his whole set of behavioural characteristics and suddenly become a change agent. You might be able to take that same manager and drop him into another corporate culture where he doesn’t have all this history and maybe he would have the personal capabilities to do it, but in his own organization it’s very difficult. So Japanese managers have to rely on some external motivations to effect change; in a sense they have to blame other people for having to force their people to do these things.”
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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
“(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
“What’s the reward for taking a risk here? As I said earlier, creativity and risk taking are one in the same and if you are going to take a risk you want the prospect of a reward. What’s the reward for taking a risk in Japan? I don’t know. Are you going to get paid more? Probably not, and as I mentioned earlier that’s not a big motivator anyway. If you take a risk and it goes wrong then you are singled out as the person that stuffed up. So, why be creative? There is no incentive….”
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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
“There can be tension with the foreign management of the client company. The management may have a certain set of goals which may require creativity but the executional team may not be so creative. Japanese people do not tend to be and are not educated in such a way as to be creative and to take risks in their approaches to things. So, you can have conflict. The management would come to me and we’d have a discussion and say ‘let’s try this, that sounds good’ and then through the process of working with the local team the idea would get crunched into something that is extremely mediocre. This would then result in feedback and evaluation that the process was mediocre. Well of course the process was mediocre – nobody took any risks and the process was kind of hijacked.
I’m not saying this with any bitterness, it’s just part of the way things work but if you want to offer something which is a bit creative and involves some level of risk then you might find that very 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
“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
“It takes a long time to build trust and relationships. You can’t just walk in and do it overnight. You can’t just overlay everything from the top down. The most successful programmes that I have run have been working through other functional heads and line managers where you actually have to use ‘in betweens’ – where you can bring the ideas and they push and pull and shape it till it makes sense to them. Then they can do really great things, they can add the polish and the detail and that’s where they really excel. It’s hard to find Japanese managers that will stand up in a meeting and present a new idea that might not be immediately accepted.”
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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 concept of a company in Japan is I think different. The term ‘kaisha’ (Japanese for company) is in my mind a group. The word itself has more of a nuance of a group of people doing something together than does the term ‘limited liability company’ (which is a non-person). The Western idea of a company is that of a non-person – a non-human legal entity with no objective other than to make a profit. Of course they have to exist in society and have good human relations (which are good for business) though.
You may have seen the movie ‘The Company’ which likens a company to a psychopath – obsessed with its own survival, lacking empathy and whatever….That’s not really how it is in Japan. Everybody has a vested interest in the stability of the system rather than, perhaps, genuine progress. It’s not that genuine progress doesn’t occur but it occurs within that controlled and less chaotic environment. People will experiment with concepts and products but they won’t touch the core of the organization so readily.”
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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
