All the trainings, workshops and programs that JCO has been conducting worldwide since 2006 always touch on the subject of communication in all its forms. In this article, we will highlight the visual part of the cultural puzzle that one has to be solve when working with Japan and Japanese colleagues. (In a previous post,…
In this article let us take a look at a question that comes up in our JCO workshops almost every time: “Why are the Japanese so pedantic, trying to plan everything 150%? Sometimes you just have to wait and see how it turns out!” Of course, there are various factors that contribute to the widely…
Many articles, research papers, and books have been written on the Japanese way of communication. Some authors go a bit overboard by referring to Far Eastern myths of “telepathy in the land of the rising sun”. As a trainer, I cover this topic in almost all training courses, workshops, or coaching sessions too. And yet…
Information sharing and reporting is often a cause of friction in Japanese companies. Here is one extreme example that shows just how serious the implications can be. A Japanese company abroad appointed their first non-Japanese CEO (previous CEOs were Japanese). This person, let’s call him John, had only worked for American and European companies previously.…
“Even monkeys sometimes fall from trees”, as goes the Japanese expression. Despite over 30 years of working experience with the country, this expression came to me as I realized that I had made a cardinal mistake during a kick-off meeting with Japanese clients. First things first, let’s gain a grasp of what this expression really…
Very often we are asked how to address Japanese business partners or colleagues correctly. Here are a few tips, which of course apply equally to written correspondence as well as to conversations. As a rule of thumb, in Japanese business life, the surname name is always followed by the honorific suffix “san” (meaning “dear” or…
Here is an important piece of information that will help you work with Japanese colleagues here and at HQ. If you have ever seen PowerPoint slides created by Japanese you will have noticed 2 points: 1. Every slide has an extremely dense layout. This is owed to a very detail-based approach in Japan that states…
The coronavirus COVID-19 has shaken up the way we work. We now know more about Zoom or MS Team applications than we did a few months ago and have all been invited to an “online apero” at this point. As managing director of a company specialized in multi-cultural training to improve business efficiency when working…
During one of my seminars I gave in Japan, I realized the different reactions Japanese and Westerners have towards being told they have made a mistake. I am talking about the very first, almost instinctive reaction towards someone who is telling you something is wrong in your presentation, in your report or in the…
Non-Japanese participants to JCO’s sessions often express their incredulity when their supposedly polite Japanese colleagues are suddenly answering their phone albeit being in the midst of a conversation with them. “They just left me standing there…” says one German employee in a Japanese company. Another observation that seems to clash with the notion of the…
