Why Japanese Employees Appear Less Engaged in Meetings

Last time, I asked you how you’d mediate a conflict between a foreign employee who wants a promotion and a Japanese manager who felt the employee wasn’t ready. Here is a summary of responses from readers.

This week’s topic is about communication styles during meetings. Read along and see what you think:

“So, does anyone have any questions?” Peter asks.

He looks around the room at the expressionless faces of his Japanese colleagues. One has his arms crossed over his chest with his eyes closed. Another appears zoned-out, his eyes gazing at his shoes. 

Are they sleeping? Peter wonders.

The sound of the clock’s tick...tock...tick...becomes deafening. 

“Anyone, anyone at all?” Peter asks again. He had just spent a full hour talking about the company strategy for the next quarter. Surely someone had to have a question, opinion, or something.

The silence becomes overwhelming. He starts to hear his heart pounding in his ears. Moisture forms on the palms of his hands as he shifts his weight from one foot to another.

He’s surrounded by a room full of people…but he feels so alone. 

By chance, Peter locks eyes with one lone employee in the back of the room, Yamada-san. 

“Yamada-san! What about you, do you have any questions?!?!??” he exclaims.

“Uhhh..no, no questions, I am okay, thank you.” Yamada-san laughs awkwardly, shifting in his seat.

“Nothing at all? Surely you must have a thought to share about anything I’ve said over the last hour” Peter retorts.

More silence follows. Reluctantly, he dismisses everyone back to their work.

Peter feels drained. He had gone from enthusiastically presenting his strategy to his colleagues to feeling utterly defeated in the last 4 minutes of silence. Like he was drowning in water and the people on the lifeboat couldn’t hear his cries for help.

***

Later that night at the dinner table, Peter’s wife could tell that something is off so she asks him what’s wrong. 

“What’s wrong!? Japanese people have no ideas. They can’t think for themselves and always just want to be told what to do. They aren’t innovative. And they certainly aren’t collaborative. I have no idea how I’m supposed to work with any of them if they don’t communicate with me!”

Okay, before Peter jumps to more conclusions, let’s take a pause and figure out what’s happened here from a cultural standpoint.

I hear about this problem from foreigners in Japan all the time. No matter if it’s a small team huddle, formal meeting, or large presentation, foreign workers struggle to engage their Japanese colleagues in conversation in group settings.

There are a few underlying values to consider:

1. The definition of “brainstorm”: Foreigners thinking of brainstorming as an opportunity to share ideas - no matter how bizarre - to stimulate thinking and strategies for moving forward. Japanese people define brainstorming as sharing well-thought out ideas after they have consulted colleagues and gathered evidence.
2. The definition of “productivity”: Westerns typically base productivity on content and not on length of time. For example, they would rather do a quick meeting on idea innovation to carry a project forward and find Japanese people give too much detail and dragged out presentations. Japanese people on the other hand find short meetings with random baseless ideas to be unproductive in relation to longer meetings discussing well-thought out ideas.
3. The feeling around being “outspoken”: The method of communication in the story above requires participants to be outspoken. In Western culture, being outspoken is considered positive because it means individuals are contributing ideas to their team. But in Japan, being outspoken - especially if it’s not a well-thought out idea - to their boss in front of a room full of people - might appear out of place, arrogant, as showing off or as unintelligent.

Here’s my question to you this week:

What would you suggest that Peter do differently to ensure his Japanese colleagues are happily engaged and communicative at his next meeting?

You can either leave a comment or submit your anonymous reply here and I’ll compile responses for viewing in the article.