Officers and Managers in Japanese Companies

You pay visit to an office of big company in downtown Tokyo. Firstly you will be surprised by the number of name cards you need to exchange; quite often ranging from executives to young person without job title. Secondly you will witness at the meeting that majority of them don’t speak any single word. Thirdly you normally expect that decision will be made at the meeting where high-ranked offices attends. But the officer may say, politely though, “Thank you so much for your visit today. We will discuss internally and come back to you later”.

Back in your country, a scene when a team of Japanese business person visit your site. After the long and hot discussion these people will say “Thank you for the fruitful meeting. We will discuss with people in Tokyo Headquarter and come back to you later”. No decision is made.

To my view, once being member of Japanese big company for more than 30 years, such slow and inefficient decision-making practice has been tabbed as a chronic ailment of many Japanese company, and might have caused enduring stagnation of Japan’s economy for more than three decades.

Why? I think one of the reasons is insufficient empowerment even to high-ranked officers. He/she does not necessarily have full-fledged power to make all the decisions at the meeting, Then “ambiguous” reporting and decision-making chain complicates entire decision making process. It is often the case that officers need consensus from other officers/managers not necessarily belonging official reporting line. Last but not the least, they fear losing their face to their boss and piers by making “hasty and poor decision”, rather than seeking benefit of quick decision making.

Fortunately, many global Japanese businessperson has become aware of seriousness of the problem, and started changing their style of decision making. I hope it will prevail among entire Japanese business entities.

A meeting room in an office in Germany: very spacious than those in Tokyo