After I finished explaining, the consultant who nearly had a negative impression about the Japanese in general shouted, "Oh you mean, Japanese use culture as a tool to motivate operators to work hard for bringing up Kaizen suggestions to the management. Am I correct?"

I had never thought of it until then. Japanese use Japanese culture as a tool to make people work hard without additional rewards. I replied to him, "Yes, you are right."

He showed a smile on his face at last. The British delegation didn't want to ask that question anymore.  In the same evening after we left the factory, I joined dinner with the British delegation.  All of them expressed their appreciations to me for the presentation that I made during the meeting with the Japanese counterpart in the day time. 

They told me that they never heard what I explained before. They understood that Japanese use Japanese culture as a tool to motivate people.

It was all right but they knew that they could not do the same way as Japanese did. They had homework to solve at that time. I also had my own homework to study and analyze secrets hidden in Japanese culture exerting on Japanese mind to work hard for the benefit of the group to which they belong without much monetary reward. Since then, the quest for answers on questions about Japanese cultural riddles has started.

  --- to be continued ---

The British consultant looked at me with bewilderment and whispered to me again, "I can't believe the way he said to us. He does not want to tell us the know-how. Now I am very certain about it, because he does not want to tell us the incentive scheme to motivate their employees to bring up Kaizen suggestions."

I had to tell him again. "No, I never think so. This is again an issue related to Japan's specific culture.

At that time, I could not explain in detail about the secrets of Japanese culture exerting strong influence on Japanese people to work hard for the benefit of the company without some incentives.  What I could tell him was only the influence of culture vaguely.

The consultant was showing his irritations to the Japanese engineers sitting across the table. I sensed that his doubt on the attitude of the Japanese engineers was getting stronger. 

At this point, I felt helpless as a mere interpreter. I was not a consultant then. I even didn't know how a consulting job should be carried out.  However, I wanted to help both sides. I urged the Japanese engineers to speak out whatever in mind because I worried that the British delegation would misunderstand entire Japanese as insincere people.

Then, the leader in the Japanese team suggested to me to explain whatever I have in mind to the British delegation.  He obviously thought that I knew something about Japanese culture and he seemed to have believed that I could explain about it in English.  

So I left the place where I sat for the center position between the Japanese team and the British delegation. I stood there. Behind me was the blackboard and pieces of chalk. Using the chalk, I started to explain about Japanese particular culture of communication and group work which contribute to the benefit of the group willingly without much reward. 

Further I said, each member wants to have the sense of belonging to the group whereby he or she feels happy. He or she does not require monetary rewards. In order to confirm that he or she is acknowledged and accepted by the other members of the group as a member, he or she spontaneously brings up suggestions for quality improvement. This explanation was not sufficient enough, I thought. However, that was the best I could explain.

It was no more an interpretation job. In fact it was a part of an improvised cross-cultural communication seminar. That was the first occasion for me to provide consulting though I didn't receive any additional fee from the British delegation.

--- to be continued ---

I felt that this misunderstanding should be solved while they were in the meeting room of the last Japanese company.  So I urged the Japanese engineers to anyway speak out what they had in mind. 

They looked at me desperately after a few seconds of silence.

One of them said to me, "Mr. Tominaga, we don't have any good answer about their question. We don't understand why they ask us such a question. Will you please ask them why it is the problem for them?"

So I translated their Japanese words into English for the British delegation including the consultant who whispered to me.

Then, another British person in the delegation said this way.

"In the UK, we study a lot about Japanese manufacturing systems including Toyota Production System. There are many books about it available in English. Many production management consultants also teach us that Kaizen activity is based on spontaneous action of each operator in the workshop. So we followed its guideline. However, in reality we found only about 20 percent relevant to quality improvement in the total suggestions.

The other suggestions taking up nearly 80 percent were like, 'I need much spacious car park', 'You must increase my salary because I work so hard and I believe that my hard work brings the company a lot of benefits', My boss sexually harasses me. Please stop it', 'He has an affair with a female operator. He is married', 'The company should provide us with baby sitters in the factory so that we can come with our babies to the factory', etc. 

In some cases in my knowledge, a British company which followed the Japanese Kaizen suggestion method had to fight the movement of making a labor union, which it didn't have before. Unfortunately, the company now is struggling with the new labor union in the company."  He continued, "Under the circumstances, we want to know how you motivate all operators to suggest opinions only relevant to Kaizen. Do you give any incentives to operators who give good suggestions? If so, would you kindly let us know how we can motivate our operators in the UK to bring up only Kaizen suggestions?"

One of the Japanese engineers tilted his head, looking at me.  He and the other Japanese were all silent. I asked him to speak out.

He said, "To be honest with you, I don't understand the reason why they can't have Kaizen suggestions all relevant to production quality improvement from their operators. Why do they receive suggestions irrelevant to production?"

   --- to be continued ---

Dear Japanese friends

I am going to deliver a speech on the captioned subject on July 19 at the Mainichi Communications Conference Room in Tokyo as is stated in the following website.

http://cobs.jp/skillup/media/event/index.html

If interested, please come and see me. The admission is free but your attendence will be subject to lottery.

- Shintaro

In 1994 in Japan, I performed simultaneous interpretations for a couple of British automotive part manufacturers led by British consultants from a renowned business consulting firm in the UK. They visited several Japanese automotive part manufacturers, which supplied their products to Toyota, Nissan and Honda. 

The British delegation had important questions to ask Japanese companies on secrets of lean production management as well as Kaizen activities practiced by Japanese employees working for Japanese automotive part manufacturers.

Most of British people knew well about Toyota Production System as a whole, and they just confirmed what they knew with Japanese people who answered such questions. However, what they didn't understand most and what they really wanted to ask Japanese engineers was how to motivate factory operators to spontaneously bring up suggestions for quality improvement. 

The British delegation and I visited several Japanese automotive part manufacturers, and we faced the similar response from the Japanese counterparts on a particular question. It was silence.

When some of the British delegation asked a question of how to motivate operators to suggest points for quality improvement to the upper management, the Japanese engineers present in all meetings kept quiet. The British people were quite puzzled at this phenomenon, which was also observed at the other Japanese companies. When we visited the last company in the trip schedule, we needed to get good answers on how to motivate operators to pay attention to improving quality while they are engaged in production.  They also wanted to know any rewarding system available for such spontaneous Kaizen activity. 

However, the engineers of the last company also showed us the similar response of silence on this particular question.  One of the British consultants sitting next to me whispered to me, "They may not like to tell us their know-how. I guess that they want to hide it. Do you agree with me?"   I replied, "No, I don't think so. It is related to Japanese culture."  He continued, "Then why don't they say so?"

       --- to be continued ---

It started to rain from the early afternoon on Friday 29^th June. I had to go to Ikebukuro in Tokyo to see friends of mine at a restaurant called Tohokenbunroku at 19:00. I reached the place forty minutes earlier than the time we promised to get together, so I went to the Starbucks diagonally opposite to the place. I went upstairs and sat in the window seat. The view through the window was beautiful, so I took  some photos.

There were five persons all together. Two of them were male Japanese including me. His wife was ethnically Hong Kong Chinese but with the Australian passport. Another lady was Taiwanese, and the other lady was from the UK but ethnically Hong-Kong Chinese. All of us enjoyed the dinner at Tohokenbunroku very much. We used either Japanese or English. All of them had fantastically good command of Japanese and English.

Further, two ladies spoke Cantonese not to mention Mandarin. The Taiwanese lady spoke Mandarin, Hujian, English and Japanese. Only two Japanese guys including I did not speak Mandarin, Cantonese and Hujian. By the way the British lady spoke beautiful French in addition to Cantonese, English and Japanese.

In fact I was able to speak Indonesian language, but there was none who could understand it, so I didn't use it.

It was such a nice day when different ethnical people gathered together and enjoyed the conversation and dinner in a couple of languages.

The photo below is what I took from the window seat of the Starbucks.

Friends,

In the beginning of coming July, I will be in a studio in Tokyo to shoot two videos to make DVDs on "Secrets of Productivity and Quality Management in Japanese Firms". It will be made in Japanese as well as English.  Each DVD will have one hour content. The DVDs will be sold in the US through the following website.

http://www.pacificdreams.org/e/bookstore/index.php

I am coming back to the US in September thorugh the beggning of October this year again, travelling to Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.  At that time, I will introduce the DVDs to partitipants while I perform crosscultural business seminars.

As soon as the DVDs are ready for sale in the US market, I will post its information on the bulletin. I am very excited about it.

  - Shintaro

My intercultural seminar promoting agent, Pacific Dreams, Inc., in Portland Oregon distributed a notice to its newsletter subscribers as follows, and I am also pleased to inform it to readers of this blog.

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"Communication and Negotiation with Japanese Business People"  Seminar

Pacific Dreams, Inc. is delighted to let our friends and clients know about one of our newest seminars being presented on May 17, 2007 in Wilsonville, OR. Noted cross-cultural business expert, Mr. Shintaro Tominaga from Japan, will present a seminar on communication and negotiation with Japanese business people. This seminar will be a valuable resource for anyone who works in a Japanese company, has close dealings with and interactions with Japanese customers, joint venture partners, or vendors/suppliers.

The "Communication and Negotiation" seminar is an excellent opportunity for the American business- person to learn and explore about business communication/negotiation techniques and theories to be applied in a real business world setting.

Seminar Details:
 
It is not uncommon for American business people to experience problems when negotiating with their Japanese counterparts.
Many individuals in the US make careers out of teaching communication and negotiation skills, however, this is not the situation in Japan.  In Japanese companies, usually bosses teach communication and negotiation skills to employees, through on-the-job training. As a result, many communications and negotiations between Japanese and American businesses do not flow smoothly, and often have problems. Because there is no common ground from which the two cultures are working.

This seminar provides American business people insight into the seemingly mysterious Japanese communication and negotiation methods. In fact, what we will be exploring, the Japanese themselves do not objectively contemplate. We will also look at how culture has an influence on the Japanese businessperson. This seminar will help American businesses reach win-win results when communicating and negotiating with Japanese companies. 

Seminar Outline:

Part I: Communication
 
-   Japanese language in relation to communication 
-   General Japanese communication styles 
-   Reading "kuuki" - 
-   Manners 
-   Dos and Don'ts
 
Part II: Negotiation
 
-   Position of negotiation in the business decision making process 
-   Establishing amicable relations with Japanese 
-   Using clear English language 
-   Differences in teamwork and group-work 
-   Generating an amicable "kuuki" 
-   Patience 
-   Dealing with silence 
-   Caution using "Yes-and-no" style negotiations 
-   Letting Japanese have time to talk among themselves 
-   Preparing for several rounds of negotiation
 
Part III: Case Study
 
-   Communication 
-   Kuuki 
-   Decision making process 
-   Indirect expression 
-   Body language 
-   Sleeping or meditating?

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Shintaro Tominga`s Biographical Information:

Shintaro Tominaga specializes in intercultural business consulting including seminars, training and coaching of intercultural communication for not only Japanese business people, and international business people. At Fellow Academy he teaches Japanese-to-English business document translation. Fellow Academy is a prominent private translation school in Tokyo.

When Shintaro was only 24 years old, he was sent to the jungles of Sumatra, Indonesia where he worked in the timber industry. He learned the Indonesian language to communicate with local people and many other different ethnic people staying in the camp; thereby he learned the importance of intercultural communication for good business results.

When he was 27 years old, an electronic component manufacturing company in Japan sent him to Singapore to set up a subsidiary factory to manufacture film capacitors. He was involved in intercultural human resources management, quality control, production management, sales and marketing, and total business management.
He also translated technical documents from Japanese into English.

After the Singapore venture, Shintaro went to England where he was employed in doing market research for semiconductor devices and electromagnetic interference shielding materials for a Japanese venture capital company, while living on his own at a downtown London flat.

He then moved to Dallas Texas to perform the same job he did in London.

From Dallas Texas, he visited many cities all over the US for marketing purposes. Later, in Boston, he received distributor management training, including how to give presentations.

Since settling back in Japan in 1990, he has been performing intercultural business consulting independently by utilizing what he acquired from his intercultural business experiences for both Japanese and globally operated non-Japanese firms.

Shintaro was born and raised in Sasebo, Nagasaki-ken, Japan, where he went to school, majoring in international economics while working for the US Navy base to hone his English conversation skills.

In 1987, he passed the English Proficiency Test, ranking Special A Class in the program of the official language test of the United Nations, conducted by the United Nations Association of Japan.
 
I personally look forward to seeing you at this Communication and Negotiation seminar on Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 8:30AM.

Best regards,

Ken Sakai
President
kenfsakai@pacificdreams.org

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Pacific Dreams, Inc.
25260 SW Parkway Avenue, Suite D
Wilsonville, OR 97070 USA
TEL: ..:NAMESPACE PREFIX = SKYPE />503-783-1390   FAX: 503-783-1391
www.pacificdreams.org
******************************************************

When I went to college in Sasebo, I worked at Enlisted Men's club as a bartender for the US Navy men. It was in the early 1970ies when the music of the Beatles was culminating. A Hispanic soldier became a good friend of mine. Let me call him Jim. He was awfully good at playing guitar singing the songs made by the Beatles. I often went to Jim's apartment in Sasebo where he had two other mates in three tatami rooms in the same house. When I showed up in his apartment, he played his guitar and sang the songs of the Beatles. Particularly, "let it be" and "my guitar gently weeps" were his most favorite songs. I learned how to play them from him by using a plastic pick which I had never used before because I had been playing the guitar with four fingers. I often played and sang the songs of Simon and Garfunkel in a two-finger or three-finger picking style. Jim couldn't do so on the contrary, but, he was really genus in playing his electric guitar with the plastic pick, and what's more his voice was quite nice soprano for a man. When I get in a Karaoke bar in Tokyo now, I often sing "let it be" remembering Jim playing the guitar and singing the song.

          (This photo shows me when I was only 20 years old, playing the guitar and singing some song.)

His room was with a lot of posters which were with the peace sign, an in-thing during those days. He liked to play and sing war protest songs though he served the US Navy. Since he wasn't so radical, he was not so conspicuous in his private and humble protest against the Vietnam War. While I worked at EM Club, I recognized that many soldiers who were fighting in Vietnam were not so happy at the war itself. As soon as they reached the Sasebo base in their battle ships from Vietnam, they dashed out for bars and nightclubs downtown Sasebo by cab. Some soldiers dropped by my EM club where they got a lot of cheap drinks, then went downtown where they had to pay a lot of money. Some brought their Japanese girl friends that worked at the bars to my club. While I was making cocktails, I came to see their real faces. Many hated the war. For what were they fighting then? For someone it was to earn money for their families back in the US, and for someone it was to go to college after they served some term because the US government subsidized those who enlisted in Armed Forces joining the Vietnam War. I was wondering whether the US could really win the war because the soldiers looked not so much serious about the war.

My brain got quite mixed up when I saw them. My father was an Imperial Navy communications officer during WWII. He was a serious Navy man loyal to Emperor and Japan. After the war ended, he became silent zipping his lips like a clam on any war topic. He did not talk anything about it. I hadn't known the reason why he was like that until recently. When it comes to "communications" in Navy, it means also "intelligence". I came to know that when I was with a US Navy communications officer who told me that he was also a Navy Intelligence officer. My father might had been involved in many secret missions which he never told anyone until he passed away four years ago. He must have brought the whole bunch of classified information (in his own moral duty) to his grave.

Obviously those American soldiers didn't have such seriousness in fighting in Vietnam. They were so merry, kind, smiley and happy. They had a lot of room in enjoying their private lives which I could not imagine from the attitude of my father. Though my father did not talk about the war, he often said to me, "Shintaro, peace is really good. It has been brought to Japan by the US ironically after Japan lost war to them."

When I was looking at Jim playing the guitar and singing "let it be" thinking of peace, I couldn't stop having curiosity to know more about the US people that didn't have rigid and astute seriousness which my father had, even while they were engaged in war.

In Singapore, another shock was waiting for me. I did not understand what on earth Singaporeans were speaking. I knew that they were very good English speakers. However, their accents were totally foreign to me. It took me some time to get used to the way they spoke. Singapore is a multi-racial country where there are 70 % of Chinese, 20 % of Malays and 7% of Tamils approximately. They have their own mother tongues, and they were given English education from primary school all the way up to university. At the moment, the government of Singapore has adopted two-language education system where Chinese learn Mandarin (Standard Chinese), Malays learn Malay and Tamils learn Tamil.

When I became familiar with their peculiar accents, I made many local friends. One day one of the local friends said, "Hey Shintaro, why you have an American accent in your English?" He continued, "What puzzled me most was that your business card prints your name the other way round. I always thought that your family name was Shintaro, and the first name Tominaga. I don't understand why the heck you tampered with your own proper name." This was quite a big blow on me.

Come to think about it, an English teacher taught me in Junior High School when I stared to learn English that I had to change the order of name spelling in English. I never thought that it was strange. It was my own name, and why I had to change its spelling order. I started to think what the identity was for me. Isaac Newton found the law of inertia. I had to recognize that inertia had worked on me so strongly that it took me many years to change the name spelling back to the real Japanese naming style.

It was when I was in London. I lived in New Malden, Surrey where I became friend with an Indian man who had his strong Indian accent in his English. I got used to it while I was in Singapore, so I had no trouble in communication with him. One day he said to me, "Misterr Tominaga, I don't anderrstand why you have an Amerrican accent in yourr English. You said you waru borrn and brrought up in Japan. But you have no Japanese accent in yourr English. Aru you trrying to be Amerrican? Wherre is your purraid (pride) as Japanese, Misterr Tominaga." I could not answer him a word.

Later of the day in my flat (apartment), I thought and thought of an identity of myself thanks to the words of the Indian friend.

                    In front of a flat in New Malden, Surrey.

The first time when I mingled with US Navy men in Sasebo, I was only 19 years old or so, and I was really shocked at many differences compared to Japanese in general. What made me stunned most was their language which I had never come across at schools in Japan. I was a bartender at EM Club within the Navy base.

I had to take orders from sailors who used slang that I could hardly understand. For example, a sailor came to the bar counter, and ordered me his drink, saying, "Hey maaan, what's happening, huh? I wanna fuckin' shot of fuckin' scotch on the rock, maan." I answered, "Excuse me sir, what did you say, ah fuck or something? What does fuck mean, sir? What kind of flavor is it sir?" The soldier said, "Oh common, maan, you're gonna make a fuckin' drink for me. I want that damn scotch on the rock. Got that, huh?".

In the beginning of my job, I had to ask many questions to sailors so that I wouldn't have made any mistake, but I was almost desperate. Not only slang, but also the pronunciations of English by races were also quite different.

While I was in college, I went to library to check up on slang. I had to guess spellings from their pronunciations to find right words in a large English dictionary. This process had greatly helped me with acquiring hearing ability. In a couple of months, I figured out most of their slang, then the conversation with Navy men started to go on smoothly.

Soon after communication with Navy men started to develop well, I realized many differences in two cultures between Japan and the US. I liked American sailors' straight forward attitude, and in fact, I thought it was due to their nature of the job as a navy man, but later I had to admit that it was due to American culture.

Generally speaking they were glib even among strangers whereas Japanese were not particularly so when Japanese got together with strangers. I liked it a lot, and without any special effort, I picked up its habit. This was the beginning of my becoming a weird Japanese among Japanese friends of mine including my parents, brothers, relatives, etc.

Now I am moving past postings on a different blog, which I will close soon, to this blog space.

The following is #1 posting in the different blog.

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Hi, I am Shintaro. I was born and raised in Sasebo, Japan where there was a large US Navy base. It still is there. Nowadays its importance is increasing owing to Korean peninsula's political instability.

Anyway, thanks to its presence, I had exposed to the culture of the US since I was a little boy. As soon as I enrolled in the college in Sasebo where I majored in international economics, I got a job within the US Navy base where I came across lively and carefree Navy sailors, who taught me the US culture as well as Navy slang. In those days Vietnam War was ongoing. Thus, there were many American soldiers walking downtown Sasebo. From the very starting day of my working at the base, I was very busy.

After I graduated from college, I went to Tokyo to work for an international trading house. However, I left the company in two years, because I wanted to use English abroad which I learned from Navy soldiers in Sasebo.

That was the beginning of Shintaro's adventure visiting many countries for almost 15 years. Ever since I settled down in my home country Japan 10 odd years ago, I have been carrying out intercultural business consulting independently.

Well, that's all for now.

Shintaro

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The following article was distributed  some time early this year by Pacific Dreams, Inc. to its newsletter subscribers.  I don't remember the date exactly.  I hope that readers of my blog enjoy reading the following message.

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Effective Presentations to Japanese Business People

The Japanese education system through primary school to university is based on stiff Confucianism or dictatorship, so this puts the teacher in a position that demands a high level of respect from students. There are a couple of ways for students to demonstrate their respect for the teacher. One is that students are required to listen carefully and silently to the teacher's explanations during class, with no interruptions. We do not have an interactive education system in Japan; the teacher has the discretion to conduct classes. Naturally, this molds the attitude of Japanese students into one of passive attention.

This attitude stays rooted in the mind of Japanese people even after they receive higher education in Japan. 

As a result of this, American business people need to realize that Japanese people are normally quiet during presentations made by American business people. Most Japanese do not want to disturb Americans with questions or comments, reflecting their immersion in the Japanese education system.

'Shooting' questions to teachers during lessons is not really encouraged in Japan, because doing so is considered rather rude to the teachers. Presenters fall into a teacher-like role in the Japanese perception; thus Japanese show their respect to American presenters through a silent demeanor. 

Further, Japanese feel awkward and tense if a presenter asks them questions, because in the Japanese education system, students are required to answer any questions from a teacher correctly on the first attempt. If a student can't answer questions properly, the student feels very embarrassed or ashamed. Many students seek to avoid such these awkward moments. Even if an American presenter asks casually if anyone in the audience has additional information, Japanese participants may not respond quickly to such a question, because they want to see how the other audience members react. They don't want to be first to answer and feel conspicuous and pressured. Most Japanese want to create a harmonious atmosphere for presentations, while American presenters expect active and spontaneous responses from Japanese participants.

Therefore, American business people should be advised to not be surprised or shocked by the silent demeanor of Japanese participants at a presentation. Japanese listen carefully and silently according to the Japanese habit of respect. If you want to know whether Japanese are satisfied with the presentation, try finding out after the presentation is over in an amicable atmosphere. Take the initiative and ask for feedback or thoughts, because they are less likely to approach you with these things. Because the presenter is similar to the teacher in the Japanese mind, even constructive criticism or questioning could be seen as a lack of respect in Japan.

-          Shintaro Tominaga