HQ Invariably Gets It Wrong About Japan
 
One of the dubious delights of running an international business in Japan is dealing with the Mother Ship or it’s Regional Hub spin off. Trying to explain Japan to those who don’t know Japan, has always proven tremendously character building for me. Having left the corporate treadmill to work for myself, I mistakenly thought I had kissed goodbye to all that pathetic nonsense. Alas, the long arm of Japan ignorance continues to reach out and challenge me. Today, I live the frustration vicariously through my clients here in Japan, who have to deal with their own version of hell - HQ or Regional Hub know nothings located outside Japan.
 
Joint ventures and partnerships are a fun feast. Japan is low on the detailed contractual side of the equation. The basic idea in Japan is we don’t need reams of lawyer speak, because the venture will be a success or won’t be a success, based on how well we can trust each other and work collaboratively. If it doesn't work out then we should walk away and not bother with courts, litigation, claims and compensation. We need to focus on the bigger picture of success and how to achieve that and so a handshake is all we need.
 
I was reminded of this recently when I was contemplating buying a marketing service from a US based company. They kindly sent over the agreement. Pages of lawyereese, barely penetrable, thick and dense to the point of physical pain wading through it. In Japan, we have very few written agreements with our clients. We agree on the training, deliver as agreed and we receive payment in a timely fashion – all off a handshake. We haven’t encountered any issues after 52 years operating here, but if we do, I am sure we will discuss and agree on a mutually suitable solution.
 
So a typical day in the life of the Japan rep is explaining to HQ why the Japan business is not tracking as expected when the agreement was concluded. In one client’s case, the original expectations proved to be a misalignment of skill sets and targets. The Japanese side had the sales force to cover the market but, it proved, not the expertise to cover it appropriately. Sales were uninspiring, compared to the original business plan expectations.
 
What was the Mother Ship solution? Fly in the Americans from HQ to berate the Japanese side at the board meetings about Japan’s poor sales performance. Shame them into action to sell something. The local representative was encouraged to keep the pressure on by using these same name and shame tactics in the interim between board meetings. The “verbal beatings will continue until morale improves” type of approach. The American HQ led strategy was going down a treat with the local Japanese partners, of course, as the trust and collaboration rapidly disintegrated.
 
Training delivered locally to those selected from within the existing sales force, was the better solution.   This sounds like a logical step, but convincing HQ to do so was painstaking. The HQ view was to send in trainers from the Regional Hub to do the training. Regional Hubs in APAC usually mean Singapore or Hong Kong. Who do they choose to send to Japan? The HR team is the preferred option, which excitingly, usually means a rapid fire, fast talking Chinese team member to come to Japan and conduct the training in English.
 
“Its okay, the team can speak English”, is how HQ types see it whenever the language and cultural issues are flagged locally. That English capability assumption would be extremely optimistic, in my experience. Just as a snarky side note, the people recommending these courses of action are often monolinguals, sometimes not even possessing a passport. Machine gun English combined with an unfamiliar Chinese accent and no cultural sensitivity, is just one of those genius solutions HQ unleashes on the innocent and blameless.
 
Even when native speakers of English are sent in from overseas, they tend to speak too quickly, use too many idioms, confuse with