remains an important ingredient in the Japanese way of managing, especially in larger companies and despite its now obvious shortcomings. There is a slow but gradual movement in corporate Japan to allow individual thinking and initiative, but it is still in its early stages of development and generally is not pervasive enough to significantly change the way one has to deal with companies.
The groupthink concept that continues to prevail in most Japanese companies makes it imperative that virtually all decisions be made by consensus—a factor that dramatically increases the time it takes to reach decisions. The larger the group involved, the longer it can take for consensus to be achieved.
The obvious advantage of shudan ishiki is that once consensus is reached within a section or department, the wholehearted support and effort of the group helps to ensure that the task has a much better chance of being accomplished efficiently and quickly.
However, there is a downside to the groupthink mentality. It is still common for companies, and especially for government agencies, to look at and treat employees as material assets rather than as individuals. Among other things, larger companies and government offices typically switch white-collar workers from one section or department to another every two or three years.
The purpose of this rotation system is to provide employees with experience in all of the key sections and departments so they will have a good overview of the entire operation as they move up in rank and responsibility. On the surface, the system has merit, but in any particular section or department it means that a significant percentage of the members are newcomers with little or no knowledge of the work to be done.
The thinking behind this training method, obviously, is that experienced individuals in each of the sections and departments will train and supervise the newcomers and “carry” them until they learn the ropes.
Foreigners dealing with a Japanese company should be cautious about getting stuck with a section member who is new in the group, is not totally familiar with its work, and may have no clout at all.
The custom of transferring personnel from one job to another without regard for the skills involved—and for putting the newest and greenest personnel out in front to handle walk-in visitors or callers—adds to the amount of time and sometimes the confusion involved in contacting and dealing with firms—and is another reason why it is important to have the name of a responsible person in a company before calling or visiting. By immediately giving the name of the individual you wish to contact, you may be able to avoid getting caught up in the mushy outer wall of the Japanese company.
The effects of groupthink go well beyond regarding the company as a single organism made up of virtually identical parts that are interchangeable. It is also responsible for the way the Japanese structure themselves in groups and act together as teams and factions.
And there is, of course, another positive side to the shudan ishiki syndrome. The ingrained ability of the Japanese to work in groups with extraordinary efficiency is one of their primary economic assets. An analogy I like to use is that the Japanese team behaves like a highly trained military squad, while their foreign counterparts tend to behave like a bunch of weekend warriors.
THE FACTION FACTOR
AN ASPECT of the groupthink syndrome that has a fundamental influence on business in Japan and impacts both directly and indirectly on foreigners dealing with the Japanese is the habatsu (hah-bot-sue) or “factions” the Japanese naturally form when they come together.
Historically, Japan’s vertically structured feudal society was based on lifelong loyalty to individual leaders from the emperor and shogun on down to the local construction boss. Every political leader and his followers, as well as every business boss and his employees, tended to become a faction, or closely knit group, that acted in unison to achieve goals as well as to defend themselves against competitors or predators. The larger the groups, the more likely there would be multiple factions.
This situation prevailed for centuries, making it more or less second nature for Japanese who come together for any purpose to automatically form factions that quickly take on distinguishable characteristics that determine how one must deal with them to get things done. Sections and departments in Japanese companies tend to act like factions, often making it difficult for them to communicate with each other.
The difference between a Japanese “faction” and a foreign team, company section, or department is not structural. It has to do with the relationship between the individual members, their attitude toward the group, and how the group functions. And this, of course, involves a great many other cultural traits, from the strong sanctions to enforce harmony and the diffusion of personal responsibility to decision by consensus.
Japanese factions vary in size and makeup from a section or a department in a company or government agency to affiliations of companies and politicians. The point is that foreigners dealing with a Japanese company should keep in mind that they are dealing with a closely knit group, not with just the leader or boss or any of the individual members.
This means quick, individually made decisions will not be forthcoming, all members of the group have the right to ask questions and express opinions, and, in principle at least, everyone takes part in all final decisions.
The operation of a section or department in a Japanese company is actually much more democratic than one normally finds in Western companies, which is one of the reasons why it is often difficult for foreigners to understand and accept. In dealing with any Japanese group it helps to take the approach that you are dealing with a small, highly democratic, highly defensive, and often very suspicious, country.
Centuries of conditioning in groupthink and in acting in groups instead of as individuals has resulted in the Japanese developing a highly refined ability to communicate with each other with what one might call “herd telepathy”—but in Japan this phenomenon has far more colorful names, including the “art of the belly.”
The strength of the faction system builds upon the groupthink principle in that once a project or course of action is agreed upon—after it has been thoroughly studied and discussed—the whole group works together like a well-trained football team. The weakness of the system is that, again, it is unable to respond quickly, and it tends to pull the caliber of the group well below the level of its most capable members.
USING THE ART OF THE BELLY
NONVERBAL communication and intuition play a significant role in all personal relations in Japan, including all facets of business. This phenomenon is, of course, a direct outgrowth of a highly sophisticated and stylized culture that is over two thousand years old—a culture in which physical etiquette routinely took precedence over all other considerations.
As the centuries passed and the Japanese became more and more homogenized creatures of a monocultural society, packed into a tiny area, living in extended families, and working in consensus-controlled groups, verbal communication became superfluous in many of the common situations of life. To a remarkable degree, everybody thought very much alike, behaved in the same highly controlled manner, and reacted herd-like in virtually all situations.
While this degree of cultural conditioning certainly no longer exists in Japan, enough of it remains in the language, in the common education, and in the common life and work experiences that “communicating without talking” is still ranked high among the characteristic qualities that the Japanese ascribe to themselves.
One area of “Japanese expertise” that plays a key role in business in Japan is known as haragei (hah-rah-gay-e) or “the art of the belly.” This refers to making decisions on the basis
