Business as per usual...

 Hello G'Day welcome to this instructional post on how to conduct business in Japan. 

Well more like how to behave in professional settings.

OK, so as you might imagine the business culture is waaaay different than what we are used to. Meaning that people behave and treat company setting with a certain degree of reverence and personal importance. 

Back in the days, Japanese were connected by family ties forming clans. The home (ie) was everything to them. They would not do things that could put their name in a bad light and would take great pride in their honor. 

The times are changing, so there is no shogun nor samurai that you should bend you knee to, naturally corporations took their place. The company is your home, and people within it are your family now. 

We Europeans draw a definite and clearly visible line between work and private life. It is not uncommon to put on masks during the work hours, just to rip it off as soon as we get home. Sort of a double life. 

However, here people tend to value work on the same level as their private life. They often get together to spend some time after their shifts, getting to know each other, playing sports, singing in kareoke and drinking. Not only over hours now this?! That's too much man.

But there are also upsides to it. I am an absolute fan of The Lean Management introduced by Toyota, which values the feedback of the workers, effectively increasing the production efficiency. Imagine a blue-collar worker trying to get their boss to listen to his revolutionary idea. Impossible. Yet, they did it. 

I would say that the truth lays somewhere in between. Business should be conducted by people who are competent to do it, but at the same time the opinions of employees should be considered. 

That's it, see you in the next one.