The simplest explanation is most likely the right one. Occam’s Razor holds true not just for science but for international business as well—even in Japan.
At a recent CEO forum of mostly non-Japanese and ex-pat business leaders in Tokyo, an American CEO wanted advice from peers in the room on overcoming the challenges of putative business cultural differences between the Japanese and the rest of the world. He explained that a prospective customer had told one of his company’s account managers that any business the two companies ultimately did together would have to pass through a third company supplier whose role appeared to be limited to taking a margin on the transaction. When the sales manager asked why the two companies could not do business together directly, the customer laconically responded, “Policy.”
The American CEO assumed that such irrational business behavior must have something to do with Japanese culture as if such irrational business arrangements did not exist outside Japan. Let me assure you in case you are unaware. They do.
Japan has no monopoly on irrational business practices.
Yet, it surprised me that the CEO’s first impulse was to seek the cause in a murky concept of “Japanese business culture,” as if there was a monolithic business culture in Japan, when the most likely cause is clear.
The account manager was negotiating business with a gatekeeper—someone without independent buying authority. Gatekeepers are empowered only to say ‘no’ and not ‘yes.’ They cannot override bureaucratic policies that make no sense, are often loathe even to ask. This is true worldwide.
Negotiating business only with those who have independent authority to buy is an ironclad principle of sales worldwide, even in Japan. The most successful salespeople in Japan and everywhere else know how to reach such buyers. After all, reaching and negotiating business with the right person is the essence of sales work, in Japan and everywhere else.
The American CEO’s problem is not one of Japanese business culture but rather the selling process and capabilities of his salesforce. Since culture is a collection of common behaviors driven by common beliefs, you could even say the the CEO’s problem is now with Japanese business culture, but rather the culture within his own sales organization.
“Why are your account managers negotiating business with gatekeepers?” I asked the CEO. “Fix that first and see what happens. I suspect you will get better business results,” I advised.
Blaming business problems on a country’s culture is a fool’s errand. Many so-called business experts blamed a rotten “Japanese corporate culture” as the culprit after a serious corporate fraud scandal at Kobe Steel some years back, unfairly impugning the entire nation’s businesses and the people who lead and run them. I argued that there is nothing inherently nefarious in Japanese corporate culture. After all, the vast majority of Japanese business people don’t commit fraud.
Around the same time, non-Japanese companies like Volkswagen in Germany and Wells Fargo in the United States had corporate fraud scandals of similar magnitude, and no one claimed that there must be something wrong with German, American, or Western corporate cultures.
Countries don’t make corporate culture. Leaders do or otherwise allow a malignant corporate culture to grow through neglect. Kobe Steel’s, Volkswagen’s, and Wells Fargo’s corporate cultures likely had some serious problems—most likely, leadership problems.
A European CEO leading the Japan subsidiary of a major European global business asked me why there is such a mystique surrounding business culture in Japan. He asked me how to sort the truth from the chaff in Japan.
“Apply ‘Occam’s Razor’ first whenever observing behavior that surprises you,” I advised. The simplest explanation is likely the right one.
From the CEO forum example above, which seems the more likely? The account manager is negotiating with a gatekeeper, or there is some unfathomable, murky aspect of Japanese business culture at work?
Was there a problem with Kobe Steel’s corporate culture, which the company’s leaders had cultivated either deliberately or through negligence, or some insidious cultural disease had infected corporate body of the whole of Japan?
You tell me.
Should you find a corporate culture in the business or organization you lead, stop looking for nefarious forces outside your control. Look inward first. Look for the obvious—behaviors, motivations, beliefs, and self-interest. Look at what you can influence, change, and control.
Then look toward yourself. If you are a leader of an organization, no matter how large or small, the greatest determinants of your corporate culture lie with you.
Corporate culture is yours to make how you want, no matter the country, otherwise allow to be made for you through neglect. The choice is yours.
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