“Japanese people are indecisive. They don’t make up their mind at any critical moments”. I have heard this from many foreigners. It is often said that Japanese people don’t make their stance clear and don’t insist on their opinion to persuade their thought aggressively to third party.
But actually, in my sense of view, Japanese people’s character and their way of thinking definitely affects their decision in many cases but this has nothing to do with their decisiveness. This problem comes from priority between productiveness and harmoniousness. Japanese people tend to pursue consensus. Japanese people putting weight on emotional connection with others don’t make a compromise of perfect unanimity.
Once something is decided by perfect unaminity, their productivity may be far superior to other advanced countries. As a result, in order to get consensus, Japanese society take measures to gather as many consensus as possible to speed up and improve the productivity. The easiest way to get people’s consensus is to force people to say “yes” regardless of whether they are convinced with it or not.
This is why Japanese people don’t have their opinion to argue. Reading between the lines and following what they were told don’t make them have a bad time. These thoughts have been installed in their deep mind across several generations so far.
This way of thinking is not completely suitable for finding critical problem from arguing and decision all depends on how upper management feels.
Learning those Japanese characteristic background, you know how to play your cards in Japanese society. I will show you some English phrases that Japanese people use, which make you think Japanese people are so indecisive.
Japanese people’s ambiguous answers
Um well…
Um well is really effective to use when you buy time of someone whom you talk to to postpone your decision. You may feel unreliableness from this expression like “Is it alright to leave this thing to him?”.
Consensus is a very important factor for Japanese people to dive the project. Please understand even if you want to leave something to a Japanese guy, a guy you ask for may not have authority to decide something you ask. Consensus is far more prioritized that making decision on the spot no matter how small it is.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
This one is also the answer to escape from making a decision on the spot and drag the decision into postponement. This phrase tells us a guy whom you ask for something confesses your requirement is beyond his authority to make a decision. If you receive this kind of answer from a Japanese guy, you should give him a time for making a consensus with his Boss and his co-worker.
I don’t know
If you ask a Japanese guy something, a Japanese guy answers like “I don’t know”. This way of answering is pretty frank in a bad sense. You may suspect that a Japanese guy is not interested in what you asked him although you ask it seriously. So If you are said like that by a Japanese guy, you need to interrupt “I don’t know” as “I’m not really sure if we can do that.” Do not take every word as you were told because Japanese are not good at expressing what they think about in a good way.
How can you persuade a Japanese guy to decide to do your requirement smoothly>?
If you are worried if your requirements is accepted or not because of the person’s ambiguous answer, you should lead the person to answering the deadline to conclude a decision. Of course, you should consider time for a Japanese guy to discuss your requirement with his boss and other workers involved with the project to get an unanimity.
Concensus first and decision second. Remember this order if you ask someone for something in Japan.
For example, concretely, you are conscious of words in red if you ask someone for something in Japan. You lead him/her to answering your offer as they commit himself/herself what they decide.
I’ll give you a response by 1:00 tomorrow.
I’ll work on that and respond by 6:00 today.
To avoid non-committal answering can be looked as escaping from responsibility. However, in Japanese society putting weight on consensus, simply employees are not given necessary authority to drive the project with their decision.
This kind of way of thinking has been reviewed whether the business goes effectively or productively these days and this tradition tends to be omitted by Japanese tech company and learn more reasonable decision-making to make good results constantly.
However, consensus-decision is deep-rooted matter that most of people believe this is a right way for company’s decision. If you feel this slow decision-making stop you from proceeding with your project, please take one deep breath and think about how you can handle this consensus-decision to make something forward.