Even though I’ve been working in Japan for a while now, I still don’t understand the work humiliation culture. I am not talking about omotenashi or full on power harassment here, which I know is either being somewhat dealt with, or very much a part of Japanese culture. I am just curious about the oddities that don’t seem to be part of Japanese culture, but people still do daily:
– Managers giving vague feedback to their employees to “make them think for themselves” only to be disappointed when their result is not exactly what they wanted.
– People never praising good work but only giving remarks on errors.
– Employees never saying no, but instead take the humiliation of failure when it ultimately happens.
I’ve experienced more or less of these behavior in all Japanese workplaces I’ve seen, and they all seem to basically only have negative consequences, not only for the well-being of people, but especially for productivity… Is there a good reason why they are in place, and why they aren’t addressed like power harassment or other workplace issues?
23 comments
One thing I can say, is that I believe you are describing many Asian countries, not just Japan.
I’ve always said working in Japan feels like working on a sinking ship. The entire psychology behind the workplace mentality revolves around the idea that everyone owes the higher ups and that self dignity is to be sacrificed when needed.
I have seen it all, and guess what: the levels of stubbornness is through the roofs as well. What we need is an army of whistle blowers from California.
A lot of managers just do what their own managers did. Companies don’t put much time or effort into training managers. That said, you can luck out and get a great manager. It happens more often these days than it did a few decades ago.
Cannot really add anything here besides you are bang on correct and I don’t often agree with comments I see here on Japanese work culture.
Humiliating and bullying in general are part of the corporate culture here and it’s honestly awful.
Then again there are thousands of companies in Japan I am sure they are not all like that, especially how we have hopes for Japan finally trying to make some changes.
It’s a cultural difference. A reciprocal critique of western work culture might look like…
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* Managers micromanaging their employees, only to gush over their work product like they are 5 year olds helping mommy in the kitchen.
* People always expecting praise for every single little thing that they do.
* Employees always grumbling, not accepting criticism nor admitting mistakes.
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Japanese work culture reserves praise more than western work culture. This means that there is less of it, but also means that it is more meaningful when it is given.
Isn’t it one of the fundamental aspects of the Japanese culture? Shame as a deterrent in a collectivist society etc all the way to seppuku and so on?
>Managers giving vague feedback to their employees to “make them think for themselves” only to be disappointed when their result is not exactly what they wanted.
Isn’t it a “give not the fish, teach how to fish ” concept?
The ‘fish’ here is not the product, but to find the ‘correct’ way to do things.
Basically the managers want us to find out how to get things done correctly by ourselves, and in order to do so, we should be able to think of what the managers want in our ~~offerings~~ reports. There’s an art to this, I don’t know how to properly convey it in text, but I kinda get it.
This is not specific to Japan. I have experienced this in other countries too.
It trains your resilience/patience, and sets our mind towards customer service (in this case, our manager is the customer).
Need a thick skin and consider our time to be dispensable, I know.
>People never praising good work but only giving remarks on errors.
We are paid to deliver good work. I don’t need praises, I prefer raises.
Again, not specific to Japan.
>Employees never saying no, but instead take the humiliation of failure when it ultimately happens.
Also, yeah, it’s familiar in my working days. Sometimes manager knows that something is likely going to fail, but they can’t say that. They thus assign the work to someone to take one for the team. Usually the young ones, since the higher-ups can tolerate that the young and inexperienced fail sometimes. Lesser evil I guess.
>Is there a good reason why they are in place, and why they aren’t addressed like power harassment or other workplace issues?
These aren’t severe enough for law-breaking harassment, and there are no viable replacements that can assure better performance yet. The all-praising, spoon-feeding, no pressure culture also has its weaknesses too. So yeah, they stick on the good ol’ method.
Employees are treated like property with a propensity to stray if not consistently whipped back into line.
It’s not. You’re overgeneralizing.
It’s a difficult situation…
But I have experienced some higher ups who patiently guided me when I was confused about something…
How much work (not school) experience do you actually have outside of Japan?
This reads like a laundry list of someone who expected work to be a appendix of school.
I work in a company that more or less doesn’t fit what one would call the average Japanese company, but part of that is likely because the people I work under have experience with working with different countries. Even the head of the company will sit down and answer worker questions directly. We’ve had the chance to confront things going forward on remote work, been able to push to keep remote work how it’s been.
My boss actively praises our translation work and makes copies to show around our department (no one else in our company does that, but she’s straight up my hero for this kind of stuff).
I definitely don’t want this to be a “you’re all just imagining it comment” cause f that. I worked for a terrible place in Kobe teaching for an after school tutoring program and I was an amazing teacher with child psych experience and a masters, and was constantly berated by a boss with a bachelors in business about educational approaches (ugh)
Just wanted to write about this cause I like feeling hopeful about things. There’s good out there. People in Japan who actually learn from their bad experiences and try to make their work environment better for it. I feel so grateful to my boss. She’s constantly pushing against higher ups to give us chances for better and new opportunity that provides actual incentive to us. And the higher ups actual reciprocate and listen because they actually recognize that if they don’t their goal of doing business abroad won’t work. The pay isn’t stellar, but hell I am in a Japanese office job munching on peanuts at my desk and getting free drinks from a vending machine and we all laugh when we’re eating snacks outside of break at the same time like おやつの時間になったなー
Moral of the story: Fight the good fight and get to a place where you’re munching on snacks at your desk and not giving a shit. Feel good. Feel you. Feel your coworkers. And fuck humiliation
Humiliation is social currency in corporate culture the world over. What you are seeing is the way the Japanese ceremonialize and liberally distribute it.
In America it’s more like, some people get way too much of it, and some people get way too little, but then at some point they decide to lay everybody off.
Because ESG, protecting minorities etc and modern/western practice of stopping workplace bullying is less prevalent in Asia, especially Japan, because they’re inward looking (ie they haven’t picked up modern practices). Look at smoking. Who does that in the west in corporate. But Japanese still doing it like 1980s bubble era. Even Chinese have modernised and are more health conscious. Going to a kyabakura or ktv or whatever is so normal too. Imagine trying to do that in say Aus or Canada, you’d be front page news and lose your job and be unhirable
At Rakuten they used to force people who forgot to lock their desk at work to bow and apologize before the CEO at the company wide asakai. They eventually stopped the practice likely in no small part due to the revulsion from the foreign staff.
I’ve only worked professionally in Japan my whole life.
Yes Japanese companies typically are unproductive and toxic.
However I’m not sure if that’s a Japanese thing or a human thing. (I have nothing to compare it with)
I mean when you put a group of people together all trying to survive for themselves in any given role in any type of organization you get toxicity as a result every time.
And everything becomes unproductive.
Ex. How many “meetings” have you attended that could have been easily handled with a 5 minute email?
People just want to hear themselves talk. And people want respect from others if they are in positions of power regardless if they are good at their job or not.
I left the corporate culture maybe 3 or so years ago and have my own business and I work every day but I only “work work” like 3 days a week or so?
And I make more money now than I ever have in my life working in a corporate environment.
When I was a middle manager in a major corporation, it was seriously the most stressful position to be in.
And I don’t recommend it.
It starts from school where school kids are treated with more guidance but also more punishment. The relationship between subordinate and those in power is “supposed” to be close, so that mind reading is to be expected.
Family relationships used to be more about fulfilling duties than becoming an independent person. So it doesn’t help anywhere, at home or work, for those in lower hierarchies. It takes a lot of learning for many to learn to adequately fight back against humiliation. These days people fight back better because they don’t have to do it alone. Labor laws generally have their backs to prevent extreme abuse.
On a deeper cultural level the lack of monotheism implicitly means anyone can seize power to some degree. If you are not in a position of power, there’s no other ultimatum beyond the ruling class i.e. your boss. You can have a sense of mission by operating in close knitted groups.
As for why humiliation isn’t addressed like power harassment. Most people shove it off and try not to take it too personally. They think escalating things means more unrewarding work.
What you are describing is a kind of cross-cultural difference related to workplace behavior and what you are experiencing is a kind of culture-shock.
I am a professor of intercultural studies and I teach an entire semester long course where we look at some of the specific behaviors that you are describing, analyze them from a ‘deep culture’ perspective, and then contrast them to anglophone cultures.
I can’t condense the entire course into a reddit post, but I will recommend two books that will give you a basic, non-academic introduction to the topics. While these are not Japan specific, I think you will recognize the behaviors that you have identified and understand why they seem so different than what you are used to.
[Exploring Culture: Exercises, Stories and Synthetic Cultures](https://amzn.asia/d/eSP2sFe), (2002) Hofstede, Pedersen & Hofstede.
In this book pay close attention to [power-distance index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_distance) as most of the behaviors you are describing can be explained by it.
[The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures](https://amzn.asia/d/1pN403Z), (2016), Meyer.
In this book pay close attention to chapter four which discusses leadership, hierarchy and power.
I am biased because it is my field, but most sojourners, expats, immigrants (whatever word you want to use) benefit highly from taking the time and learning about intercultural studies. I highly recommend the Hofstede book. Almost everyone that I have recommended that book to (who actually took the time to read it and think about it) tell me that it was a game changer for them. They suddenly understood what some of the issues are with their boss, their coworkers, their neighbors, the clerk at the convenience store, and even their spouses. They tell me that they finally could make sense of why many Japanese people behave the way that they do and why they were so frustrated by them. Most people tell me that they were able to de-stress a lot of their relationships and finally come to terms with what it means to live in a country that isn’t their own.
In Japan if you are in conflict with someone at a higher level, even if the face of clear evidence, things tend to be settled based on hierarchy or seniority or based on loyalty. This can be terrible if the wrong people have seniority or are higher up in the hierarchy. This can be very efficient if the right people are.
A middle manager’s job (in many cases) is not so much to invent the wheel as it is to implement his or her superior’s strategy (whether efficient or not). For that he does not need independently thinkers, but blind followers.
as for the first point, that’s probably a result of japanese being a “high context” language. they expect others to read the room or get the hint or whatever. coupled with 曖昧 there’s a lot of subtle nuance that is used to dance around negative topics. (this would also touch on your last point as directly saying no is considered negative.) it really is frustrating when they don’t understand how it can be difficult even for native japanese, let alone someone who didn’t grow up around it.
from what i understand about the all critique and no praise approach, there’s a deep disdain for pride, so inflating someone’s ego even a little is often avoided (and in personal experience i feel like they really double down on that belief with foreigners because so many other cultures are more accepting or lenient with pride to an extent so i guess they think we’ll really go overboard). one thing that helps me to take criticism in stride is that i was told it’s kind of a backwards approach to “helping” – meaning they want you to improve because you’re already doing well, and if they don’t correct you it means they’ve given up on you and could care less if you fail.
of course it’s all case by case and some people could just be assholes and/or have ill intentions, but hoping it’s just a cultural difference and remembering these points of view does tend to make it a little more tolerable…
I think it’s one of those things everyone knows is kinda bad but nobody does anything because challenging the status quo would be even worse.
OMG this thread is very timely, if you guys hated Japanese managers within your company, you might wanna curse Japanese stakeholders (client-side) who do nothing but complain and delay the project. You gotta wish them to go to hell.
And these Japanese stakeholders won’t care whether you are in Scrum team or have a deadline that was even discussed before the project started. They won’t care whether the developers have to rework because of fickle minds. Adjusting to them and translating every emails and having interpreter in meetings wont satisfy them, instead they will always delay the decision you’ve been following up for more than 2 weeks and then change their minds whenever they like. Despite of that, they will play victims as if they are not understanding anything and as if they dont have any support, despite all the efforts of being flexible to them and even having a Native Japanese person as interpreter joining the meetings. And during the meeting, they will even make side comments to each other and to the interpreter mocking my Japanese and blaming everything to my team, as if I don’t understand what they are saying. How professional is it to do in the meetings?!? All assistance are being given to them, imagine, in the project they are being joined by 2 other countries (offshore) in which one country (our main client) is their new holding company (Japanese stakeholder’s company have been acquired), basically majority speak in English, and majority are adjusting to their demands but all they do is to complain, play victim and humiliate people who are just trying hard to bridge them.
Rant over
「もうちょっと考えてみたら？」
The most useless management phrase. Why the fuck do you think I’m asking? They don’t even give a hint or slight nudge in the right direction, just “think more about it”. Oh I get it, you don’t know either but couldn’t possibly admit it in front of someone below you.
God I don’t miss having a Japanese manager in the slightest, they were all a pain in the ass and incompetent.