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Review focus: business relationship, approach, culture, behavior, characteristics, business deals, development of a business relationship
Asian Business Code Words Index NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine
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One of the most important differences between typical Japanese and Western businessmen who are considering a relationship is that Westerners tend to emphasize tangible things - money, technology, products - while Japanese tend to be as concerned, if not more so, about the character and personality of potential foreign partners. Westerners usually go in and begin talking about produces, prices and profits, while the Japanese are generally more interested in the who and why at first, and often give more initial weight to these personal factors than they do to the strictly business side of propositions. Reasons for this significantly different Japanese approach are, of course, bound up in their culture. During most of Japan's long history, their society functioned for the most part on a moral rather than legal foundation. The few laws that existed were decreed by ruling authorities to protect and preserve the system in power - not to empower or preserve the people. The people had no voice in government. The only rights that ordinary people had were severely limited, and depended on the character and whims of those in power. Behavior was meticulously prescribed for all of the social classes, and was primarily designed to maintain order and obedience to authorities. With no body of inherent rights to protect them, the Japanese were forced to rely on a morality based on a mixture of Shinto, Buddhist and Confucian teachings. Rather than legal sanctions, the people depended upon a high level of honesty, integrity, and honor to sustain themselves and their system. Of course, those in power manipulated this morality to buttress their control over society, but by demanding virtually absolute moral conformity, the governments of the shogun and provincial lords played a vital role in conditioning the people to give precedence to personal ethics and character in all things. Making business deals with other people and engaging in ongoing business relationships with other companies was first of all a personal, moral thing - not something based only on objective concepts. Given this situation, it was vital that deals between people, whether business or politics, be based on personal relationships that were carefully and systematically developed in advance, often over an extended time period. This development process included introductions from mutually known connections, face-to-face meetings, eating together, drinking together, exchange of gifts, and so on. It also included careful scrutiny of the other party's background, weaknesses and strengths. In evaluating other people, one of the key ingredients the Japanese looked for is expressed in the word magokoro (mah-go-koe-roe), which is generally translated as "sincerity," but literally mean "true heart." A person with a magokoro is one who exhibits all of the characteristics that have traditionally been attributed to the ideal Japanese - one who meticulously follows the dictates of etiquette, is scrupulously truthful and honest, can be trusted to fulfill all of his obligations, and will make any sacrifice necessary to protect the interests of friends or business partners. When I first went to Japan in the late 1940s, I routinely encountered people whose honesty, integrity and sense of responsibility were astounding. Over the following decades this traditional Japanese trait has weakened substantially, but it is still recognizable and continues to play a vital role in private life as well as as business relationships. Outsiders who are not perceived as having magokoro are unlikely to do well in Japan.
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Boye Lafayette de Mente is one of our regular monthly columnists at the 
| This month's column is excerpted from Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business, by Boye Lafayette De Mente available from NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company |
© Boye Lafayette De Mente & the Asia Pacific Management Forum 2000
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