* SPRING 1995 In this issue: Feature Article: Reflecting On Fifty Years Inside JLS: Moving Announcement Insights: Think Twice Before Taking It To Court Kanji Bytes: Japanese DTP Software The Japanese Ministries: Reflecting on Fifty Years BRIDGING THE GAP--BUILDING SOLID BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS AMID CONFLICTING PERCEPTIONS The great gap in distance, culture and language that separates the U.S. and Japan makes relations difficult even in the best of times. During World War II this gap made a bad situation even worse. According to History Professor John Dower of MIT, "America's close cultural ties with Western Europe constrained the degree of viciousness and hatred shown between us and Germany and Italy, but in the conflict with Japan there was a tendency on both sides to view each other as sub-human." Dower contends that this attitude created a climate for a "war without mercy," one which saw a massive surprise attack, atrocities against prisoners of war, intensive bombing of civilian targets-including the only two uses ever of atomic weapons-and the internment of American citizens by their own government. Fifty years after the end of World War II, Japan and the U.S. enjoy a relationship firmly grounded in peace. Few surviving combatants are young enough to be doing business with their former enemies. Yet the mutual scapegoating continues into the present as mass media in both countries try to blow up today's trade frictions into a broader sense of conflict. Racist remarks by politicians in both countries fan the flames from time to time. Such an environment makes it harder for the many people on both sides of the Pacific who are trying to build solid business relationships. Noted Japanese psychoanalyst and social commentator Hayao Kawai has examined the U.S.-Japan relationship from a psychological point of view. According to Kawai, after World War II a defeated Japan looked to the victor America for help and guidance in the way a Japanese typically relates to a superior. Not unlike a child relating to its mother, Japan acted with amae, a term that means an expectation of being taken care of in return for devotion and loyalty. Like the mother-child bond, such a relationship does not change as time passes or as circumstances shift. America uses a more father-oriented view of the world, says Kawai. Based on specific circumstances, America chose to exhibit generosity toward Japan for a certain period of time to help it rebuild and become independent. However, like an American father, it expected Japan to develop American values in the process. These conflicting models coexisted well enough, according to Kawai, until Japan's rise as an economic competitor and the fall of the common Soviet enemy made the parent-child model of the relationship obsolete. Yet old habits persist. Japan does not easily accept America's pressures to reduce Japan's trade surplus and instead feels bullied: what kind of mother makes so many selfish demands? America meanwhile feels that the son it raised is trying to usurp its father's power while refusing to act according to the principles its father taught it. No wonder, says Kawai, that the current U.S.-Japan relationship is stressful, causing some to express tired old hatreds. Yet the economic ties between the two economies continue to grow, and business people must ask: what steps can we take to build the empathy and trust that underlie successful business relations? Consultant Shig Takata counsels Americans that even stereotypes can be a source of help. "We Japanese tend to have a very fixed world view, with widely shared positive and negative preconceptions about all peoples, including Americans. Americans can use these to their advantage, in a way that actually builds rapport." For example, advises Takata, "one positive stereotype is that Americans are very straightforward. However, taken to an extreme they become too blunt and insensitive to people's feelings by our standards. If an American can tone down his spontaneous directness-just slightly-the positive aspects we expect will come across very well, and our negative reactions won't be triggered." Japanese pride themselves on attention to detail, says Takata, and "we typically expect American people and companies to fail to meet our standards in this regard. However, if an American shows us that he understands our requirements and is working very hard to meet them, our level of comfort increases dramatically." The values and behaviors of another culture become less alien when one can adapt some of them for one's own use. John Rehfeld, formerly a senior executive at the U.S. operations of Seiko and Toshiba and now CEO of Etak, offers advice on combining Japanese and American management styles in his book Alchemy of a Leader. For example, Rehfeld found that adding a few American touches to the Japanese process of kaizen, or continuous improvement, significantly increased the results he achieved when implementing the method with American workers. In Japanese-style kaizen, the target is always raised as soon as a goal is met, reflecting a Zen-like pursuit of a state of perfection that can never be reached. This approach frustrates Americans, who, according to Rehfeld, prefer to enjoy the satisfaction of having attained a specific goal before setting out for the next plateau. Rehfeld added rituals that celebrated successes and also praised individual contributors mor than would be done in group-oriented Japan. These slight adjustments made his American workers very comfortable with a powerful competitive tool from Japan. Rehfeld encourages both Americans and Japanese to exercise this type of adaptation, incorporating alien values and styles into more familiar ways and practices. Such efforts increase one's choices when dealing with complex business challenges. It also lowers barriers to mutual empathy and trust, offering a glimpse of a world where World War II is truly left behind. _________________________________________________________________ Recent Developments at Japanese Language Services WE'RE MOVING To accommodate our rapid growth, Japanese Language Services has moved to a new office in the high-tech center of Cambridge, Massachusetts. As of June 19, our contact information is: Address:One Kendall Square Building 200 Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel: 617-577-8000 Fax: 617-577-8011 The following will remain the same: E-mail: info@japanese.com WWW: http://www.japanese.com _________________________________________________________________ Think Twice Before Taking It To Court Shunichi Maeda is President of MC Financial Services Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation. MC Financial Services Ltd. provides advisory services for U.S.-Japan cross border M&A and strategic alliance transactions as a licensed broker-dealer. A graduate of Columbia Business School, Maeda is also a prolific writer and translator. Among his best selling translations are The Chrysler Story: Going for Broke, The MBA Official Handbook, and Trade War. Here, Maeda suggests that Japanese aversion to litigation with American companies has reached a turning point and is now decreasing significantly. There is a general perception outside of Japan that Japanese companies greatly emphasize harmony, or wa, and are therefore hesitant to involve themselves in litigation. Based on this premise, American companies sometimes threaten Japanese firms with legal action to force concessions from them during disputes. It is dangerous, however, for American companies to resort to legal action to force acceptance of unreasonable demands on Japanese companies. Such tactics often result in serious, lasting damage, including the loss of future business opportunities. Japanese companies would never again engage in business with parties which resorted to legal action instead of trying to reach mutual agreement through discussion or negotiation. Many Japanese companies have come to realize that American society is highly litigious, with lawsuits sometimes filed based on frivolous claims or simply for greed. By and large, Japanese companies are sensitive to being good corporate citizens and doing the right thing. In the face of legal pressure, the Japanese have a tendency to lean toward philosophical considerations. From a moral point of view, Japanese companies are willing to stand up to a perceived wrong even if settlement might seem more practical. This stance is exemplified in the Japanese proverb "A mouse chased into a corner will bite the attacking cat." Although in general Japanese companies are not litigious, if provoked and cornered, they will employ every legitimate mean at their disposal to fight back in order to preserve pride and face, regardless of cost. They will not hesitate to engage top caliber professionals to defend their case, often ironically hiring top-notch American lawyers. The time has come for American companies to discard the belief that Japanese firms are afraid of becoming targets of litigation. Such tactics won't work. KANJI BYTES For power users seeking Japanese desktop publishing capabilities, here are some of the solutions that Japanese Language Services finds useful. Adobe Pagemaker was one of the first Japanese desktop publishing programs available. The current Japanese version is 5.0 for Macintosh and 4.0 for Windows. Typical prices in the U.S. run around $1000.00. QuarkXpress is now at version 3.3 in the Japanese version. This version allows users to open English Quark 3.3 files and modify them in Japanese, which was not possible in earlier Japanese versions of Quark. It is available for the Macintosh at around $1800; the Power Mac version runs about $100 more. More powerful UNIX-based applications are also available. The Japanese version of Interleaf 5.0 enables users to open any document created in English Interleaf, and modify it in Japanese, without losing graphics or other elements. FrameMaker's popular system is also available in Japanese for a variety of UNIX flavors. Prices for these products generally run from $4-6000. The English version of FrameMaker for the Mac will support certain Japanese functions when run in a Japanese environment. Remember, these applications require Japanese operating systems to run on your computers, as well as a significant investment in hardware if you need to print out the results of your work. Contact Information: Qualitas Trading Co. (Mac and Windows): 510-848-8080 Interleaf: 617-290-0710 Frame Technologies: 408-975-6000 _________________________________________________________________ MITI AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE MINISTRY OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INDUSTRY The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was established in May 1949, with the mandate to formulate policies and regulations that promote the development of Japan's economy and industry. MITI's many areas of responsibility include consumer goods, machinery, and information industries, as well as international trade policy, promotion of high technology, environmental protection policy, and energy resource management. Shuichi Wada, Deputy Director of Foreign Exchange and Trade Finance at MITI, points out that the Ministry is currently at a cross-roads. "MITI traditionally had a 'superstar' mentality toward the Japanese economy-targeting specific industries to drive it." Accordingly, since the 1960s MITI has regularly issued reports on its decade-long economic outlook. Initially the focus was on promoting heavy and chemical industries. In the 1970s MITI targeted knowledge-intensive industries. The 1980s featured a push for energy security and for harnessing creativity in such knowledge-intensive industries. "However," Wada explains, "it is unclear which industry to focus on now. Many people talk of multimedia as the paramount concern for building the future economy. Exactly what multimedia entails is a hazy area of dispute. In addition, as various ministries argue over jurisdiction of this area, the opportunity for building a regulatory infrastructure has also been stalled." Wada states that at present MITI's main responsibility is to improve the standard of living in Japan by building an environment which promotes overall growth. He sees deregulation and other market-opening measures as the ways to meet this challenge. "Even deregulation must be carried out with caution, though," he warns. "Up to now Japan's unemployment rate has been minimal, and we need to ensure that deregulation progresses without engendering massive unemployment and other serious problems." MITI Contact Information MITI's Address: 1-3-1, Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100, Japan Tel. 81-3-3501-1511 E-mail: webmail@miti.go.jp World Wide Web: http://www.miti.go.jp/ Key Contacts Minister: Mr. Ryutaro Hashimoto Dir. Gen. of Int'l Trade Admin. Bureau: Mr. Katsusada Hirose Commissioner of Patent Office: Mr. Akira Takashima Int'l Business Affairs Division (inquiries regarding direct investment) Tel. 81-3-3501-6623 International Trade, Standards Information Center668 Import Division Tel. 81-3-3501-1659 Patent Office, International Affairs Division Tel. 81-3-3581-1898 JETRO Tel. 81-3-3582-5511 Tel. 212-997-0432 (New York) For more information, consult the MITI Handbook , available from Sasuga Bookstore (Tel. 617-497-5460). _________________________________________________________________ JAPAN INSIDER Copyright 1995 Japanese Language Services, Inc. All rights reserved. PUBLISHER: Carl Kay EDITOR: Tom Shapiro Contributing Editor: Laura Silverman JAPAN INSIDER Japanese Language Services, Inc. One Kendall Square, Building 200, Cambridge, MA 02139 Phone: 617-577-8000 Toll-free: 800-USA-JAPAN Fax: 617-577-8011 E-mail: insider@japanese.com World Wide Web: http://www.japanese.com _________________________________________________________________