Deciding the decided

Let me tell you about meetings in Japan. Wait, they’re not as boring as you think! Actually, like everywhere else, they generally are, but they’re different in a rather interesting way.

My view as a Westerner is that a meeting is where a bunch of people pile into a room, hear about something someone wants to do, then shout a lot at each other until someone gets bored and the other person gets their way.

That’s not how it works in Japan.

Photo: how meetings do not work in Japan

In Japan, there’s a system known as nemawashi. Nemawashi is a decision-making process discreetly carried out before the decision-making meeting itself. The meeting largely just approves what’s already been decided upon.

The person suggesting a new idea quietly works their way up the seniority tree, ensuring that everyone understands and will comply with the proposal before anyone steps foot in a meeting room. Even though everyone knows what the meeting outcome will be, during the meeting all the appropriate questions get asked, and all the correct and already-known answers are supplied. With the ritual complete, the decision can be approved.

So, why have the meeting at all? Well, the decision makers still need to be formally presented with the idea, and everyone needs to be on board. Having unexpected and severe opposition to an idea in the meeting itself would destroy the wa (harmony). Rejected ideas can be quietly discarded as they find resistance during the nemawashi process with no loss of face.

I’ve seen nemawashi first hand, too. In a large teleconference, there was the opportunity to ask questions. Phone muted, one of the junior staff members declared “I’m going to ask them if we can do x”. No sooner than he had pressed the unmute button, his superior snapped his hand out to mute the call again. He hissed “You want to ask about x!? We haven’t even discussed x with them yet! You’re forgetting nemawashi!”.

This makes decision making a fairly slow, but harmonious process. I make it sound like there’s a black and white divide between Western and Japanese meetings, but naturally, that’s not true. There are Japanese meetings that exchange untested ideas and are a bit lively.  Likewise, I’m sure you’ve sought out people’s opinions before a meeting, making sure your thinking is straight before you presented it to a larger audience. Now you’ve just got a word for it – nemawashi.

discreetly

The only word of French they knew was petite

Hmm, not much around the hotel in Nara for breakfast – might duck into the cheap-but-filling family restaurant next door (Japanese: fami-resu) to get some grub (Japanese: food).

Hmm, this french toast looks okay – it seems like a nice serving size , but is suspiciously cheap:

And then:

Very sneaky, graphic designer and photographer.  Apparently, I mistranslated the bit which said: “French Toast (scale: 1:2)”.  If I had known I was ordering a hobby kit rather than breakfast, I would have brought along my PVA glue.

1000 Bar Mitzvahs

My little brother (who’s taller than me) was in town a while back, so we decided to go out and find some tradition outside of the neon jungle of Tokyo.  We settled on Nara, which is a forty minute train ride from Kyoto.  Nara is like Kyoto, focusing on history, but is a little more low-key and very slightly less touristy than its bigger neighbour.

What’s amazing is that this year, Nara is celebrating their 1300th anniversary, complete with a special commemorative Kirin beer to celebrate (the coloured band along the bottom is the special edition part):

It’s mainly famous for impressive places like this and the ant-like people who visit them:

This is Todai Temple, the largest wooden building in the world.  It’s difficult to fathom the scale when you’re standing in front of it. It’s build to house this massive statue of the Buddha, one of the biggest in Japan:

How’s this for some history?  The temple was built in 752 AD.  In 855, the Buddha’s head fell off after an earthquake.  Shortly after they fixed it, the whole building was burned down in a war.  Then they rebuilt it.  Then it got burned down again in another war in 1180.  They they rebuilt it.  Then in 1567, it got burned out in another war.  Then they rebuilt it.  In 1610 it collapsed in gale-force winds.  Since 1709, the current building has endured.

For a life of 1258 years, I guess that’s a pretty good track record, but I can’t help but think of another famous building: