Japanese Business Relations and Culture

I just wrapped up a day-long training session with Doug Lipp and some of his associates. The course was all about interacting with our great Japanese co-workers, partners, and customers. Think culture, communications, meetings, expectations, etc. This was by far the best one-day course I have had in a long time. It isn't always easy to keep my attention from 8:30am until 5pm, but he did. OK, I did a little bit of e-mail and posted 2 blogs, but only during a couple of breaks. 

I highly recomend contacting Doug if you want to improve your Japanese <--> American interactions. See https://www.douglipp.com/customer_service_training.html for more information.

Doomo arigato gozaimasu Lipp-san for the great class!

 

By the way, I took this course because we have an MTC in Tokyo (https://www.microsoft.com/services/microsoftservices/mtclocal.mspx#world), which isn't too far from the entertaining Shinjuku area and subway station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku%2C_Tokyo.

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 23, 2004
  I don't want you to give everything away, but could you give an example or 2 of things you learned in this class?
• Anonymous
  September 23, 2004
  Sure Dave (http://blogs.msdn.com/davfries), a couple of things I learned were:
  1. Expect some periods of silence with talking to your Japanese counterparts and don't try to fill that silent space with your own voice - just let the silence last for a few (10 or so) seconds before saying something. This will give the Japanese person time to give you a response. So silence isn't bad.
  2. Apologize, apologize, and apologize more. Saying doomo sumimasen mean's "I'm sorry" and is always a good thing to say when you've made a mistake, made an interruption, or don't understand something.