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| The Cover of The Japanese Negotiator |
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Buy this book at Amazon.com |
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| The Cover of The Japanese Negotiator |
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Buy this book at Amazon.com |
It is a great pleasure to introduce to you this interesting text exploring the differences in negotiating strategies between Japan and America.
There are several excellent areas covered. This book explores how negotiations work among the Japanese themselves, how contracts and accounts are typically tended to in a unique Japanese fashion, what strategies in negotiating with Japan are doomed to failure, Japanese company attitudes towards contracts, and some exploration of some typical Japanese strategies in negotiations.
This book will, in no way give the would-be international businessman any guarantees of understanding how Japanese businesses work. Experience, armed with active listening and saint-like patience, is the best teacher.
For this writer, although having no experience brokering business deals with any Japanese corporation, I think that this book has a wider application than only the realms of business. When negotiating teaching services, or editing work, or providing assistance of any sort, one must tread carefully and find many of the same principles explored in this book having uncanny parallels.
The Japanese context of knowing who you are talking to, trusting the people you deal with, and having common ground as well as common consequences for inaction, are of paramount significance. Coming into a Japanese context, without having any stability to your own working situation, puts you in an immediate precarious position. Unless you have something guaranteed to be of use or that is dearly needed by Japan, success in your mission, whatever it may be, is dramatically reduced.
The best situations, and the most profitable of circumstances, occur when you have a connection to, and some value to, an existing and stable Japanese entity. It will be out of respect, trust, and perhaps even for fear of disappointing your Japanese "patron" that some serious headway can be made. Playing out these relationships, revealing them in a timely and purposeful way, can only be learned through face-to-face experiences.
The road to negotiating anything and everything with Japan requires some research and some careful strategizing. Robert March has provided an incredibly articulate, and brilliantly organized text born out of many bitter experiences, and tremendously valuable pioneering experiences. Listen carefully to the teacher. This man has a thing or two to teach us all.
But this book is not only useful as a means of negotiating with the Japanese as a tribal unit, this text also can be extremely valuable in teaching us how to better negotiate with one another, regardless of our nationality. I have recognized some of the tactics identified in this book as some of my own modes of negotiating with people when I am in Canada. I did not study this book, nor did I attempt to "Japanify" my own way of discussing issues or problems with other non-Japanese people in the hopes of "tricking them as the 'crafty' Japanese often do". Instead, I think that some of the more positive approaches to discussing issues and differences have seeped into my subconscious as a more "positive" approach to conflict resolution.
Needless to say, the Western approach to negotiation (of any kind) is not the answer to everything. Sometimes different tactics, different tools, are needed to get specific jobs done. Read this book. It may very well equip you to better handle situations that don’t seem to make any headway.
Not only a great book that explores cultural difference and provides a vehicle for cross-cultural understanding. This book is a great resource for anyone who has to negotiate with others, in any business or work environment.
Well written, erudite, and engaging. Highly recommended!
Mark Groenewold
Kanazawa, Japan
January, 2006
This page is copyright © 2006 Mark Groenewold