Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
1–10 of 111 posts
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#2developers from the West see no problem with clearly stating their opposition to a topic and listing the reasons why they oppose it—in many ways, this is seen as good, clear communication. This style can sometimes be jarring to Japanese speakers, who generally prefer to avoid anything that could be taken as blunt or confrontational.
This was buried at the end of the essay, but is one of the most important points.
I worked (not as a developer) in a company that was acquired by a Japanese company. Meetings were structured, and debate was kept to a minimum. If there was disagreement (typically framed as a difference of opinion or conflicting goals) there would be an effort to achieve some sort of balance or harmony. If the boundary was not hard, it was possible to push back. Politely.
Also, if Japanese colleagues expressed frustration, or were confrontational, that was a red flag that some hard boundary had been crossed. This was extremely rare, and replies had to be made in a very careful, respectful way.
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#3Could Project Managers start talking to me like the suggestion in Scenario 1 too please, that's clearly better.
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#4Lush, the bathbombs company, has an internal tech team that builds the apps, website, and point of sale systems. I worked there for a little while on some web-based tooling for payments which involved working with the Japanese team who did the tech for the Japanese site. They were really good. Everything was incredibly clear and easy to understand because they had to put a lot of effort into written comms due to both the language barrier and the time difference. I built a great appreciation for what concise, high quality communication looks like.
It's worth getting a role where you're forced into improving. I'm definitely a better communicator than I was before that job because of it.
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#5I feel that everyone could learn and apply the idea of having clear, concise language without jargon.
I've hear this notion called "international English". English spoken in a way that non-native speakers find relatively easy to understand and follow.
The hard part of this is that non-native speakers will rarely ask for this. It's a gift that you have to give, and a gift you have to encourage others to give. And most of all, it needs to be done in a way so as not to be condescending, by simply being clear.
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#6Could Project Managers start talking to me like the suggestion in Scenario 1 too please, that's clearly better.
Yeah, a lot of these seem to me like just good communication skills. It's just disproportionately helpful for non-native speakers, I guess.
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#7Text is often a lot easier than speech.
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#8I feel that everyone could learn and apply the idea of having clear, concise language without jargon. I've hear this notion called "international English". English spoken in a way that non-native speakers find relatively easy to understand and follow. The hard part of this is that non-native speakers will rarely ask for this. It's a gift that you have to give, and a gift you have to encourage others to give. And most…
[deleted]
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#9developers from the West see no problem with clearly stating their opposition to a topic and listing the reasons why they oppose it—in many ways, this is seen as good, clear communication. This style can sometimes be jarring to Japanese speakers, who generally prefer to avoid anything that could be taken as blunt or confrontational. This was buried at the end of the essay, but is one of the most important points. I w…
From what I understand, it’s not so much that all disagreement is to be avoided entirely, but rather that it should be done on an individual level prior to the meeting. So the fundamental difference is that a western company may use the meeting as an opportunity to discuss and debate an issue, whereas that process is done before the meeting in Japanese corporate culture.
Re: Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
#10[deleted]