Don't be inscrutable. Americans think the Japanese are very formal people and often worry whether they should bow when introducing themselves. The best advice on hitting it offwith the Japanese executive is just to be Americanwithin limits. The Japanese are not enthusiastic handshakers, so don't pump their arms off. Just because their manners are better than ours doesn't mean they lack warmth. Mark Hand, then a lab manager, thought he'd blown his shot at a production-supervisor job at the new Denon Digital Industries compact-disc plant in Madison, Ga.: he took his two-year-old along when he couldn't find a babysitter. The Japanese dandled her on their knees, and Hand got the job.
Mention your 12 kids. Job interviews go to great depth in Japanese companies. That's because they operate on a consensus basis: many executives get to take a look. Besides, the Japanese like to go beyond an applicant's resume and poke into character. "There are a good many things the Japanese would like to know about a person that are not lawful to ask in our culture," says Eric Fossum, vice president of Denon. Like family status. So volunteer the information. The Japanese look on the corporation as a sort of extended family and can be picky about whom they let into the clan. They want to know if a job seeker has the proper group-oriented spirit to fit in. Also be prepared for a detailed inquiry into your professional knowledge. Fred Seitz knew cigarettepacking machinery. Even so, Japanese engineers at the new Canon copier plant in Newport News, Va., took apart a copier and asked him where he would procure nearly every part before recommending him as a purchasing manager.
Shoot for number two. So now you've got the job. The options for mobility are terrific. The chances to learn a new style of management are intriguing. But what about climbing to the top of the corporate ladder? Sorry. It's a rare Japanese subsidiary that, like Pilot Corp., the pen maker, has an American president who reports only to the chairman in Tokyo. More often, the vice presidential level is as far as locals go, frequently in sales and personnel, which need American face men. Finance is almost always a Japanese preserve, as it requires close contact with Tokyo. ''You can work for a company for 20 years and never be part of the inner circle," says Bob Spence, who works for a Japanese developer in Los Angeles.
The problem is that strong Japanese sense of corporation as family-their family. "A position given up to a foreigner is one taken from a member of the tribe," says an American executive with a Japanese trading company in New York. And since Japanese companies work on lifetime employment, there's no rush to promote. At Mitsui, the big trading company, assistants spend 10 years before they become traders. "Not so many American young people are patient enough to stay," says Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.) vice president Yoshitaka Sajima. Japanese executives often swear all this will change: "Someday I hope the CEO of Mitsui U.S.A. will be an American," says Sajima.
Women have it worse. The Japanese know all about the equality that women expect in the American job market. [The 1987] settlement of a sex-discrimination case against the Sumitomo Corp. of America trading company in New York should refresh their memories. Still, "the unwritten rule is that the professional staff is all male," says an American about his trading company. On a gut level, equality is still an acquired taste. In Japan, women often serve tea at the office. Hiroki Kato, associate professor of Japanese at Northwestern University and a consultant to Japanese companies, advises women executives not to offer a Japanese colleague a friendly cup of coffee-he might mistake you for one of the unassertive ladies from home.
Curb your yen for raises. When you ask for a raise, remember three reasons why your Japanese boss may hate you. One, you probably already earn more than he does; Japanese executive salaries are on a lower sale than American. Two, he can never ask for a raise because seniority alone determines his salary. Three, if you mention you could earn more elsewhere, you play into his worst suspicions that Americans lack loyalty to the company. Japanese executives in big companies have signed up for lifetime employment and American job hopping doesn't sit well.
Meetings, meetings.Details, details. The Japanese are great ones for study. They love detailed reports and long-range plans. They use consensus management, a painstaking system of soliciting opinion from all levels before action. "The decision takes longer, but implementing the program is shorter because people are in support of it," says Dick Brown, vice president of Daihatsu, seller of a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Howard Gottlieb, senior executive with NEC America Inc., a telephone maker in Irving, Texas, describes how it works: "At a morning meeting I'd make my presentation and everybody would nod, and in the afternoon I'd go over it with new people and the next day do the same thing with the general manager." Patience is not high on the list of American virtues. But only patience carries the day in a Japanese company. Help is on the way: increasingly, Japanese managers speed up the system to keep pace with American business.
Learn hand signals. Communication is the biggest problem. Few Americans speak Japanese; those who do say the Japanese can be disconcerted by a foreigner who seems to know them too well. The executives sent to the United States speak English in varying degrees. An engineer at the Stauffer-Meiji plant in York, Pa., calls it the first chocolate-biscuit factory ever built "completely using hand signals." At the Nissin Foods plant nearby in Lancaster, Japanese executives carry dictionaries; one has a sheet of bizarre American phrases such as ''You're in hot water."
Never say never. The Japanese shun confrontation; if you can't keep your cool, perhaps you should work for the Italians. Ira Perlman, vice president at Matsushita Electric Corp. of America, interprets: "A yes is a maybe. A maybe is a no. And no is you better not come back."
Take your eye off the clock. Japanese work long hours. Then they may go out and drink for another shift. You probably can't match them on desk time but it's smart to observe one rule: never leave before the president. Much of the real business of the day will be conducted at the bar-so tag along. As the night goes on, the Japanese turn into real party animals. Remember, even after hours, an American "can be one of the boys, but only up to a point," says Bob Spence.
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