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Possible solutions to make Japanese people speak up more at work.

Overcoming shyness and hesitation to speak up

・ If people are not comfortable to voice their opinions in a meeting, writing them down may be easier for them to start with. Instead of Brainstorming, we could have Brainwriting.

・ Also, people could do more “Chatting” at an online meeting and write up their opinions if it is more comfortable than speaking up.

・ Also, a self-shot video message could be a good way to convey one’s message especially for those who are not comfortable to speak up in front of others. It is probably easier to express one’s opinion to a smartphone than expressing them in person in a meeting.

Importance of facilitation to invite the Japanese to speak up

・ It is important to have a good facilitator who could facilitate, summarize and conclude the discussion. One of the important roles of the facilitator with the Japanese participants is to invite them to speak up.

・ Unlike Westerners who are good at jumping in to voice their opinions, many Japanese don’t speak up until they are invited to do so. Therefore, it is critically important for the facilitator and the boss to encourage everyone to speak up by asking for opinions and giving guidance and feedback.

・ In case of a global meeting in English, the facilitator should show extra care to the pause the Japanese participants may have while they are thinking or speaking. It is a pause the Japanese often use to formulate the opinion. Westerners tend to cut in where there is a pause. So the facilitator should ensure that the input from the Japanese participants are fully heard before being cut in.

Overcoming hierarchical mentality

・ Japanese people have so many meetings everyday and they speak up pretty well at those regular meetings as it is mostly about regular reporting and status-update of their own area. Once they are given a clear role to explain about their designated area, they speak up no problem. But when it comes to sharing ideas and opinions, their level of eagerness to speak up dramatically drops.

・ So in a vision/strategic discussion session where free idea flowing is encouraged, if you give the Japanese participants a clear role to voice their opinions in their respective areas almost as an order, the Japanese may feel much more comfortable to speak up their opinions as they now feel they have authority and permission to express their opinions. Giving them authority and permission to speak up their mind is very important to overcome hierarchical mentality in Japan.

・ We could also create a group of young/junior people as an advisory council and officially give them the authority to come up with innovative ideas and to report directly to the top management.

・ Another method to overcome hierarchy is to let the boss leave the meeting and let the subordinates come up with the idea. The boss returns to the meeting only when the final proposal is ready. The last thing the boss should do is to voice his/her opinion at first. If we want to get input from everybody, the boss should be the last person to speak after all the ideas were put on the table.

Importance of more forums where people can freely express their opinions

・ There are so many meetings in Japanese companies but many of them are formal and regular status update meetings. It is very difficult for many Japanese people to feel like freely expressing their opinions at those formal meetings. There should be more idea-generation sessions, 1:1 check-ins, and off-site team buildings etc. where people can feel much more relaxed and safe to speak up.

・ Even whispering and chit-chatting among a few colleagues could be a good start to express one’s opinion. The Japanese should start voicing their opinions wherever they can and then gradually they will be able to do the same in a bigger meeting as well.

Mindset and Capability

・ There are still many Japanese who think it is ok, even safer, to stay silent at the meeting and just focusing on listening and taking notes. There should be a clear message coming from the top that remaining silent in a meeting means no contribution from that person and therefore the person may no longer be invited to the same meeting. Psychological safety is important but the spoiled mindset of getting a free ride is a problem. More professional attitude should be implemented company-wide.

・ Some people simply don’t know how to organize their thoughts and express their opinions effectively because they have not done it at work for many years. The lack of capability leads to the lack of confidence. Companies should identify those people and provide them with some impactful trainings.

・ In a global meeting in English, sometimes the Japanese people don’t know what to say in English to jump in, to question, to agree or disagree, to handle criticism and to make a proposal etc. As they don’t know the smooth English terms to do these things, they often end up remaining silent, missing the chance to provide their input. For English meetings, some kind of English manual may be helpful so that the Japanese can look at it during the meeting and smoothly join the discussion.