Most foreigners expect that in a meeting things move on...  ERIK FAMAEY
SENIOR REGIONAL MANAGER ASIA
ING FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS You are one of the ETP graduates who are still active in the Japanese and Asian market. Your knowledge of the language has probably been very important. Could you illustrate this? Japan is very difficult to understand and I found that learning the language was a very efficient tool to understand the Japanese way of thinking and doing business. Could you say that the language influenced your efficiency on the market? One could argue that you could use an interpreter who speaks English. The experience is that very often, the Japanese company will bring in somebody who knows how to communicate with the foreigner in a direct way and who gives the impression that there is progress. After all, foreigners expect that in a meeting things move on - they do not have much patience and so the meeting will be conducted according to the expectations of the Western interlocutor, but this does not mean that your business case is making progress. You can be sure that your messages will always be translated in a very Japanese way. So in the end, you will be faced with this miss-match between this communication in English, which is focused on progress and the way in which the messages are translated and processed by the Japanese management. Read More (PDF) | 
