Japan, Meetings, Confirmation - understand-culture

Board Meetings with Many Women

On February 3, 2021, Mori Yoshirō, president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, spoke at an extraordinary meeting of the councillors of the Japanese Olympic Committee. He said: Josei ga takusan haitte iru rijikai wa jikan ga kakarimasu. “Board meetings with many women take a long time.” He also said: Minna wakimaete orarete. “They all know their place.”

The next day, he withdrew the remarks and apologized at a press conference. The remarks were criticized as contempt for women. On February 12, at a joint meeting of the committee’s councillors and directors, he announced that he would resign.

Matching the Beat

Uchiawase (打ち合わせ): a meeting to discuss something in advance. A page of Ritsumeikan University on gagaku, the old court music, explains that the word comes from this music. At certain points in a piece, the wind players start in time with the drums and other instruments. From this, the word came to mean consulting and discussing beforehand.

Closing Clap

Tejime (手締め): a closing clap. The JapanKnowledge dictionary site defines it as many people clapping in rhythm, with a shout, to celebrate that a matter has been settled or achieved. It is also called teuchi. Repeated three times, the clap becomes sanbon jime, which many places treat as the formal version.

Nemawashi in the Right Order

A Japanese HR dictionary explains nemawashi with an example. An employee who takes a matter first to the company president, not to the direct superior, is sent back to discuss it with the superior. The superior may feel that his position was ignored, and approval can become harder.

For a meeting with many participants, the dictionary advises informing those concerned beforehand. The decision then goes smoothly.

The Imperial Conference

The gozen kaigi was the conference of government and military leaders held in the presence of the emperor. A Japanese encyclopedia says that its deliberation merely endorsed proposals already decided by the liaison conference of government and military and by the cabinet.

By custom, the emperor only listened to the proceedings. Apart from questions, he did not speak.

Questions Sent Ahead

Before a Diet committee session, members send their questions to the ministries. This is called shitsumon tsūkoku, question notice. Officials then write the minister’s answers. In a 2025 survey by the Cabinet Personnel Bureau, half of the questions arrived two days or more before the session. Nearly all the rest arrived by 6 p.m. the day before.

On average, officials could start writing at 6:32 p.m. and finished the answers at 1:48 a.m.

Shanshan Meetings

A shanshan sōkai is a shareholders’ meeting that ends in a short time, with no real discussion and no questions.

A Japanese legal journal writes that shareholders’ meetings were once called shanshan meetings, and that obtaining a valid resolution, free of defects, in a short time was considered desirable. A money magazine adds that at the time, a shanshan meeting was considered a good shareholders’ meeting.

Prior Review by the Party

Before the Japanese cabinet approves a government bill, the bill is first approved inside the governing Liberal Democratic Party. This is the jizen shinsa-sei, the prior review system.

The usual view dates it to a letter of 1962 from Akagi Munenori, chairman of the party’s General Council, to Chief Cabinet Secretary Ōhira Masayoshi. One study argues that it began in 1955, when the party was founded and approval by its Policy Research Council became a condition for a cabinet decision on a bill.

The Vice-Ministers’ Meeting

Until 2009, the top civil servants of the ministries, the administrative vice-ministers, met on the day before each cabinet meeting, normally twice a week. They met to settle the items for the cabinet, such as bills, cabinet orders and appointments.

On September 17, 2009, the day after the Democratic Party of Japan government took office, the meeting held its last session, to confirm its own abolition. In 2012, the Abe cabinet renamed an existing liaison meeting of the ministries the Vice-Ministers’ Liaison Meeting.

The Managing Directors’ Meeting

Many large Japanese companies have a jōmukai, a meeting of the managing directors. Unlike the board of directors and the shareholders’ meeting, it is not required by law.

Japanese encyclopedias describe it as the place where matters that the board will formally decide are discussed in substance. There, nearly all important management decisions are made.