Japan, Problem-Solving - understand-culture

Continue the Seawater

On March 12, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was injecting seawater to cool a reactor. Tokyo Electric Power’s headquarters wanted the injection stopped. The plant manager, Yoshida Masao, quietly told the staff in charge to keep injecting.

Accounts of his words differ. In one, reported by Gendai Business, he said: Chūshi meirei wa suru keredomo, zettai ni chūshi shite wa dame da. I will give the order to stop, but under no circumstances stop. In the video conference with headquarters, he reported that the injection was being interrupted. It continued.

In May 2011, Tokyo Electric Power first announced that the injection had been interrupted for 55 minutes. On May 26, it corrected itself. The injection had never stopped.

Reviewing the Game Together

In professional shogi, the two players usually examine the game together after it ends. This review is called kansōsen, the battle of impressions. Winner and loser both take part.

Scolding in Private

Japanese management advice repeats one rule for scolding: not in front of others. An article in President Online says that scolding is basically one-on-one. A career guide by Mynavi Agent says that being scolded in front of others hurts a person’s pride, even when there is a reason for it, and suggests a private room where voices do not carry.

The Yamato’s Last Sortie

After American forces landed on Okinawa on April 1, 1945, the Japanese navy sent the battleship Yamato on a special attack operation to Okinawa. Rear Admiral Kami Shigetoku proposed it. The commander of the Combined Fleet, Toyoda Soemu, approved it. The vice chief of the Naval General Staff agreed, and the Chief of the Naval General Staff, Oikawa Koshirō, gave tacit consent. Itō Seiichi, who commanded the Second Fleet, strongly opposed it. In the end, he accepted it.

In “Kūki” no kenkyū (A Study of “Air”), the critic Yamamoto Shichihei used the sortie as his example. Everyone who called it reckless, he wrote, had detailed data and clear grounds. The force that made the final decision, and left no other choice, was the kūki, the air, and nothing else.

Bad News Fast

In December 2023, Toyota chairman Toyoda Akio spoke about the certification scandal at Daihatsu. He said it came down to how employees are treated every day, and used an English phrase: “There is the phrase Bad News Fast.”

He then described what often happens to it in practice: “People are told, bring me the bad news. I was told that too, long ago. When I actually brought it, I was scolded.”

Interim Report

A Japanese training company’s guide to raising new employees divides reports into two kinds. The shūryō hōkoku, the final report, is required when a task is done. The chūkan hōkoku, the interim report, is made while the work is still in progress, to share how far it has gone or to confirm the method.

The guide says that the interim report lets the person who assigned the work see that it is moving. It can also stop a new employee who is heading in the wrong direction.

Kyoto Compliments

Okosan, piano jōzu ni naraharimashita nā (お子さん、ピアノ上手にならはりましたなぁ): your child has become good at the piano. In Kyoto, this is said to be a neighbor’s way of asking for the playing to stop.

Hiroi ouchi de sodachihatta n ya nē (広いお家で育ちはったんやねぇ): you must have grown up in a big house. Said to mean that a voice is too loud.

The news site J-CAST gave both examples in 2025.

Jishuken

Jishuken, the voluntary study group on the Toyota Production System, began inside Toyota. Managers from manufacturing, production control and production engineering found problems on the shop floor in a single day, pointed them out to the supervisors, and then worked with the floor every week on improvements.

Because the results were large, the activity spread to suppliers. Today it is mainly joint study among suppliers.

Go and See

Genchi genbutsu means the actual place and the actual thing. A Japanese university bulletin says that a deep understanding of a situation requires looking directly at the facts on the front line, in the spirit of genchi genbutsu.

The same bulletin tells a story about Ohno Taiichi of Toyota from his years as a plant manager. He was famous for carrying chalk in his pocket. When a machine did not perform as expected, he drew a circle on the floor with it and gave an order: Soko ni tatte mite ore. “Stand there and watch.”

The Vocabulary of Seeing for Oneself

Sangen shugi (三現主義): the principle of the three actuals. Genba, the actual place. Genbutsu, the actual thing. Genjitsu, the actual facts. Problems are solved by observing the thing at the place, not at a desk.

Hyakubun wa ikken ni shikazu (百聞は一見に如かず): a hundred hearings are not worth one seeing. Seeing something once with one’s own eyes teaches more than hearing about it many times.

Tatami no ue no suiren (畳の上の水練): swimming practice on the tatami. Practice that is all theory and of no real use.