Quiet Concerns Archives - understand-culture

Decided Before the Meeting

In June 2026, the business site Diamond Online published an article by Sakata Kōki, a partner of the consulting group IGPI. Its title asked why Japanese meetings fail when they start with the conclusion. Kaigi no ba de kimaru yō de ite, jitsu wa kaigi no mae ni kimatte iru. “It looks as if things are decided in the meeting, but in fact they are decided before it.”

Sakata describes the essence of nemawashi as sharing the question in advance, so that everyone concerned can discuss on the same assumptions. He advises against trying to persuade everyone in the meeting. Before the meeting, the question should be shared and the atmosphere prepared.

Smoking Room Talk

Tabakomyunikēshon: tobacco communication, the talk among smokers at work. In 2015, Mynavi News asked 500 readers whether it could be done away with. 50.2 percent said yes and 49.8 percent said no.

One reader, a 31-year-old man, said: Kantan na uchiawase wa tabako-beya de yattemasu ne. “We hold simple meetings in the smoking room.” A 30-year-old woman said that work moved forward on the basis of conversations and information shared there.

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.

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.”

The Vocabulary of Objection

Ikan (遺憾): regret. A dictionary defines it as feeling regret because something did not turn out as expected or intended. The government uses the phrase ikan no i, an expression of regret, when it protests the actions of another country.

Okotoba o kaesu yō desu ga (お言葉を返すようですが): it may seem that I am returning your words. A phrase placed before disagreeing with someone’s opinion.

Sen’etsu nagara (僭越ながら): though it is presumptuous of me. Another phrase used in the same place.

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.

Report, Inform, Consult

Hōrensō means spinach. It is also made of the first syllables of three workplace words: hōkoku (report), renraku (inform) and sōdan (consult).

Around 1982, Yamazaki Tomiji, president of Yamatane Securities, started a “spinach campaign” in his company. His book on it, Hōrensō ga kaisha o tsuyoku suru (Spinach Makes a Company Strong), appeared in 1986. One account says the idea came from his father.

Petition Box

In 1721, the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, had a meyasubako, a box for written petitions, set up in front of the shogunate’s council chamber at Edo Castle. The Koishikawa infirmary and the fire prevention system of Edo are said to have come from petitions placed in the box.