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By Patrick Dailey and Joel Koblentz Transformation is one of the most challenging competencies a board must master. McKinsey & Co. estimates that 70 percent of transformations fail to achieve their objectives. Yet board and management teams instinctively know, change is unavoidable and transformation is compulsory. Companies including Macy’s, JC Penney, The Limited, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, […]
May 14, 2017 at 11:46PM
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By Gary Larkin, Research Associate, The Conference Board As I have researched the impact of social media attacks on public companies— namely the recent campaign by President Trump—I have discovered that good advice is hard to find on this matter. That’s why I reached out to Katie Delahaye Paine, a pioneer in the field of […]
May 14, 2017 at 11:46PM
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By Gary Larkin, Research Associate, The Conference Board Governance Center In the first month of the new Administration, companies are facing a risk they didn’t expect: being the subject of one of President Trump’s tweets. While Trump is not the first Commander-in-Chief to use social media to reach constituents, the President is most definitely the […]
May 14, 2017 at 11:46PM
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By Gary Larkin, Research Associate, The Conference Board Governance Center With a flurry of executive orders in his first two weeks in office, President Trump made one thing absolutely clear. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed by Democrats in 2010 will soon be reformed itself by the current Republican majority. But […]
May 14, 2017 at 11:46PM
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As President Trump—the first sitting executive of a company to become commander in chief— begins to roll out his agenda, many in political circles are asking the question, “how did we get here?” Prior to Election Day, The Conference Board’s Governance Center held a meeting of its Corporate Political Spending Committee in Washington, D.C., that […]
May 14, 2017 at 11:46PM
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Is it good business for companies to add women to their boards? That is the question two professors—one from Pace University and another from USC—attempted to answer in The Conference Board’s latest Director Notes publication. The report, entitled “The Effect of Gender Diversity on Board Decision-making: Interviews with Board Members and Stakeholders,” investigates the argument […]
May 14, 2017 at 11:46PM
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Sharing meals is a meaningful tool for trust building in nearly all cultures. But in some cultures, sharing drinks — particularly alcoholic drinks — is equally important.
I once conducted a training program for a German couple moving to Japan, assisted by Hiroki, a wise and entertaining Japanese culture specialist. The German asked Hiroki how to get his Japanese colleagues to tell him what was really going on: “They are so formal and quiet. I worry if I am not able to build the necessary trust, I won’t get the information I need from them.”
Hiroki thought quietly for a moment and then responded with only a small trace of humor in his eyes: “Best strategy is to drink with them.”
“To drink?” the German client questioned.
“Yes, drink until you fall down.”
When Hiroki said this, I thought back to my first-ever ride in the Tokyo metro, when I saw several groups of Japanese businessmen stumbling through the station as they traveled home after a long evening of well-lubricated socializing. I now realized they were following Hiroki’s advice — quite literally.
If you look at Japan on the Trusting scale, you will see that it is a relationship-based culture, though not as far to the right as China or India. During the day, the Japanese generally take a task-based approach — but the relationship building that happens in the evening can be critical to business success.
In Japanese culture, where group-harmony and avoiding open conflict are overriding goals, drinking provides an opportunity to let down your hair and express your real thoughts. Drinking is a great platform for sharing your true inner feelings (what are called honne rather than tatemae feelings) as well as for recognizing where bad feelings or conflict might be brewing and to strive to address them before they turn to problems. Under no circumstances should the discussions of the night before be mentioned the next day. Drinking alcohol is therefore an important Japanese bonding ritual not only with clients, but also within one’s own team.
Many Japanese use drinking to forge connections, as captured by the bilingual expression nomunication, stemming from the Japanese verb nomu (“to drink”). Japanese salespeople frequently woo their clients over drinks, knowing that although explicit deal making is never done during this type of socializing, a deal is rarely won with- out it. Of course, drinking to build trust is not just a Japanese custom. Across East Asia, whether you are working in China, Thailand, or Korea, doing a substantial amount of drinking with customers and collaborators is a common step in the trust-building process.
Many people from task-based cultures don’t get it. “Why would I risk making a fool of myself in front of the very people I need to impress?” they wonder. But that is exactly the point. When you share a round of drinks with a business partner, you show that person you have nothing to hide. And when they “drink until they fall down” with you, they show you that they are willing to let their guard down completely. “Don’t worry about looking stupid,” Hiroki reassured our German manager, who had begun wringing his hands nervously. “The more you are willing to remove social barriers in the evening, the more they will see you as trustworthy.”
Alcohol is not the only way to build a business relationship. If you don’t drink, you can certainly find other ways to partake in the fun; in Japan, a round of karaoke or a trip to the spa can do wonders. And in Arab cultures, where alcohol is avoided, you can forget beer and relax instead over a cup of tea.
This excerpt adapted with permission from “The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business” (2014) by INSEAD professor Erin Meyer, from PublicAffairs.
SEE ALSO: The truth about British irony, Americans on planes, and Russia’s attitude toward leadership
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from Erin Meyer, "The Culture Map"
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46.3% of all enterprise WAN traffic is cloud-based, split between HTTPS (27.8%) and HTTP (18.5%). These and other findings from Aryaka’s State of the WAN Report, 2017 released this week quantify how quickly cloud adoption is accelerating in the enterprise.
May 14, 2017 at 11:33PM
from Louis Columbus, Contributor
