1st Post:
R==
I enjoyed your article again. The point “Japanese organizations tend to be more motivated by avoiding problems or the loss of face” is highly insightful.
While reading the article, I just wonder if it’s written for a non-Japanese person facing some Japanese organization from outside. If it’s for a non-Japanese person inside the Japanese-style organization, I would put Nemawashi at the very start of the to-do list.
If the person is inside of the organization…
1 he has to research on the opinions of the peers and organizational preferences,
2 he, then, has to raise the topic toward many people to see he is the appropriate person to discuss over the topic, and if it’s okay
3 he finally sets out to “find” or “create” his advocates.
All of these steps are completed in a few cycles of informal communication of yakking at the hall, chatting by the copy machines, discussion over lunches, or conversations at izakayas. These forms of informal communication could be seen as the Nemawashi activities. I think it is only after those processes that a person can persuade a decision-maker in the fairly large-sized Japanese-style organizations
I usually tell my clients’ new manager at the placement training;
“Good meetings need neither any hard discussion nor fancy presentation as the topics must have been all settled in consensus beforehand. Meetings as the means of formal communication are for the purpose of ensuring that everybody is missing nothing and of recording what is agreed with.”
2nd Post:
R==
As I wrote in the previous comment, I like your point “Japanese organizations tend to be more motivated by avoiding problems or the loss of face.”
I, on my second thought, would like to put these two causes of organizational motivation into the concept of “risk hedging for sustainability of the own business.”
Thus, the concept could include the problem avoidance (and occasionally problem solving) that you mentioned as the part of causes for the organizational motivation. As for the other one, loss of face, you listed up the idea of Yokonarabi. I think Yokonarabi is required more for not being conspicuous (i.e. risk hedging) than for avoiding loss of face.
The concept of “risk hedging for sustainability of the own business” can be the reason for the strong demand for present examples (Senkou Jirei) of others, particularly ones well evaluated by some authorities.