A.  A good international consultant (IC) is a go-between who helps manage relationships and communication.  A good IC is fluent in the language of the people of the culture you are doing business with.  Unlike an interpreter, whose job it is to put the words of one person into the language of another, an IC will help clients understand the culture and psychology of the business people they are dealing with.  Also, being fluent in the other language and understanding the culture thoroughly, the IC will debrief clients after business meetings and clarify what the other side was really thinking, what their body language was saying, how to best proceed with them, and so on.  This is why, ideally, an international consultant should not be doing the interpreting.  Assisting with the interpreting is possible, but interpreting is a demanding, energy consuming task that requires 100% focus on the part of the interpreter and does not allow for the time to observe the participants.  On the other hand, an international consultant can negotiate directly for clients, and this cuts down on time needed for interpreting.

     Another reason that an IC is very valuable in negotiations between Japanese and Americans is that Japanese are often uncomfortable with direct, blunt speech.  Since Americans usually speak very directly, an international consultant who is fluent in Japanese can soften the communication in ways that an interpreter, who is bound to interpret as closely to the original as possible, cannot.  Also, in Japanese society the use of go-betweens is quite common and comfortable.

     A good international consultant can help with private, off-the-record information sharing.  Both Japanese and Americans have been frank with me in ways that they cannot be with the company across the negotiating table, knowing full well that later, in private, I will tell my clients what they cannot say directly.  In one case, I was hired by a Japanese firm in which there was an internal feud between the president and vice president.  It made business dealings with the U.S. firm difficult and jeopardized a longstanding business relationship.  The U.S. company was completely unaware of this, until I was asked by the Japanese VP to please let the U.S. firm know, in private, what was really going on.  This I did.  A few months later, the VP became president of the Japanese firm and things have proceeded smoothly since.  Of course, this type of information sharing happens all the time in the real world.  However, when you cannot speak the language/culture of the people you are dealing with, and everything needs to be said through an interpreter, this private information sharing becomes impossible unless you are using a trusted go-between.

I have negotiated several agreements between Americans and Japanese that almost soured before my involvement because of cultural gaps.  Due to different styles in communication and approach to business, there can be misunderstandings, but these are easily resolved if each side strives to understand where the other is coming from, literally!

Americans have a latitude to accept or reject proposals that their Japanese counterparts frequently don't have, and this can make negotiating appear time-consuming and frustrating.   American business people often are uncomfortable with silence in conversation, and will tend to keep talking when they should sit back, be quiet, and listen to the proposal the Japanese side has come up with.   With a Japanese company, there is no "negotiation" going on as Americans define it.  A good rule of thumb to remember is that, because Japanese decision making is consensual (called ringi) what the Japanese side presents in a discussion has already been approved by their co-workers.   If the American group presents an alternative that the Japanese have not already considered, this will usually have to be reported back to the Japanese company and re-discussed before a decision is made.  Understanding this will make it less frustrating for both sides, because the Americans won't push the Japanese, and the Japanese won't feel pressured.   Japanese need to remember that Americans think of a negotiation as a process to reach a decision, but this process in Japan actually takes place within the Japanese company, not at a business meeting with clients.  The business meeting is a place to present ideas.

A. In Japan, a group society, people's interpersonal relationships often take precedence over business considerations.  This can be confusing to Americans.  At one business meeting I negotiated at in Tokyo, one member of the Japanese side (Japanese often bring several people to a negotiating table and will often outnumber the American side, particularly if the meeting is held in Japan) had to leave early, but requested to be recalled at the end of the meeting to sign the meeting notes.*  At the end of the meeting, the Japanese manager was reminded to call back Mr. A. and although he expressed frustration at the unnecessary wait- (because Mr. A. was really a low-ranking member of the Japanese side) he agreed to wait for him to return.  This was done, in actuality, because Mr. A's factory was being downsized, and the man was suffering a great loss of face.  The manager merely wanted to assuage his feelings by reassuring him that he was important to the company.  The American members of the team that hired me were unaware of this exchange, and had no idea of the Japanese manager's frustration with having to wait for Mr. A., because they didn't speak Japanese.  Even if they could have, they would have been unable to "read" the underlying, unspoken text because they did not understand the culture.

     Americans live in a culture that believes "Time is money" and the metaphors we use to describe time (spending, saving, wasting, making) all imply that time is a commodity.  However, Asians in general do not have this approach to time.  On the train back to our hotel, the U.S. manager said, "Now I understand who one of the most important players on the Japanese side was- Mr. A!"  When I asked what had led to his conclusion, he explained that obviously, since we had waited 20 minutes for him to return to sign the meeting notes, he must be important.  This is a logical conclusion to an American.  When I clarified the real reason for the 20 minute wait, the U.S. manager was shocked, and wondered how many other times in international dealings he had come to what was a logical conclusion to him but inappropriate when dealing with another culture!

*This particular large, Japanese company has a procedure for communicating with foreign clients-- all decisions reached at meetings are written in English on a whiteboard that prints out what is written on it.  All attendees then sign it to indicate their agreement with what is written (particularly, dates agreed on for deliverables, and so on) then all attendees are given copies for their notes.  This is an excellent communication tool and I highly recommend it.  At the Japanese company, a copy is kept and it is translated into Japanese for the non-English speaking staff.