Start with the Strengths
By Patricia Pringle
Appreciate the Positives
We work with American clients and Japanese clients who are doing business together. They contact us for cross-cultural assessments, training and teambuilding when they are actively looking for ways to work together more effectively and to reduce friction. They say, “We want to understand the way they work, and we want them to understand how we work.” But sometimes this means, “We want you to tell them the way things are done around here. We want you to fix them.” Clients typically expect us to begin our work with a survey of all the problems and barriers. Instead, we try to learn what each side appreciates about working with people from the other culture. What do they see as strong points? Last month I wrote about what the Japanese say they appreciate about the way Americans work. This time, I will write about what Americans say are Japanese strengths.