6 ms·

It's insane how successful Japan is in spite of their corporate inefficiencies.

by asdasdsddd 2y ago

adamc 2y ago
It's fascinating and makes me want to know more about how the culture works.
- latentsea 2y ago
  It works by having it beaten into for you several decades of your childhood that you don't speak up, you put the groups first, and appearances trump reality. I don't necessarily think it's any better or any worse than western culture. My perspective is "it just has different failure modes".
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    Yes, a large part of why Japanese society appears (and in fact performs) so perfect is because of an absolute fear of shame. From the moment you are born you are taught to care about what and how others think and feel about you and your conduct. If it's not your social peers, it's the literal Sun ("Otentou-sama") looking down upon you and judging your every single moment. If you shame yourself, you also bring shame upon your family and your ancestors both living and dead. To be clear: This does work, and most Japanese are happy to serve society rather than feel compelled to do so at threat of cancellation. There are also benefits for the compliant, namely in the form of social safety nets both legal and social to ensure a minimum standard of living. Japanese expats are a particular bunch, they left Japan because they couldn't stand the shaming and strict adherence to social codes. A kind of "you can't fire me if I quit" response.
  - Escapado 2y ago
    Agreed and I would add to the list the ungodly amount of hours they work. I know per hour they might not be as productive (or simply held back by antiquated processes within their companies) but they seem to make up for it in part by working so much overtime.
  - adamc 2y ago
    That isn't really what I meant, and yeah, I was ambiguous. When you have a culture where people can't tell the boss things he doesn't want to hear -- of which resignation is an example -- how do companies expect to get honest feedback? How do they detect problems earlier in the process? Etc. Cultures are never just dysfunctional; there are usually a complicated set of compensations that makes the dysfunction more bearable. I'm curious how that works.
    - latentsea 2y ago
      They don't want feedback. They want you to listen and obey. It doesn't actually matter if things are wrong, so long as in the moment the boss thinks they aren't, then to him they aren't since appearances trump reality. The boss would prefer you didn't disturb that. The result is sometimes things just blow up spectacularly later on down the track but "shou ga nai". The compensation that makes the dysfunction more bearable is the culture of "gaman" which is deeply, deeply ingrained from a young age. It's normal for them to just suck it up and tolerate shit they don't like. It's a way of life. For everything thing else there is "shou ga nai" which often translates to "it can't be helped" and many Westerners think it's just Japanese people giving up too easily and don't really get it, but it comes from the Buddhist philosophy of accepting things as they are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaman_(term) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaman_(term)
      - adamc 2y ago
        That doesn't explain anything, though. If they don't get feedback, shouldn't it make their businesses less effective?
        latentsea 2y ago
        Hence their stagnant economy.
makeitdouble 2y ago
This isn't ineficiency though, probably closer to bullying. Quitting a job has no complex moving parts, and most corporation will deal with it with minimal paperwork (you really only need to prove you gave them your resignation. An email reply would be enough legally). The issues these new graduates (the source of the TFA is MyNavi, which is new graduate centric) are facing are arbitrary, purposefuly set to make their life harder.
- stainforth 2y ago
  Can you enumerate the issues new graduates are facing, and when they began on timeline?(if even possible to see explicitly first public)
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  W.r.t quitting jobs, the economic inefficiency is that knowledge doesnt diffuse properly. A certain amount of corporate mobility is hugely beneficial. But that's just the tip of the iceberg for bad corporate culture; the social binge drinking, poor sleep, no social life, etc must be bad for productivity... I don't understand how they manage it.
jappgar 2y ago
Well, Japan hasn't done too well in the software world over the last 30 years. Meanwhile American software companies and employees are both infamously disloyal and have done quite well.
- kergonath 2y ago
  Is that a cause, though? I can see both as being consequences of the sheer amount of money sloshing around in the Silicon Valley. It generally helps things because there’s just so much resources to tap. It also helps employees getting poached with better salaries and compensation. But it does not mean that it can be replicated that way in another country.
  - jappgar 2y ago
    You're right. It's not that disloyalty necessarily enables better software but that, apparently, loyalty is not a requirement. It can also be true that the work culture in Japan stymies effective modern software development. I've heard anecdotes to this effect but it doesn't seem like something you could easily measure.
serjester 2y ago
Maybe it's not in spite of but rather because of them? To me, it seems like if you were designing a brand new society optimized only to maximize the countries GDP, you'd implement the Japanese model - employees who never leave their employers, extremely long work hours and mandatory after work social activities. China, Japan and SK have all effectively implemented a version of this and their economic growth post WWII has been nothing short of remarkable (China was poorer than Sub Saharan Africa in the 50's). Obviously, you could say this has not been going very well for Japan more recently but I'd argue the main drawback to this paradigm is the inevitable population implosion.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  longer work hours != efficiency
- JackFr 2y ago
  Japan’s per capita GDP has been flat for 30 years. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/jpn/japan/gdp-per-capita#:~:text=Japan%20gdp%20per%20capita%20for%202022%20was%20%2434%2C017%2C%20a%2015.08,a%200.93%25%20decline%20from%202019 https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/jpn/jap.... You can describe that as ‘recently’, but it’s an entire generation.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  As with other places, it worked extremely well as long as the society was inherently sexist, and women weren't allowed to have "men's jobs" and were basically forced by society at large to be mothers and homemakers for husbands who were almost never at home and who never spent any time with their kids. With nothing better to do with their lives and time, and reliable birth control not yet invented or easily available, people had lots of kids to keep the system going. Nowadays, women want to have more meaning in their lives than just being married to some guy they barely know or care about and raising his kids as some kind of servant with 2nd-class citizen rights. This isn't just in Japan, it's in every developed nation. The result of this is a far lower birthrate, so you can't have a super-high GDP for too long; you get a boost at the beginning because nearly 100% of adults can now contribute to GDP, but it burns out in a few decades because there's no one to replace them. Societies need to come up with a new model.
dyauspitr 2y ago
It’s not inefficiency. This has a tinge of slavery to it.

It's insane how successful Japan is in spite of their corporate inefficiencies.

adamc 2y ago

It's fascinating and makes me want to know more about how the culture works.

latentsea 2y ago
It works by having it beaten into for you several decades of your childhood that you don't speak up, you put the groups first, and appearances trump reality. I don't necessarily think it's any better or any worse than western culture. My perspective is "it just has different failure modes".
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  Yes, a large part of why Japanese society appears (and in fact performs) so perfect is because of an absolute fear of shame. From the moment you are born you are taught to care about what and how others think and feel about you and your conduct. If it's not your social peers, it's the literal Sun ("Otentou-sama") looking down upon you and judging your every single moment. If you shame yourself, you also bring shame upon your family and your ancestors both living and dead. To be clear: This does work, and most Japanese are happy to serve society rather than feel compelled to do so at threat of cancellation. There are also benefits for the compliant, namely in the form of social safety nets both legal and social to ensure a minimum standard of living. Japanese expats are a particular bunch, they left Japan because they couldn't stand the shaming and strict adherence to social codes. A kind of "you can't fire me if I quit" response.
- Escapado 2y ago
  Agreed and I would add to the list the ungodly amount of hours they work. I know per hour they might not be as productive (or simply held back by antiquated processes within their companies) but they seem to make up for it in part by working so much overtime.
- adamc 2y ago
  That isn't really what I meant, and yeah, I was ambiguous. When you have a culture where people can't tell the boss things he doesn't want to hear -- of which resignation is an example -- how do companies expect to get honest feedback? How do they detect problems earlier in the process? Etc. Cultures are never just dysfunctional; there are usually a complicated set of compensations that makes the dysfunction more bearable. I'm curious how that works.
  - latentsea 2y ago
    They don't want feedback. They want you to listen and obey. It doesn't actually matter if things are wrong, so long as in the moment the boss thinks they aren't, then to him they aren't since appearances trump reality. The boss would prefer you didn't disturb that. The result is sometimes things just blow up spectacularly later on down the track but "shou ga nai". The compensation that makes the dysfunction more bearable is the culture of "gaman" which is deeply, deeply ingrained from a young age. It's normal for them to just suck it up and tolerate shit they don't like. It's a way of life. For everything thing else there is "shou ga nai" which often translates to "it can't be helped" and many Westerners think it's just Japanese people giving up too easily and don't really get it, but it comes from the Buddhist philosophy of accepting things as they are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaman_(term) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaman_(term)
    - adamc 2y ago
      That doesn't explain anything, though. If they don't get feedback, shouldn't it make their businesses less effective?
      - latentsea 2y ago
        Hence their stagnant economy.

makeitdouble 2y ago

This isn't ineficiency though, probably closer to bullying. Quitting a job has no complex moving parts, and most corporation will deal with it with minimal paperwork (you really only need to prove you gave them your resignation. An email reply would be enough legally). The issues these new graduates (the source of the TFA is MyNavi, which is new graduate centric) are facing are arbitrary, purposefuly set to make their life harder.

stainforth 2y ago
Can you enumerate the issues new graduates are facing, and when they began on timeline?(if even possible to see explicitly first public)
asdasdsddd 2y ago
W.r.t quitting jobs, the economic inefficiency is that knowledge doesnt diffuse properly. A certain amount of corporate mobility is hugely beneficial. But that's just the tip of the iceberg for bad corporate culture; the social binge drinking, poor sleep, no social life, etc must be bad for productivity... I don't understand how they manage it.

jappgar 2y ago

Well, Japan hasn't done too well in the software world over the last 30 years. Meanwhile American software companies and employees are both infamously disloyal and have done quite well.

kergonath 2y ago
Is that a cause, though? I can see both as being consequences of the sheer amount of money sloshing around in the Silicon Valley. It generally helps things because there’s just so much resources to tap. It also helps employees getting poached with better salaries and compensation. But it does not mean that it can be replicated that way in another country.
- jappgar 2y ago
  You're right. It's not that disloyalty necessarily enables better software but that, apparently, loyalty is not a requirement. It can also be true that the work culture in Japan stymies effective modern software development. I've heard anecdotes to this effect but it doesn't seem like something you could easily measure.

serjester 2y ago

Maybe it's not in spite of but rather because of them? To me, it seems like if you were designing a brand new society optimized only to maximize the countries GDP, you'd implement the Japanese model - employees who never leave their employers, extremely long work hours and mandatory after work social activities. China, Japan and SK have all effectively implemented a version of this and their economic growth post WWII has been nothing short of remarkable (China was poorer than Sub Saharan Africa in the 50's). Obviously, you could say this has not been going very well for Japan more recently but I'd argue the main drawback to this paradigm is the inevitable population implosion.

prmoustache 2y ago
longer work hours != efficiency
JackFr 2y ago
Japan’s per capita GDP has been flat for 30 years. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/jpn/japan/gdp-per-capita#:~:text=Japan%20gdp%20per%20capita%20for%202022%20was%20%2434%2C017%2C%20a%2015.08,a%200.93%25%20decline%20from%202019 https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/jpn/jap.... You can describe that as ‘recently’, but it’s an entire generation.
shiroiushi 2y ago
As with other places, it worked extremely well as long as the society was inherently sexist, and women weren't allowed to have "men's jobs" and were basically forced by society at large to be mothers and homemakers for husbands who were almost never at home and who never spent any time with their kids. With nothing better to do with their lives and time, and reliable birth control not yet invented or easily available, people had lots of kids to keep the system going. Nowadays, women want to have more meaning in their lives than just being married to some guy they barely know or care about and raising his kids as some kind of servant with 2nd-class citizen rights. This isn't just in Japan, it's in every developed nation. The result of this is a far lower birthrate, so you can't have a super-high GDP for too long; you get a boost at the beginning because nearly 100% of adults can now contribute to GDP, but it burns out in a few decades because there's no one to replace them. Societies need to come up with a new model.

dyauspitr 2y ago

It’s not inefficiency. This has a tinge of slavery to it.