By Oscar Johnson
Sporting a dapper suit, silver tongue and a deck of katakana-enhanced meishi, you may think you’re ready to network your way to success in Japan. Think again. How and where you do it, are also part of the game.
As I recently heard a 30-year business veteran renown for his Japan contacts bemoan: “now a days people just don’t know how to network.”
While scaling the career ladder in time-strapped Tokyo, it’s easy to forget what the game is all about. It’s not about landing that next job or clinching a new deal?at least not right away. Networking is about establishing mutually beneficial contacts.
“Maybe the guy (or gal) can’t help you right now,” the master of business contacts explained. “But later he may be talking with someone he knows and say, ‘I met this real nice a guy who does just the kind of work you’re looking for. Here’s his card.’”
An adroit networking pro is also keen on how he or she might do the same for their contacts. That requires listening to, and keeping in touch with, the contacts you make?traits for which you are all the more likely to be favorably remembered.
So, as sure as you would never leave home without your own business cards, hang on to and organize those you collect. If necessary, affix notes with key details to each to help you recall the encounter. (It’s best not to fly in the face of Japanese etiquette and deface them with pen and ink.)
Consider your “presentation” as part of mutual exchange. Don’t try to sell yourself during initial encounters. They are not job interviews; think of them more as first dates. If you meet potential contacts worth courting you don’t want to turn them off with premature talk of business or employment relations (unless, of course, they make the first move).
Chat with as many people as you can meet. The train, plane or local izikaiya, are all fair game. Talk about what you do and your professional interests, but remember where you are and whom you’re with.
No one appreciates kowtowing from an opportunistic stranger while trying to nap on the Yamanote line; and that CEO didn’t get where he is today by yielding to such advances.
At appropriate social and business functions, never stay in one place too long. Work the room. Avoid that dreaded impulse to mingle only with other foreigners as if your career depends on it?it very well may.
Like “effective” communicating in the West, much has been written on Japanese business etiquette. Quick reads such as Boye Lafayette De Mente’s “Japanese Etiquette & Ethics In Business” or neo classics such as Osamu Ikeno’s “The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Culture” may be passe for the jaded veteran.
Newcomers, however, need to have read these or similar tittles before stepping off the plane. So read up, and use the right cultural protocol for the situation at hand.
A firm handshake and direct approach, for example, may be ideal for cavorting with many Westerners. A respectful bow and more modest approach might better win favor with Japanese?but not always. (When in doubt follow their lead.)
Go to where the action is and learn from those who came before you. Tokyo’s ex-pat community offers a wealth of business and professional groups that host events that are ideal, if not explicitly, for networking.
The Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo and the venerable American Chamber of Commerce in Japan are just a couple of general business groups that host regular meet-and-greets. Like others, they also tout ongoing guest lectures by mid-level to bigwig business tycoons. Homing in on your speaker or themed event of choice can often land you in a roomful of likeminded professionals to rub elbows with.
Another oft-overlooked opportunity to further tailor networking strategies is the appropriate professional association. Would-be financial gurus may want to glad hand in the Tokyo Traders Club or the Association of Women in Finance.
Tech-industry minds network regularly in the Tokyo PC Users Group and the International Computer Association. While wordsmiths and masters of various media parley in groups such as International Women in Communications, the Foreign Correspondent ’s Club of Japan and the Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators.
Check local publications, the Internet and probe as you network to learn about others. Don’t just parachute into these and other groups’ events. Joining, or, better yet, becoming an active member can lead to a number of contacts and long-term business relationships.
Sure, it will cost you some time. Like all good networking, however, it will be time well spent.
American Chamber of Commerce in Japan
http://www.accj.or.jp/accj.or.jp/content/01_home
Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo
http://www.ea-tokyo.com/
Association of Women in Finance
http://www.awftokyo.com/
Foreign Women Lawyers Association
http://www.fwla.net/
International Computer Association
http://www.icajapan.jp/
International Women in Communications
http://www2.gol.com/users/iwic/
Tokyo PC Users Group
http://www.tokyopc.org/
The Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators
http://www.swet.jp/
Tokyo Traders Club
http://www.tokyotraders.com/
Foreign Correspondent ’s Club of Japan
http://www.fccj.or.jp/
