Sunday, November 3, 2013

When a Japanese Says it is Difficult

Suppose you are working for an American Computer Corporation who outsources software development to a Japanese Software house. You flew to Tokyo for the discussion meeting with this Japan Software for your next project. You did your homework and the presentation went quite well. You dined with the Japan software staff and drank and sang together. You thought your trip purpose was 99% made. Their staff sent you off to your hotel and made sure you went back to your hotel safely. You slept well that night, despite that you usually do not sleep well with a different pillow than from your home. You thought they are treating you that well because they like your project, and you are sure you could make this deal done next day.

The next morning, Japan Software sent the same person to pick you up and they took you to their office. They were kind, courteous, and nice, smiling. In their office they added more software engineers for your meeting. You thought again you are very close to your success in getting your project done. Only the thing you noticed is that they did not get to your business points. They talked about unrelated or general things such as the general computer market in the US, stock plunged last week, what was the cause of it, etc, etc...

You became a bit frustrated so you stood up and requested to get back to business points. They looked a little shocked but regained smile and started to talk to each other to themselves. It took a while finishing talking to themselves. The oldest guy from Japan Software started to talk:
"Yes, Mr. Smith (whoever the name could be), we all found your project looks very interesting. We did our internal meeting yesterday and early today. There are some points which are VERY DIFFICULT for us."

You need to clarify asking him:
"Well, Difficulty? Uhmmm... OK, let me ask you what kind of DIFFICULTY you are talking about? Technical difficulty? Schedule difficulty? Budget difficulty? Staffing difficulty, or what?"

Mr. Japan Soft looked a little embarrassed. He needed to talk back to his Japanese staff and answered:
"Umh, it is a general difficulty. It involves some technical, some staffing. It is difficult, anyway."

You are more confused. So you asked him again:
"Well, why don't you tell me what is your challenge here. We may be able to help you with that. We will be able to address and discuss about it."

Mr. Japan Soft:
"Mr. Smith, it is not a matter of challenge, it is DIFFICULTY."

This conversation can stop here. I need to tell you that you will not be able to get this deal done. No chance.

I would like to show you how Mr. Japan Soft would have thought in his mind during this conversation:
"Oh my goodness, this person never understands I am saying it is DIFFICULT. He must have recognized by now that it is impossible for us to do this project."

There are 2 things we can learn from here:
1. The fact that the Japanese company treats you well has nothing to do with business. They will do the same to anybody who visits to this company. The majority of Japanese are trained to be courteous even to their enemies. They will be more polite if they know that they need to say "NO" to you. This is confusing even among Asian cultures and causes misunderstanding that Japanese are double sided.

2. The Japanese word for DIFFICULT is nothing so much different from English. It does not mean impossible. But, in this case, Mr. Japan Soft meant it was impossible, hoping that Mr. Smith understand that it is impossible and they do not want to make this deal in softer way. This way of saying is quite common in Japan even in business. For Mr. Japan's mentality, it is too harsh to say it is impossible.

Isn't there any way to avoid this kind of misunderstanding? Yes, there is. You could set a rule before your meeting starts. Your opening statement could be:
"I like to be straight. If I go too straight, I apologize now. But let's go straight and clear so that we do not leave any misunderstanding behind."


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Sunday, October 27, 2013

The Tree Was Called Useless

Once upon a time in China, there was a huge tree in a rich family's back yard. In spring and summer, the tree opens branches with full green leaves. The trunk was like dragon body, thick and strong. The people in nearby village were wondering how many houses could be built with the tree. Furniture people hoped to use the tree to build furniture. They helped each other to somehow cut down the tree to get wooden materials from the tree to be used for building houses and furniture.

No matter what kind of axes or saws they use, no matter how many powerful people try to cut it, all of their effort ended in vain. The tree was too hard to cut. They gave up to cut it down. They said the tree is huge, but not be used for anything. They called it useless.

One hot summer day, an ancient philosopher, called Zhuang Zhou found the tree. It was hot and Zhuang Zhou was tired from long walking. He lied down on the foot of the tree and took a nap. The shade of the tree was perfect to protect him from strong sun light in summer. In the shade, a gentle breeze was very comfortable. He slept for a couple of hours and felt refreshed. After he left, the villagers realized the real use of the tree. Nobody call it "useless" any more.

This story tells us the value of things can be changed depending on how you view it, how you use it. Huge useless tree to build a house was perfect for providing shade to take a nap

This story is originally from Zhuang Zi, who is regarded to be one of founders of Taoism. Usually Taoism is regarded as Anarchism or the principle of living only for the pleasure of the moment. Later Taoism's mysterious stories gave a birth to Shen Xian, who eat and drink just mist, travel on clouds, knows everything in the world including future, and lives forever. Even today Taoism is known as mysticism with the above mentioned Shen Xian who conduct mysterious magic such as talking with dead people or cure seriously sick people.

It reminds us Western Witchcraft, since they use supernatural power like witches or wizards. But taking another look at the philosophy like the above story of big tree, the basic principle of Taoism teaches people to take a different view in lives occurrences. As big tree, which could not be used for building a house or furniture, was perfect shade for taking a nap. In this way, saddest or most painful incidence may be great step for future.

Actually, it includes the story of a villager, who broke his leg in riding his own horse, survived next war, because he could not fight with his leg broken.

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Sunday, October 20, 2013

Emotional IQ and Its Importance

Zhen International is a company formed 10 years ago. It is becoming 11 years old in year 2013. It could not last this long without help from people. I am very grateful on all the help rendered for me. Before I formed this company, earlier in my carrier stage, I worked for a Japanese electronics company for 20 years. Becoming an assistant manager in 1988, I started to study how to be a good manager. It included emotional control for better performance and better management.

Later, company recommended me to develop own scheme to control myself and teach our team member. My team used to hear I say:
"Do not show it when you are angry. Use your anger to get what you need to achieve in business. Control your emotions so that they do not harm your business or life. Use them to benefit yourself instead."

This concept used to give me confidence and comfort in the way I could control my emotions to the extent that my emotion did not damage any of my business or relationship. I was comfortable to ask my team members same.

It was end of the year 2000 when I faced a decision if I should quit the company and start my own or stay. I made a decision to quit and tried to start my own business. It was my own decision and I believed that I am emotionally stable.

Then, in my effort of starting up my own company, which was supposed to be full of fun, I found myself out of control of my own emotions. Resentment, remorse, instability, confusion, and depression constantly attacked me. My emotion went out of control in a very sensitive and critical moment. The worst is that all these negative emotions hit me same time and I did not know what to do. I had never went to a hospital, but I might have some psychological problem called panic attack. Luckily my wife helped me and I could gradually regain my emotional stability. From this experience taught me a precious lesson how difficult to control our emotions.

It was near end of last year when my wife and I were looking for information on IQ level of dogs on Internet, we happened to find the word "Emotional IQ". We were interested and did further research on the definition.

According to the information in Internet, Emotional IQ and Emotional Intelligence are almost same meaning and definition. Emotional IQ is the ability, capacity, skill or, a self-perceived ability to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of ourselves, of others, and of groups.

I have been aware there are several therapies, which is not known in outside of US, such as emotional control or anger management. But, I was not aware that there is a study trying to measure ability of controlling emotions until last year.

If you acquire an ability to perceive and control your emotion and others, you can have better control over your life, business. Most importantly, if you are confident and comfortable controlling your own emotion under no matter what kind of panicky situation, you can be more relaxed all the time. You can be very much peaceful in your mind in your life. That is why I believe learning and knowing on Emotional IQ is very important for all of us.



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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Are the Japanese Stubborn?


Recently the news about the Japanese car recall have drawn my attention. How have things gone wrong in these cases? Japanese car manufactures must have many international staff as well as American management. While they continues to be the leading car manufacturers in the world, their approach to this incident was so typical Japanese. And it caused misunderstandings and confusion in American users. This recall itself might not have been so bad if their highest management decided to appear in public earlier and open all of the information they have on the possible technical problems.

This is an article to show what is the typical Japanese decision-making process and the how different it is from an American one. The intention of this article is to point out the difference, not to evaluate or criticize.

In many cases of my involvement of international business, a Japanese company had been in this critical situation, even it was clear that Japanese made a mistake, they could not change their attitude and decision. Thus it resulted in either losing a huge business opportunity or it would make their counterpart so angry that they would not be able to further pursue the business relationship they had originally intended on.

Instead, American companies seem to be more flexible in accepting their mistake and change their decision or business strategy, saving their own business opportunity and, most importantly, the relationship.

If we can accept our own mistakes, the actions we need to take are relatively simple. We accept we made a mistake, apologize, and propose a correction. American organizations are good at doing this sort of correction. This flexibility may come from a religious principle of forgiveness. People make mistakes. Once a mistake is made, being flexible is much better than to stick to the mistake and stubbornly lose everything.

Now on the other hand, the Japanese approach is based on the "save face" or "lose face" concept. Japanese people tend to hate someone who cannot consistently keep their promises. They regard it is losing face. So they try not to accept mistakes so that they do not have to break their promises and lose face. Even if they know they made a mistake, they do not want to accept it because they will lose face by accepting it.

And they try to hide it. Then they try to modify it in a way publicly unknown to save face. This makes the entire process of correction very complicated. In many cases the business decision priority would be shifted from saving business to saving face by hiding the fact that they made a mistake. The end result could be devastating. It is a simple fact that they are not so good at saying "Oops, we made a mistake. Sorry."

In answering my own question, I have to admit the Japanese are stubborn and not good at apologizing, when it comes to accept their mistakes.






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Sunday, October 6, 2013

My First Trip to China


It was summer 2000 when I visited China for the first time in my life. It was almost funny that I have not visited China until then, because I have almost grown up with Chinese History Books. So the feeling of mine was like filling my own missing link.

It was when I was age 5, even before elementary school when my grand mother gave me this cartoon book called "Sai-Yu-Ki" - Travel to West-. That was the cartoon book about adventurous trip of a Chinese priest to Afghanistan and India to obtain Buddhism Book to China. In this book, of course more than half fiction, other than this priest existed in Chinese History and he traveled to India to get Buddhism book to localize Buddhism to China.

In the story, this priest accompanies three monsters guards, Monkey Monster, Pig Monster, and Sand Monster assigned by Buddha. They all have special fighting powers and skills. This was the story of Monkey Monster exercising his miraculous fighting power and skills, fighting against all odds and evil monsters to protect his master priest to safely bring Indian Buddhism Books to China.

This Monkey Monster grows in protecting his master priest, learning from his master, and practicing Buddhism. Going through all the fighting and adventure helping the priest's safety, he brings himself closer and closer to Buddhism principle and finally became Monkey God, as one of Buddha's protective guards, after he finished his mission to send his master priest to India.

In addition to this "Monkey God" story, there were a lot of Chinese Historical Books in junior and senior high school days, such as "3 Countries History" whereas 3 countries kings fight for unified China, "Sui-Fu" -Story of Private Organization fight against old and corrupted government-, so on and so forth. In this way, in addition to the fact that China is my wife's home country, I did not feel China to be foreign country for long time.

In that trip to China, my wife took me to Beijing, Great Walls, Anshan, Sheng Yung. I visited China several times since then. But, I have not visited there for more than 3 years now. My wife and I are planning to go to China coming summer. I am looking forward to it. I am looking forward to see my wife's family and friends.

While my wife's favorite city is Shanghai, my favorite is Beijing. Beijing is old castle city. Its history goes all the way back 3000 years ago, when it was originally called Yan Jing. It is not just history, the food there is excellent and reasonably priced. It was my 3rd trip while waiting for our table is ready in world famous Peking duck restaurant, my Chinese friend offered me and almost forced me to eat Scorpion fry. It was weird, but it was not as bad as first felt. It tasted like shrimp.

In there, I can feel exactly how Japanese people before World War II felt so eager to get out of Japan to go and live in China. China has dynamism that Japan does not have. The country is definitely one of my favorites.





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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Do Not Let Anger Control You - 5 Harms of Anger to Remember



Do not you have an experience to talk to yourself, "Oh, I should not have said that", or "I should not have done that", after you told something bad or showed bad behavior to the people who you were talking to? Obviously there are moments when our emotion, anger, takes over our rationale and directly control our statement or behavior.

The most recent occasion I remember is my immigration process with INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service of the USA). It was long wait for my interview to be scheduled without any given specific reasons. When the schedule was set, my lawyer told me not be angry no matter what happened. I was laughing and told him not to worry. There should not be anything, which made me angry, I thought.

The interview went quite well. The officer was quite courteous and there was not a single moment of rudeness. The officer asked me to go back to the first floor and submit my picture for processing. I thanked him for the interview, he thanked me for my time. My wife and I went down to the window for the picture submission. The person in the window was not as courteous as the interview officer.

The lady at the window pointed out we did not pay for the processing and the picture is different from the one INS designates. Our emotion almost always catches us in surprise. Maybe I was too much relaxed due to the fact that the interview finished. I was so angry this lady is complaining about me that I almost yelled at her. It was quite fortunate that my wife detected my anger and pulled me back. I could curtail my anger and went out to take another picture in the photo shop nearby.

It might be true that the lady did not talk so friendly. But there should have been no reason to be angry. She was doing what she was supposed to do based on INS regulation and all I should have done is to take picture and give it to her. The most important that time was to submit my picture on that day, not to make friend with the lady in the window. As explained, the anger hits us more on non-substantial points. If I were angry and had an argument with the person in charge, I would not be able to submit the picture on that day and my immigration process would have further delayed. In this way, the anger does not do any good for you.

The worst emotion easily takes over your attitude is anger. Anger will take over your all logical thinking, change your face, change your tone of voice, and change your behavior. Can you think of anything which anger can benefit you? Even if you get some short time advantage because you showed your anger, negative reaction you are suffering may be far bigger than that.

In addition, anger gives you unnecessary waste of your energy. Sometimes, you get headache, sour throat from yelling, instability of emotion, which you need to spend some time to recover from. Anger deprives you of your peace of mind.

1. Anger can damage your social reputation

2. Anger can damage your relationship with you family, friends, and colleagues.

3. Anger can deprive you of power to make right decision.

4. Anger can damage your business.

5. Anger can deprive you of peace of your mind and make your emotion unstable.

The most important point is #5 above. Even if you could get what you wanted by showing anger, later on you may not feel peaceful about what the person, you were angry at, might think. Or you may even think that person may think about retaliating you for your anger. It may take you for more than a day or so to regain peace of mind or give up thinking. We all know that anger does not solve any problem.

It is important to manager your anger and keep peace of your mind.





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Sunday, September 22, 2013

3 Factors to Remember For Changing Bad Luck to Good Luck


It goes back to October 2008 when our family moved to the house for rent in west side of San Francisco Bay. Since my wife and I do not have a child, we were talking about keeping a dog. Because we were living in an apartment before this move, we could not keep any pet other than small birds. My wife always wanted a white dog, not too small, not too big. We have gone to shelter nearby and pet shops to check. We could not have found any dog we like, we have not adopted any dog.

When I had time, I was searching a white dog in Internet. I found a breeder who grows Japanese Spitz. They were showing pictures of their dogs. They were white like snow with big black round eyes. It struck me like a thunder and I liked them immediately. I showed the website to my wife and she liked them as well. We called the breeder next day and arranged a visit.

This is how we started living with our new family member, white dog "Xuer" (It means Snow in Chinese). It was April 2008. We made a big mistake in adopting her because our rental agreement for the house we rented did not allow tenant to keep a pet. We totally misunderstood because we did not have any problem bringing in our birds. Our landlady found that we keep a dog and asked us either we agree to pay double the rent, get rid of Xuer, or move out.

It was tough decision. But in short time, we decided that we could not get rid of Xuer. It also did not make sense to keep the rent paying double amount of rent. So, we started to look for new place to live quickly. Quite fortunately, my Japanese realtor found a good home with good price. There were so much competition and 60 offers were already made to buy the house. But we decided to offer and surprisingly we could get it. We were not the best price, but we could offer good condition of payment. Because it was our landlady side who wanted us to move out as one of our choices, she could not charge us full year rent. We notified our landlady and moved out May last year, 2009.

It was bank owned house, so we needed to repair here and there. But it was enjoyable because it is now ours not rent. We have lived here a little more than a year now. Now we believe that it was our white dog Xuer who brought us this good luck to acquire this house.

Now, please step back and think about it. It was Xuer who gave us hard time in living previous house. So, she was the one brought us bad luck. She was the cause for us either moving out or paying doubled rent. We could hate her. Or we could sell her. We seriously talked about that option, too. But by taking actions to quickly get out of such bad luck, we could buy the house now we are living. Now Xuer is the one who brought us good luck. All these could be sequence of coincidences. But we feel this told us something. Something we could turn bad luck to good one. There are 2 factors we can remember:
1. Having bad luck, do not panic. Try to change perspective. You will see different side or another angle of the happenings. Remember, "Every cloud has silver lining."
2. Do not give up. If you stop actions to solve your problem. The problem will stay there unchanged. It may keep staying with you forever. There will be something to do if you do not give up.
3. Some situation does not allow you to change back, like we could not change our landlady. But remember, if you keep your emotion stable, there are always some things you can do to make it better.





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Sunday, September 15, 2013

Karate is For Defense Only


If you are interested in martial arts, you might have heard that Karate is for defense only. There is no other martial art, which advocates this kind of anti-fighting nature. Martial arts are fighting skills after all. Still Karate developed in Okinawa advocates the nature of Karate fighting is only for defense. It does not just slogan, it disciplines the principle. Masters punishes to expel their student who used Karate for street fighting. It also says, "There is no first strike in Karate." Kendo", Japanese Sward art carrying same kind of spirits and principles, does not necessarily stop the first strike. Many historical masters of Kendo taught, "First strike will win the fight." Ancient Chinese eminent strategist "Sun-Zu" also wrote "Your victory can be almost always attained by first strike."

It has been mystery to me why Karate stress "No Aggression", "No First Strike", and "Defense Only" principles. There was a historical background that Okinawa people were deprived of all weapons developed Karate. Their skills, even the fact they practice martial art, must be kept secret from conqueror that time. But, it was not only the reason why they emphasize defense strategy rather than attacking techniques. The reason was that to master the martial art and acquire real strength, the defense art was the most important factor.

Mastering defense skills will complete the strength of mind. Once you acquire complete defense skills, and confident and comfortable to defend any kind of first attack or any attack, you have peace and stability of mind. "If you effectively defend, you fight well, and win." This is a quotation from the ancient Chinese strategy book.

Many Sumo (Japanese style wrestling) wrestlers who established unbreakable records in its history always had strong defense. Even their opponent suddenly change position or use tricky move to defeat them, they could defend this kind, or any kind of attacks, and could still win.

Famous Chess players winning world-class tournament always have strong defense skills and could defend attacks from their opponents I heard. They could have keep defending hours or days to complete their defense and win historical games. Strong players who were winning and record holders always have strong defense skills and strategy.

On the other hand, there is nobody who survived just for attacking strategy, kept winning, and last long only by the aggression. Napoleon Boneparte was an aggressor. He conquered Europe in short period of time. But Russian defended effectively until the coldness in winter gave fatal damage to Napoleon army. Adolph Hitler could not defeat United Kingdom who determined to defend until they defeat German Army.

This is not just for martial arts or wars. It is giving us very good lesson worth thinking for our lives. If you are not satisfied with your lives, relationship, or business, if you continuously feel defeated, feel helpless, and feel uncomfortable, it may worth checking and strengthening your defense strategy and skills.






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Sunday, September 8, 2013

Uncle Sai's Horse


The real title of this story in Japanese is, "Life is all like Uncle Sai's Horse." The story appears in an old Chinese philosophy book, "Huai-nan Tzu", which was believed to be published around BC 179 - BC 122 in Han Dynasty age. This philosophy book includes our ancestors' wisdom and considered to be influenced by Confucius, Legalism, Daoism, and Nature Mysticism, old Chinese main philosophies.

Once upon a time in China, there living was an old man, uncle Sai. He was making his living by trading horses. One day, his best horse ran away to the enemy country. Having no chance to get the horse back from the enemy country, his neighbor expected him to be sad and disappointed. His neighbor came to console him. Uncle Sai told his neighbors that this could be the beginning of good luck.

A while later, his run-away horse ran back to uncle Sai, taking many horses from the enemy country. His neighbor congratulated him. Uncle Sai said, "This will be the beginning of bad luck."

Having more horses than before, his son kept playing with horses. One day, his son, riding one of the horses came from the enemy country, fell down from the horseback and broke his leg. Again, when his neighbor consoled uncle Sai for the accident, uncle Sai said, "It will bring us good luck."

Later, a war against their enemy country broke out. Young people must have gone to the war and many of them died. But uncle Sai's son survived because he had his leg broken and did not have to go to the war.

This is a story teaching people not to be too sad, fearful, or panicky when a something bad happens. It could turn out to be good luck. On the other hand, when a good thing happens, do not be too much glad and excited. It could be a beginning of bad luck.

When in bad luck, do what you can do best without being panicky. When in good luck, continue to work hard and prepare for rainy days. This story originated in China brought into Japan around 5th or 6th century, it became almost like a Japanese story. Also it gave birth to similar saying in Japanese. Here are some of them.

The life is like a twined rope. Good luck and bad luck come in turn. Good luck gives birth to bad luck. Bad luck creates good luck. The one I like best is "Take the bad luck. Change it to the good one." This shows vitality of old Japanese who choose to take difficult decision and being successful.

We cannot be too panicky, fearful, or sad in bad luck. We do not have time for that. Control our emotion, accept the bad luck, and act in the way you believe to be right. Do not worry too much about what you are doing, right or wrong. If you continue to keep your effort and action in the way you believe to be right, soon you will be able to make it good luck.






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Sunday, September 1, 2013

Small Actions Can Change Your Life


Everybody has different definition of happiness. What is your definition of happiness? How do you think you can achieve your happiness? Do you think you can win lotto and become millionaire? Do you hope to be successful in business and make money? Do you dream of inheriting something big from your relatives?

You can be happy being with your family over the weekend in your busy schedule. You feel happiness watching your kids playing around in your yard. When your girlfriend smiles at you, you will be happy.

It was last month when I happened to pick up this Japanese book for self-improvement oriented. The title of the book is "50 Small Actions to Change Your Life". The book is a list of 50 small actions which author recommends taking. Each item has explanation of the author. Many of them are small good action to take.

The most interesting was the reason why the author wrote this book. According to the author, there are more powerful thing, which can change your life to the better direction than your talent, or education, or big sum of donation to your church, or any organization you belong to. He says the most powerful series of action to change your life is small daily base actions, accumulations, and continuation of them.

Here are some small actions you can take:

- Greet to someone you have never greet before. You should have 1 new person to greet in 1 new day.
- Take steps instead of elevator. You may meet someone you did not expect to meet.
- Stop asking your friend if you are special individual. Special person tends to believe he is ordinary person, not extraordinary.

The book consisted of 50 interesting items as above. All of his listings were interesting and I finished reading in a day. Also I cannot agree more to the author that if we continue to take good actions, at least one at a day, every day. It will change our life to the better way.

This book reminded me one story, which I heard long time ago. I hoped to share it here.

One high school drop out could finally find his job in a bank branch in a city of Japan. As a newcomer in the bank, his first morning work was to clean the entrance of the bank branch office. One morning, he found that front of neighbor house was also messy as well in the morning. Since it did not take him much additional work, he started to clean front of their neighbor house, too. One day, a old woman came out of the home, asked him to come into her home and have a cup of tea.

As this old woman asked, he walked into her home, where he met the her grand doubter, who was beautify, and the old woman asked him to marry her grand doubter and hair her business. This boy could hair very profitable business of Jewelry Trading and married beautiful wife.





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