The Accidental Office Lady. An American Woman in Corporate Japan

206 Pages·2011·1.28 MB·English

by  Laura Kriska

Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

www.tuttlepublishing.com

Copyright © 2011, 1997 by Laura Kriska
All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-4629-0014-5

First edition, 1997
Revised edition, 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kriska, Laura.
The accidental office lady : an American woman in corporate Japan / Laura Kriska.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4629-0014-5
1. Kriska, Laura. 2. Women executives--United States--Biography. 3. Women executives--Japan--
Biography. 4. Corporate culture--Japan. 5. Automobile industry and trade--Japan--Management. 6. Honda
Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha--Biography. I. Title.
HD6054.4.U6K7526 2011
338.7’629222092--dc22 [B]
2011001175
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To
The Office Ladies
Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Foreword 11
Prologue 15
1 Uniform 21
2 Office Ladies 40
3 Ms. Mori 65
4 Sisters and Uncles 84
5 Conformity and the Helicopter Ride 102
6 Alone 114
7 Finding Myself on the Map 121
8 The Maverick 135
9 The Art of Negotiation 152
10 Lessons on Mt. Fuji 165
11 Transition 174
12 Salaryman 191
13 The Factory 207
14 Life in Sayama 217
15 Culture Lessons 229
16 Permanent Effects 245
Acknowledgments FOR THEIR SUPPORT
AND KINDNESS During my time in Japan, I
would like to thank Shigeyoshi Yoshida,
Mieko Ogiwara, Yumiko Shoji, Hiroko
Kanno, Kumiko Hashimoto, Yasuko Kodama,
Akiko Onoguchi, Kayoko Furokawa, Ayako
Nishiyama, Yoko Sashi, Michio Iwata, Tetsuo
Chino, Toshiro Yamada, Moritaka Higuchi,
Tom Umeno, Koji Arinami, Rika Takeuchi,
Masakazu Iino, Tokiko Iino, Eric Peabody,
Bret Anderson, Susan Insley, and Scott
Whitlock.
I am also grateful to the following friends and family members who provided
encouragement and various kinds of support during the writing of this book: Le
Anne Schreiber, Richard Locke, Leila Phillip, Alden Matthews, Laura Grenning,
Alex Cox, Bobby Rahal and team, Marcy Mowrey Gauch, Heather Swain, Jiyun
Shi, my brother David, my parents Brian and Sally Kriska, and especially
Patrick Gunn, Declan, Jaden Li and Mason.
Foreword
MY ORIGINAL INTENT when writing The Accidental Office Lady was to help
Americans learn about Japan. With its humble and polite people and seemingly
inaccessible language, Japan has always been a hard country for Americans to
understand. Yet interest in what was then the second largest economy in the
world was high. Since I had been born in Tokyo and attended Waseda University
as an exchange student before working in Japan, I wanted to offer my insights to
other Americans and contribute to a better understanding of a country that I
loved and felt was frequently misunderstood.
Without an academic background or an important job around which to focus
my book, I simply wrote about my daily experiences of working in a large
Japanese company and living in Tokyo. I did not argue theoretical positions or
support particular business strategies and instead described specific encounters
that were thrilling, confusing or both. It was only after publishing the book and
beginning my career as a consultant that I realized my stories resonated with
others. I began to see cultural patterns and tendencies among the people I
worked with that helped me make sense of my own early experiences. I
continued to broaden my understanding of cross-cultural issues as I listened to
first-hand accounts from Japanese, American, Chinese, Indian and many other
international professionals engaged in the day-to-day effort of working together.
It was then that I started to understand just how powerfully cultural differences
influence the workplace. Different languag-es are an obvious workplace barrier,
but different cultural values have a defining impact on the way people
communicate, build relationships, make decisions, take risks, build teamwork
and more. Although I once considered language the key to success in
international relations, I now realize that foreign language skills are secondary to
understanding culture.
When I showed up, at age twenty-two, at the Tokyo headquarters of Honda
Motor Company on a fine September morning wearing a cream-colored dress-
for-success suit and matching pumps, I could say in fluent Japanese, “I look
forward to a successful work experience in Japan,” but I had no idea of what it
would take to achieve that success. Even though I had long been interested in
Japan and spoke reasonably good Japanese, I still made mistakes because I was
deeply and fundamentally American in my way of thinking, my behavior and my
understanding of the world. My mouth could form Japanese phrases, but I could