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THE FACTION FACTOR

AN ASPECT of the groupthink syndrome that has a fundamental influence on business in Japan and impacts both directly and indirectly on foreigners dealing with the Japanese is the habatsu (hah-bot-sue) or “factions” the Japanese naturally form when they come together.

Historically, Japan’s vertically structured feudal society was based on lifelong loyalty to individual leaders from the emperor and shogun on down to the local construction boss. Every political leader and his followers, as well as every business boss and his employees, tended to become a faction, or closely knit group, that acted in unison to achieve goals as well as to defend themselves against competitors or predators. The larger the groups, the more likely there would be multiple factions.

This situation prevailed for centuries, making it more or less second nature for Japanese who come together for any purpose to automatically form factions that quickly take on distinguishable characteristics that determine how one must deal with them to get things done. Sections and departments in Japanese companies tend to act like factions, often making it difficult for them to communicate with each other.

The difference between a Japanese “faction” and a foreign team, company section, or department is not structural. It has to do with the relationship between the individual members, their attitude toward the group, and how the group functions. And this, of course, involves a great many other cultural traits, from the strong sanctions to enforce harmony and the diffusion of personal responsibility to decision by consensus.

Japanese factions vary in size and makeup from a section or a department in a company or government agency to affiliations of companies and politicians. The point is that foreigners dealing with a Japanese company should keep in mind that they are dealing with a closely knit group, not with just the leader or boss or any of the individual members.

This means quick, individually made decisions will not be forthcoming, all members of the group have the right to ask questions and express opinions, and, in principle at least, everyone takes part in all final decisions.

The operation of a section or department in a Japanese company is actually much more democratic than one normally finds in Western companies, which is one of the reasons why it is often difficult for foreigners to understand and accept. In dealing with any Japanese group it helps to take the approach that you are dealing with a small, highly democratic, highly defensive, and often very suspicious, country.

Centuries of conditioning in groupthink and in acting in groups instead of as individuals has resulted in the Japanese developing a highly refined ability to communicate with each other with what one might call “herd telepathy”—but in Japan this phenomenon has far more colorful names, including the “art of the belly.”

The strength of the faction system builds upon the groupthink principle in that once a project or course of action is agreed upon—after it has been thoroughly studied and discussed—the whole group works together like a well-trained football team. The weakness of the system is that, again, it is unable to respond quickly, and it tends to pull the caliber of the group well below the level of its most capable members.