Case Study: Communication Protocols
A multinational team in the United States: On this team, a Japanese engineer was getting increasingly frustrated with his American manager. He sent repeated formal …
Business Archive
I’m On The Phone (and NO, I don’t see you.)
Working with Japanese engineers, one thing that was hard to get used to is how the phone is handled. I have noticed that for Japanese, …
Don’t Point that Thing At Me!
Sometimes body language can be a problem. It always counts, and in international teams it can sometimes fail to carry the intended result. When working …
When a name works in one country, it may not work in another . . .
My friend Sterling aptly pointed out that this product from China may have some unintended connotations in the United States. In case you don’t see …
Its Springtime: You’re fired.
Japan is funny sometimes. We watch Japanese TV at home (more than American shows) and I noticed that a number of TV personalities all disappeared …
Culture is not always the problem
I have observed that there can be difficulties when working with people from other cultures. Occasionally though ‘culture’ gets blamed for things that it shouldn’t. …
Quickly scaling a software development organization
I recently responded to a question on LinkedIn that I wanted to share on my blog — this is a tough nut to crack, and …
Getting Ahead in Japan
What does it take to ‘get ahead’ in Japan? More than anything it means that you graduated from the right university. At the top of …
Use the Whiteboard!
When working with my colleagues the most useful tool in my communication arsenal (besides my mouth) is my whiteboard. I had originally intended to write …
Mr. Hu?
Many times when working with international groups there can be confusion on people’s names. Seeing “Jin Hu” on an email can be confusing to people …
