Understanding the Japanese approach to meticulous planning, attention to detail and focus on quality



In the Japanese work culture, you will find that they always under-commit but over-deliver. 

They take a lot of time to make a decision. You always feel they're slow, and when you speak to people who've done work with Japan, they will tell you that you have to be very patient; they're very, very slow; they take ages to get back, but they're not sleeping over it.

What they're doing is very meticulous, studying every aspect of the proposal, drawing up a list of the risks, then drawing up risk mitigation plans with alternatives, scenario A, B, C. So when they get into so much detail, when it comes to execution, we found that we were able to execute very fast and there was a lower error margin. 

So when you decide in a bit of a hurry, and you've not taken every factor into account, and you're trying to meet a very strong deadline to prove to yourself, you find that the error margin in execution gets delayed.

Excerpts from Geetanjali Vikram Kirloskar's talk at IIM, Bangalore

Comments

  1. Vineet T.March 3, 2024 at 1:08 AM

    Totally agree with you on this Geetanjali. My experience with working with Japnese clients mirrors your thoughts. It's been a great learning experience for me. Slow and steady wins as the saying goes.

    ReplyDelete

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