Episode #109: We Are Always Sorry In Japan Before We Get Up To Talk

Well educated from two top ranked Universities. Undergraduate in Japan and an MBA from the USA. He had a very capable command of English and our presenter did a very good job of conveying the business structure, strategy and results of his publicly listed enterprise. Yet, that presentation could have been so much better with attention to a few simple basics. This difference in polish is both cultural and attitudinal.

Beginning your talk in Japan with a series of apologies is standard practice. First apologise for speaking while standing, because you are towering above your audience, implying your superiority. Next, tell us how nervous you are about speaking to such a distinguished audience. Don't forget to mention you had no time to prepare the talk properly, because you have been so busy. If you are sick, it is always good to get that in there too. If you are speaking in English then an apology for your poor English is mandatory. At the end, make sure you apologise for giving such a poor presentation.

Why do Japanese speakers go through all of this apologizing? Japanese humility demands a public display of rectitude. Appearing too confident is not appreciated here. Seen to be a bit of a smarty pants, never goes down well. Especially when most Japanese public speakers are untrained, dreadful, boring and killing us with their monotone, it is always good to fit in, rather than stand out.

Public speaking has only a relatively recent history in Japan, dating back to early Meiji period when Fukuzawa Yuikichi established the practice of the public speech. If you visit Keio, the university he founded, you can see the enzetsukan or public speaking hall, he built for the sole purpose of speech making.

Daimyo or samurai in charge of their domains were not giving stentorian addresses to the struggling masses or the latter’s samurai betters. Notices were erected to inform everyone of what they needed to know.

Western civilization has been talking up a storm forever, especially since ancient times in Greece and Rome. Today we have embraced the idea of oratory as a particular mark of skill and intelligence. Japan has not fully embraced the power of the spoken word and so it is not as valued here as in the West. Lack of value translates into lack of attention to being excellent as a public speaker. This is especially so, when everyone around you is equally hopeless, so why should anyone bother to be professional about it? It looks like you are showing off and we can’t have that.

Fine, but what should Japanese speakers do when they are addressing an audience in English, made up of foreigners? What should we foreigners do, when we are speaking to a Japanese audience in either Japanese or English?

Most talks are not remembered in much detail. What we do remember though is the speaker. We come away with either a positive or negative impression. In Japan, linguistic purity is not required in either case. Foreigners are used to non-native speakers of English giving presentations with accents, grammatical mistakes and unusual vocabulary choices. Japanese people seem basically convinced that non-Japanese can't speak Japanese, so any attempt to do so is greeted with approval, as long as it isn't too perfect. Foreigners speaking perfect Japanese worries some locals, who seem to think their protective barrier has been penetrated. Maybe this foreigner knows a bit too much. A certain degree of ignorance on the part of foreigners is somehow more comfortable.

For Japanese speakers, find out who is in your audience. The chances are if it is a business audience, then you are speaking to a good proportion of Japan fans, boosters and supporters. Many will be fluent Japanese speakers or possibly speak more than one language, so they understand all the intricacies involved in presenting in a foreign argot.

They will also have been weaned on a diet of regular presentations throughout their education and thereafter and will have an admiration for good speakers. For this audience, then follow western tradition and ditch all the cultural paraphernalia around apologies at the start. Instead open with a blockbuster that grabs everyone's attention and cuts through all the competition for the attention of your audience. Even the most riveting speaker today cannot stay the hands of some in the audience, as they surreptitiously sneak a peak at their hand held device while the presentation is underway. This is The Age of Distraction and we speakers are caught up in its vortex.

Rehearse the presentation thoroughly and show command of the material. If there is a slide advancer involved, practice with it before the start, so you can show mastery over the machine. Have some rhetorical questions at hand to keep the attention of your listeners. The audience should not know if they are going to be required to answer these questions or not in order to keep them locked in to following the speech.

Have a proper close designed, in fact have two ready to go. One for before we get into Q&A and one for after all the questions. Don't just let the speech fade out, as our speaker did, by saying "well time is up and I will finish here". No, we need to leave our audience with a call to action, to get them supporting whatever it is we are promulgating.

The final close is to take back control of the speech, because questions are at random and often can be completely unrelated to what it is we have been talking about. Usually by the time we get toward the end of question time, the connection between the topic and the questions being asked gets quite thin. All the relevant and best questions have already been dealt with, so we now have the great unwashed asking their questions at the end.

As the speaker, we need to reassert our control of the proceedings. We need to re-state our main message ,so that this is what is ringing loudly in the ears of our audience, as they all file from the room at the end.

Now for foreigners, don't copy the Japanese model. You are not Japanese, never will be considered Japanese and are not expected to be Japanese. Give the most professional presentation you can and be another speaker who the Japanese look up to and wonder why they don't have those presentation skills themselves.

It doesn't matter which language your are speaking in, always make it the most powerful piece of communication you can muster. The idea is to help create role models of excellence to better internationalize Japan and help it to do a better job of selling itself to the wider world.