Mr. Mikitani [CEO of Rakuten] believed in “changing perspectives by changing language,” [Tsedal] Neeley writes. By forcing employees to speak English, the CEO wanted to move his company “away from its traditional Japanese hierarchical system, one characterized by rules, deference to authority, and perceptions of status, toward a perspective that would enable openness and assertion.” He saw English not just as a tool to advance Rakuten’s global expansion by facilitating communication around the globe but also as a way to create a more outspoken, egalitarian mind-set among Japanese employees.
A year or so into the English mandate, Mr. Mikitani also began to emphasize Japanese practices and cultural concepts that were essential to Rakuten’s way of doing business. These ranged from something as mundane as the company’s requirement that every employee wear a name-badge—a policy loathed by Rakuten’s American employees in the U.S.—to the more elusive concept of omotenashi, which translates roughly as “hospitality.” Now English-speaking Japanese workers were able to communicate the importance of wearing badges, practicing omotenashi and following other Japanese customs to non-Japanese colleagues, who were encouraged to accept them.
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