One concept you encounter quite a lot in Japan is sekinin, meaning responsibility or duty.
While the James Clavell cliches of Japanese who are bound by the bushido-esque code of honor aren’t very accurate when applied to the country today, I have noticed that the idea of sekinin o toru, or taking responsibility for something, does seem to be an important aspect of the Japanese character.
This can take many forms, with one of the most visible being the way students take responsibility for cleaning their own classrooms, including the toilets. Virtually all cleaning in Japanese schools is done by the students, who must learn to either take pride in their cleaning skills or study in a dirty classroom.
The idea of sekinin is important in a business environment, too, and when some new job presents itself to us at here at J-List, I’m always interested in the way our Japanese staff divides the work into logical sections and assigns different parts to each person, so everyone knows who’s in charge of what.
Having a person’s name associated with a job is one way to create a sense of pride, and in restaurants it’s common to see a little clipboard hanging in the restroom indicating which employee has last cleaned, so everyone knows who is or isn’t doing his job properly if there’s a problem. I often wonder whether some of these little innovations might not be imported back to the West?
I’m not sure about those examples, Peter. Children don’t ‘take responsibility’ for cleaning their schools. Like homework, they’re told to do it. It’s not like it’s a decision they made of their own free will. And as for restaurant toilet cleaning, signing to indicate the job’s done is the norm in Britain too.
I’ve noticed in the Japanese workplace - everyone wants to take responsibility until something goes wrong. Then everyone’s found someone else whose responsibility it is…
I think thaｔ the effort goes into defining the scope of responsibilities in order to make it possible for those involved to avoid it whenever possible.
This sounds like the “Japanese snow is different” nonsense to me, as if Japanese have some superior sense of responsibility other ethnic groups lack.
I think that every group has this to a degree. The point is, it’s verbalized and/or formalized a lot more in Japan, at least compared to the U.S. as far as I can tell. While you never hear all those silly terms like giri outside of James Clavell, I can hear the phrase “sekinin o toru” expressed quite often in many forms.
This must explain why a Japanese wife’s first instinct when encountering any problem is to find out who to blame.
I noticed that when I worked for a Japanese trading company as well.