This Might Be Rude - Story 4: Lost in Presentation

In this edition of, ‘This Might be Rude…’, we travel to Japan for a large program launch where we see what happens when you’ve done your cultural research and your client sponsor hasn’t.

I was working with a large bank launching an expansion of their current US based program into Tokyo. The main office, and the main client sponsor, were located in New York City (NYC). They drove most of the decision making and planning through the NYC team, but when it came time to launch, I was sent out to spend a month with the local team in prelaunch prep and onsite monitoring. The NYC client sponsor would join us in the middle for the launch.

Having already lived abroad and launched several international programs I rolled up my sleeves and did some serious research. Beyond getting into the necessary legal and regional program deviations I also did quite a bit of reading on cultural business practices. I ran into the standard things you learn: proper bowing posture, taking business cards in two hands, simple greetings and polite phrases to commit to memory. I also got deeper into the concept of 'scenting the air’, cultural hierarchy expectations and office etiquette. It all served me well, but where things got awkward was the gift giving.

It’s pretty common across cultures when visiting new places you bring a gift. Often I had swag my company would provide for such occasions. Since this was an important program I decided to do a little extra. I knew sweets were out as the US sweet tooth is famously too much for most other cultures. I also knew Tokyo was very metropolitan and given our global world I didn’t want to waste luggage space on something that could easily be purchased in Tokyo itself.

A bit of googeling and I learned that, at the time, US Whiskey, Napa wine and local agricultural products were particularly prized. As I was living in California at the time I was perfectly positioned to make that happen!

My research illuminated one more valuable thing. It seemed that while the gift was nice, in Japan it was almost more important how that gift was presented. There were colors and numbers to consider, but mostly it was about the aesthetic of it. So along with the whiskey, wine and other treats I carefully tucked some high end tissue paper and nice gift boxes into my luggage.

This may seem like a lot, but I was the envoy for my team and I knew from experience that setting up a strong relationship now was invaluable! A few thoughtful gifts could buy enough good graces to ride us through any new program hiccups. I also knew enough to know that ‘thoughtful’ was relative.

When the program launch came everyone was in attendance. The local Tokyo team and the NYC program sponsor. Speeches were given and I waited for the right moment to present the gifts. I figured I’d speak last, being the third party vendor and that would be perfect to present the gifts. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way…

I was correct that I would speak last. What I didn’t know was what my NYC sponsor would do. She spoke, thanked the team and then pulled an extra large bag of M&M’s out of her purse and threw it on the conference room table between us all with a, ‘as a little thank you’.

I hope I have a poker face, but I bet my eyes bugged at least a little. The bag wasn’t wrapped, it wasn’t presented to anyone, she even flung it one handed, and there was an M&M store in the courtyard next to the office tower. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was going to do. If I pulled out my gifts and presented them as I planned I was going to seriously upstage the client sponsor. But If I didn’t present anything I would look ungrateful. Not to mention I’d done some shopping and I no longer had luggage space to take all the gifts back home.

It was a split second decision, but I didn’t present any gifts. I also dropped the japanese line I’d memorized in my semi prepared speech. I tried to split the middle, by following the cultural norms on eye contact, bowing and graciousness. It was the best I could do at that moment.

In the end, I pivoted the gifts I had planned as congratulations and presented them as personal thanks from me and my team. This allowed me to present the gifts discreetly individually without upstaging or even letting my client sponsor know about it. It was less fanfare, but boy did it work.

When I presented the gift with my broken Japanese, each recipient lit up. Even better, for months after I’d rolled off the program I heard the Tokyo team asked about me personally, and how my team only had to drop my name for something to get bumped up the to-do list.

I don’t know if it was the best plan, but it got us through. So what do you think? Who was in the wrong? Should I have trashed the idea of the gift and not secretly upstaged my client sponsor? Should the client sponsor have done more research? Was I making it all too big of a deal?

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