This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Abroad from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Dear foreign business types who are sent to manage companies in Japan, a word of warning in ungrammatical Latin: Caveat feedback. Feedback is something that is simply not a part of Japanese corporate culture. It’s so not part of it, that there is no traditional Japanese word that embodies the concept. In fact, a foreign consulting firm had to invent a word to express it: fidobakku. But just because there’s now a word for it doesn’t mean it happens. A junior level employee is expected to email her manager about everything: coffee break times, lunch times, what percentage of their project is finished and so forth. No response from the manager indicates that the manager is pleased with your work. If your manager responds it can only mean displeasure that, somehow, you’ve fallen short and it might be time to worry about your job security. In other words, no fidobakku is good fidobakku.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.