Articles Trade & Economics

The salaryman becomes a veteran

After a year as a sales associate, Hiro was transferred to Ringo's Securities Department. He had never imagined that he might be transferred out of commercial banking and was astonished when news of the transfer arrived. Hiro understood what securities were, of course, but had no idea how Ringo operated in this arena. When his deputy branch manager told Hiro about the transfer, Hiro asked, "What does the Securities Department do?" His superior answered, "I don't know!"

Hiro's amazement increased when he visited his new department for the first time. The atmosphere and culture seemed completely different. Nobody yelled at anybody else; people seemed to work in a highly professional manner. On the other hand, salarymen in the Securities Department seldom went out drinking together after work, the way Hiro and his sales team colleagues had. Hiro found that he missed the branch, even missed being yelled at nightly, because his relationships with senior people in the new department seemed much weaker, if less intimidating. He missed the familylike atmosphere he had perceived at the branch.

Excerpted from Inside the Kaisha: Demystifying Japanese Business Behavior, Chapter 1, by Noboru Yoshimura and Philip Anderson (c. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1997 ).

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