Leading a Team in Japan: What the First 90 Days Really Require

Most first-90-days plans share one quiet assumption: that trust can be built on a quarterly schedule. The idea was popularised by Michael Watkins’ The First 90 Days (2003), and it serves leaders well in New York, Toronto and, increasingly, Paris. In Japan, it runs on the wrong clock.

I learned this in my own first months leading our team in Yokohama. At an early staff meeting, I presented a new way of handling our autumn orders, the busiest season of the wine year. The plan was clear, the logic was sound, and everyone nodded. “Wakarimashita,” they said: understood. Three weeks later, nothing had changed. No one had refused. No one had explained. The plan had simply dissolved into the quiet of the office.

Nothing was wrong with the strategy. What was wrong was the timing, and my assumption that agreement in the room meant agreement. For globally mobile executives arriving in Tokyo, Osaka or Yokohama, the real work of the first three months is not the business plan. It is learning how trust, hierarchy and consensus work in Japanese work culture, and adjusting your pace to theirs. What follows is a month-by-month guide, drawn from fourteen years of leading a company in Japan and from the Japanese teams, partners and suppliers I worked alongside.

Why the Western 90-Day Plan Stalls in Japan

In many North American companies, a new leader is expected to make an immediate, visible impact. The first-90-days literature champions quick wins, rapid decisions and a strong personal mark. In France, a new director is often expected to state a vision early and to defend it in open debate. In Japan, both approaches can leave you isolated.

Japanese organisations tend to rest on harmony (wa), long-term relationships and collective agreement. Your first task is not to change the system, but to understand it. A new leader in Japan first earns the right to direct by learning to facilitate. If you push for change before you have built relationships, you will rarely meet open resistance. You will meet something harder to read: polite nods in meetings, followed by no action at all.

Month 1: Observe, Listen and Build Relationships

Your first thirty days should be marked by attentive listening and visible humility. This is the period to understand how decisions are truly made, and by whom.

Understanding Hou-Ren-Sou

One of the first concepts you will meet is hou-ren-sou, formed from houkoku (report), renraku (keep others informed) and soudan (consult). It is the everyday rhythm of Japanese workplace communication. Where many Western managers value people who solve problems alone and report at the end, Japanese teams share small, frequent updates along the way.

I remember a young member of my team telephoning me one Saturday morning to tell me that a delivery to a restaurant client would arrive one day late. The client had already agreed; the matter was settled. My first reaction, shaped by my French upbringing, was to wonder why she was telling me at all. Only later did I understand that she was not asking for a decision. She was making sure I would never be surprised, and in doing so she was protecting both of us.

Your team may share details that seem minor to you. Do not mistake this for a lack of initiative. It is a structured way of keeping everyone aligned and ensuring that no one is taken by surprise. Make yourself easy to reach, acknowledge each update, and take part in the flow of information rather than standing above it.

Reading the Air (Kuuki wo Yomu)

In Japan, what is left unsaid often matters more than what is said. Kuuki wo yomu, reading the air, is essential for any international leader. Much of the message is carried by context rather than by words. Direct disagreement in a formal setting is rare. Instead, you will hear phrases such as “That might be difficult” or “We will study this further.”

The first time a department-store buyer in Tokyo told me “kentou shimasu”, “we will consider it”, I left the meeting delighted and began preparing my follow-up. On the train home, a Japanese colleague gently explained that I had just received a very polite no. I never forgot the lesson: in Japan, the answer is often in the pause before the words, not in the words themselves.

During your first month, observe where people sit in meetings, notice who defers to whom, and pay attention to the quietest voices in the room. They often carry significant weight in the conversations that happen elsewhere.

Month 2: Understand How Decisions Are Really Made

In your second month, your attention should move toward how things actually get done. You will likely notice that formal meetings often confirm decisions rather than make them. By the time a proposal reaches the meeting room, the most important conversations have usually already taken place.

The Art of Nemawashi

If you want to launch a new initiative, presenting a brilliant slide deck at a meeting and expecting immediate approval will rarely work. You will need nemawashi, a gardening term that describes carefully digging around the roots of a tree before moving it.

In practice, nemawashi means quiet, one-to-one conversations with key people before any formal meeting. You share your idea privately, listen to concerns, adjust, and build support step by step. In larger companies, this informal groundwork often leads to ringi, the formal process in which a written proposal circulates for approval. By the time the official meeting takes place, everyone should already know what will be decided, and why.

I first saw the cost of skipping this step long before I led a team of my own. In my early twenties, working in a German-owned wine business in Japan, I watched visiting colleagues from Germany present carefully prepared plans to Japanese partners in a single, well-organised meeting. The presentations were excellent, the questions were polite, and the meetings ended warmly. Very little followed. The plans had been presented, but never planted.

As I described in Leading as a Woman in a Japanese Workplace, this invisible groundwork is also where much of a leader’s authority is quietly built.

Understanding Honne and Tatemae

You will constantly move between honne, what a person truly thinks, and tatemae, the public face that protects the harmony (wa) of the group. In a formal setting, your team will speak in tatemae. Their honne is shared elsewhere, and only with people they trust.

Do you remember my autumn order plan? I finally understood why it had dissolved at a small yakitori counter near our office, after a long inventory day. Over a second glass, one of our longest-serving staff members said quietly that the new procedure meant entering every order twice, and that the team had been staying late to keep both systems running. No one had said a word in the meeting. The following week, we reshaped the plan together, and this time it held.

To bridge the gap between tatemae and honne, build relationships outside the formal meeting room: informal lunches, a coffee, time spent with people where they work. After-hours gatherings (nomikai) are less automatic than they once were, particularly among younger employees, so let any invitation be sincere rather than obligatory. When your team begins to share their honne with you, you will know that you have earned their trust.

In the Paris office where I began my career, the same objection would have been raised in the meeting itself, probably with some passion, and debated before coffee. In Boston, it would most likely have arrived as a polite but clear question about workload. In Yokohama, it waited for the right place, and for a leader who had shown she could be trusted with it.

Month 3: Introduce Your Vision, Slowly

By your third month, you are beginning to understand the rhythms of communication, the steps of consensus and the unwritten rules of the office. Be careful, however, not to confuse understanding with trust. In Japan, trust runs on a longer clock, often measured in years rather than weeks. Month three is not the moment trust is secured. It is the moment you can begin to introduce change without spending the trust you have started to build.

Leading Through Influence, Not Force

When you introduce change, present it as an evolution rather than a revolution. Connect your strategy to what your team already values: quality, reliability, long-term stability and shared success.

Invite your Japanese managers to act as the bridge between headquarters and the local organisation. Recognise their local expertise, and guide them toward the wider objectives. Your role is to be a translator, not only of language but of working culture. Part of that role is to protect your team from the impatience of headquarters, and to explain upward, patiently and in writing, why results in Japan may arrive later than a global plan expects, and why they tend to last longer when they do.

Which Month Are You Really In?

Before you measure your progress by the calendar, answer these five questions honestly:

1.  Can I name the two or three people whose informal agreement a proposal needs before it reaches a meeting?

2.  When someone last told me “that might be difficult”, did I follow up privately?

3.  Do my team members bring me problems early (soudan), or only finished reports?

4.  Have I spoken with each of my managers at least once outside the meeting room?

5.  Have I explained to headquarters, in writing, why visible results will arrive later than their plan assumes?

If you answered “yes” fewer than three times, you are still in Month 1, whatever the calendar says. That is not a failure. It is simply the pace at which trust is built in Japan, and the leaders who respect that pace are the ones whose plans finally take root.

Your Next Step

Leading in Japan will test your patience and challenge your assumptions. It will also refine your leadership in ways that serve you in every culture that follows. Before your next meeting, ask yourself one question: who in this room already knows what will be decided, and did I speak with them first?

If you are preparing for a posting in Japan, or you are in your first months and the silence is harder to read than you expected, you do not have to navigate it alone. I coach globally mobile leaders in English, French and Japanese, and I offer a complimentary 30-minute discovery call. Book your discovery call.

FAQ

Why does the 90-day plan work poorly in Japan?

Because it assumes trust can be built within a single quarter, and it rewards quick wins. Japanese organisations rest on harmony (wa), long-term relationships and collective agreement. Pushing for change too early rarely meets open resistance; far more often, it meets polite nods followed by no action.

What is hou-ren-sou?

It is the daily rhythm of professional communication in Japan, formed from houkoku (reporting), renraku (keeping others informed) and soudan (consulting). Teams share small, frequent updates throughout a process so that no one is ever caught off guard.

What is nemawashi?

A gardening term for carefully preparing the roots of a tree before moving it. In business, it refers to quiet, one-to-one conversations with key people before any formal meeting, to hear their concerns and build support step by step. The official meeting then confirms a decision that has already matured.

What is the difference between honne and tatemae?

Honne is what a person truly thinks; tatemae is the public face that preserves the harmony of the group. In meetings, people speak in tatemae. Honne is shared only with those they trust, often outside the office.

How can you tell when "we will consider it" means no?

In Japan, direct disagreement is rare in formal settings. Phrases such as "that could be difficult" or kentou shimasu ("we will consider it") often signal a polite refusal. The key is to read the context and follow up privately.