How to Communicate Effectively in a multicultural environment with Rochelle Kopp

Women Labeling

We need to recognize that women labeling exist! Have you ever heard of any of women labelings below?

Boss vs. Bossy

Great at negotiating vs. Pushy

Hard Working vs. Selfish

Capable vs Showing off

Our workplace still in uneven and there are so many challenges that we, women face. Especially for Japanese women, we are pressured to meet the social expectation.

Being reserved vs. likable

During the conversation with Rochelle, we discuss challenges that Japanese women face.

Question:

“What are the challenges do you see especially in Japanese working women? Being reserved or being “women like behavior aka 女子力” is highly valued in Japanese culture. There are various traditional or typical Japanese cultural/social expectation pressuring women which really limits Japanese women’s ability to advance their career. How can these cultural values affect negatively on their career?”

Rochelle mentioned that Japanese culture expects women to be soft-spoken, reserved or defer to others. She brought up the importance of how we need to be able to balance to be assertive and be feminine. It is not easy to balance but it is possible. If we do not adjust to being more assertive, Japanese women can be looked over.

Question: There are so many different leadership styles you have been teaching. (servant leadership, strength-based leadership, situational leadership etc) What is your favorite concept that you like to teach Japanese professionals and why?

Rochelle’s favorite leadership she likes to teach for Japanese professionals is Servant Leadership. Because Japanese working environment has too much hierarchy, managers can be too harsh.

In addition, because there are not many Japanese email leaders role models in Japan, many Japanese women don’t want to be in a leadership. Many women say that they don’t want to be a leader because they don’t want to be other “mean leaders”

Japanese professionals need to stop our negative self-talk!

Rochelle teaches how to build a positive mindset to Japanese professionals. One of the ways to remove our negative blocks is to stop self-sabotaging. Rochelle recognized that Japanese society is almost pressuring people to say bad things about themselves; therefore, Japanese professionals need to start saying positive things about themselves.

Lastly, Rochelle encourages us to keep developing deep skills/expertise in order to reach our potential to elevate our career. In addition, Rochelle recommended working on our communication skills!

Rochelle Kopp

Founder and Managing Principal| Japan Intercultural Consulting

Rochelle works to help clients increase profitability and employee engagement through improved communication and working relationships in multicultural environments. She is currently focused on helping Japanese companies be more successful in their global operations, supporting effective human resource management practices, organization development, and cross-cultural training and teambuilding. She also works frequently with American firms that have Japanese customers, joint venture partners, and suppliers.

Rochelle is the author of The Rice-Paper Ceiling: Breaking Through Japanese Corporate Culture, The Lowdown: Business Etiquette Japan, the upcoming Creating Engaged Employees in Japan and Valley Speak: Deciphering the Jargon of Silicon Valley, and over twenty-five books in Japanese.

ロッシェル・カップ

ジャパン・インターカルチュラル・コンサルティング社創設者・社長

職場におけるコミュニケーションと人間関係の改善を通して、顧客がより高い収益性と従業員の積極的参加を実現することをお手伝いる。現在は、日系企業の世界的事業展開、効果的な人事管理、組織開発、異文化トレーニング、チームビルディングを支援することに特に力を入れている。また、日本との関わりを持っている米国の企業に対しても頻繁にサービスを提供している。

『反省しないアメリカ人をあつかう方法３４』（アルク）、『日本企業の社員は、なぜこんなにもモチベーションが低いのか?』（クロスメディア）、や『英語の品格』（集英社インターナショナル）をはじめ、著書は多数。

Here are some links:

e-learning courses: