In an earlier post I wrote about how polite the Japanese are.
Well. This coin has a flip side. When you’re required to be extremely polite with everyone, work becomes impossible. Inside a team, things get decided very slowly. Everyone interacts in a strictly formal way. The higher the level of politeness, the more words there are — and the more the actual meaning gets lost in them. Beating around the bush and conveying the point through hints is a deeply Japanese thing. The main rule: never say anything directly. Think of any Zen Buddhist parable.
So Japanese business found a workaround. It’s called nominication. From the Japanese word “nomu” (to drink) and the English “communication.”
On Friday the company sets aside money for the employees to go to a bar. Everyone is required to go. Excuses like “I don’t drink, and anyway I’ve got a wife at home” are not accepted. The only exception: one person has to stay sober to pour everyone into taxis at the end of the night.
And when the Japanese get drunk, magic happens. They finally settle the questions that piled up over the week. They can actually discuss their problems properly. All in all, a single Friday bender is often a serious step forward for the whole department. And on Monday everyone comes back into the office, bows respectfully to one another, and goes right back to communicating in polite hints.