CASE: Getting Yamada’s Input

"Removing carcinogens from the paint we use is a requirement for us to succeed," said Roger as he opened the monthly Technical Projects review meeting at the New Jersey Technical Center. "Therefore I’d like to move the schedule forward to show Itoh Industries how responsive we are to them," he said as he passed out a 4-page memo describing the technical implications of this idea. The Technical Projects group had previously made a number of important decisions, so Roger’s plans were to finalize this decision during today’s meeting.

Yamada-san was very surprised to hear this. He has spent a lot of time preparing the schedule for removing the carcinogens according to the previous timetable decided at last month’s meeting. He had planned to present his ideas to the group today.

Normally there are three Americans and two Japanese at these meetings. However, today, there were three additional Americans attending. Two of them Roger had invited, and a third was Ed Jones, VP of the Technical Division , to whom Yamada’s boss reports. Ed had decided to attend today’s meeting to see how things were going. The Japanese attending were Yamada, who was a very capable senior engineer in the Japanese organization, and Masuro, the sales manager.

Roger let the meeting flow into a brainstorming discussion, hoping to get all the ideas out on the table. Ed Jones was obviously pleased with Roger’s push to move up the schedule. The meeting moved along quickly as the Americans tossed out their ideas. Roger became concerned, however, that Yamada was saying very little. Roger knew the change in the schedule would require extra work for Yamada, and therefore his input was critical. Roger had expected Yamada to express his views so they could be incorporated into the decision.

"Yamada-san. You haven’t said much so far. Do you think this is a good idea?" Roger probed. "Is there anything wrong?" "Umm…No…" Yamada-san said, looking down at his notes. "Good" Roger said, "then let’s have a show of hands to determine what we should do." Even though the vote was to go ahead with the schedule change, Roger still felt uneasy about it. He thought about contacting Yamada at his hotel that night.

From the objective of getting the full participation of all participants, what worked well about this meeting and what did not?

As the meeting facilitator, what could Roger have done to better support Yamada’s full participation?

If you were Roger, what would you do at this juncture?