One of our clients, Rob, was in the office of his Japanese boss. Sato-san was the president of the U.S. subsidiary and Rob was standing in front of Sato’s desk briefing him on something rather important. In fact, Sato-san had requested that he stop by that afternoon to fill him in. While Rob was talking, Sato-san’s head started to bob and soon he was snoring. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, so Rob loudly rapped on Sato’s desk and boomed, “Thank you for signing off on this!” and quickly exited. Sato-san, alarmed and confused, followed Rob around all the rest of the day trying to figure out what he had signed. Of course, he never found out it was nothing, but he also never fell asleep on Rob again.
One of our client expats in Asia was asked by senior Japanese if Americans took stimulants to stay awake in meetings.
And my personal favorite: A very high-level Japanese, Asai-san, was visiting the U.S. subsidiary with his subordinate, Moto-san, to attend a high-level meeting and hear a presentation. During the presentation Asai-san fell asleep. Without missing a beat, Moto-san simply picked up Asai-san’s hand and used it to turn the pages of Asai’s handouts as Moto used his other hand to turn his own.
So, why do high level people fall asleep? Mainly because they are tired and it’s not their job to pay attention. They are there in a more ceremonial role, to sanction meeting with their presence. It’s the job of the junior person to brief them later. (Of course, this is a problem if the senior person falls asleep in the briefing.)
If a junior person falls asleep in a meeting, it’s surely serious jet lag.
Now, if you’ll please excuse me, we’re about to have a staff meeting and I need my nap.
