Sontaku originally meant considering another person's feelings and adjusting to them. In a high-context workplace, that is a professional skill: the good subordinate prepares the data before the manager asks for it, and knows which proposals will be welcome without being told.
The word turned negative in 2017. In the Moritomo Gakuen affair, state land was sold to a school operator at a heavy discount, and the question was whether officials had acted to please people close to the prime minister without any explicit instruction. Sontaku became the word for that kind of anticipatory compliance, and was named one of the two Buzzwords of the Year in 2017. Since then it has been used in Japanese commentary for any situation where people act on what they think the powerful want, including bending rules or burying bad news, so that no one ever has to give an order.
The mechanism is not unique to Japan, but it is amplified by long tenure, strong hierarchy and a dislike of open disagreement. When everyone is reading the air, the person at the top may never hear the inconvenient fact.
What it means for a foreign employer
- Your offhand remark may become a directive. A regional leader who muses that a number "looks high" may find it lower next quarter, by whatever means. Say clearly what you want and what you do not.
- Ask for bad news explicitly, and reward it. Make clear that problems raised early are welcome. Use skip-level conversations and anonymous channels in Japanese.
- Make whistleblowing real. Japan's Whistleblower Protection Act requires employers with more than 300 employees to have an internal reporting system. Check that yours works in Japanese and that people trust it.
- Probe for it in interviews. Ask senior candidates about a time they told a superior something unwelcome. For a Japan head who will report to an overseas manager, independent judgement matters more than anticipating HQ's mood.
Sources
- U-Can Buzzword of the Year awards, 2017.
- Reporting on the Moritomo Gakuen land sale, 2017–2018.
- Whistleblower Protection Act, as amended (2020 amendment in force June 2022).