199: Getting Close With Your Audience In Japan

<p>Engaging our audience is one of the prerequisites for having persuasion power.  Smart people something make simple errors which diminishes their ability to get their messages accepted.  </p> <p> </p> <p>Lawyers in Japan are an elite group.  Senior lawyers are the elite of the super elite.  When I landed in Tokyo on April 1st, 1979, Tokyo was completely different city than what it is today.  A low rise, rambling, conurbation maze of small streets and ugly grey buildings, long stained by air pollution.  Like the city itself, many things were a surprise back then, including Japanese lawyers.  In those days, the pass rate of the Japan bar exam was one point four percent and the average time it took after University graduation, to pass the bar exam was seven years.  With the launch of many new law schools in Japan and changes to the system, the bar exam pass rate has now climbed to thirty nine percent.  So if you meet a senior Japanese lawyer, they will be part of the older cohort of the super, super elite.  I was expecting a lot from these super lawyers, yet in some respects I was severely disappointed.</p> <p> </p> <p>I attended a legal symposium, involving these super elite Japanese lawyers and some invited international lawyers coming in from outside of Japan.  The whole affair was conducted in English, and the level spoken by the Japanese attendees was very high. It was impressive. These are very smart people, often playing a key role in resolving international disputes and enabling international commerce.   In the Japan group, all had their legal practices and additionally also lectured at leading Japanese Universities, on different aspects of the law.</p> <p> </p> <p>Yet, the communication skills on offer were incongruent with their elite educations and high societal status. I can never resolve how intelligent people can manage to stand up in front of an audience and position themselves such that they fully ignore one third of their audience.  We were seated in a theatre style arrangement with raised seating