victims of circumstance?

Japan, being in the forefront of a high context society, where people put tremendous emphasis on what’s not being said in an interaction. Subtle non spoken cues are important than what’s being said. Hence, the Japanese particularly offended when their finance minister chose to sip wine and doze off in a G7 (Group 7) Summit conference held in Rome, a few days back. In their clause, Mr. Shoichi Nakagawa, did not verbally demean or made any inappropriate remarks during the conference. However, it was the slurred speech and the apparent ‘drunkenness’ of him that displeased the nation.

Also, Japan is more of a collectivist nation. Meaning to say that the social norms and duty are defined by the group, rather than self comfort. Moreover, in an collectivist society, the social behavior is determined by the views and needs of the society rather than oneself. Therefore it is to say that most living in an collectivist society are more keen on self sacrifice (for the greater good of the society), and places key interest on face value.

Hence, from the above mentioned two characteristics of a collectivist society, the former finance minister is obviously on the wrong side of the society norm. Probably driven by an imposed self sacrificial duty, and an immense depletion of face value; Mr. Nakagawa offered his resignation from office quoting “I have decided that it would be better for the country if I quit.” .

However, this form of collectivist thinking is hardy popular in the Western societies. Instead of a collectivist route, a more individualist approach is adopted by the Westerners. Whereby the social behavior is largely determined by the goals and values of the individual. The individualist person values freedom over bondage in traditions.

Take the diabolical opening of the Heathrow Terminal 5 last year for an example. 72 flights were canceled in the opening day itself and another 54 flights were canceled the subsequent day, amidst of the peculiar mix of pomp and circumstance with chaos. But, Mr. Willie Walsh, boss the British Airways, refused to quit after the unprecedented screw up in the history of Britain Airports. He could have be waned off by the traditional approach if he was in a society where Mr. Nakagawa had been. Yet, Mr. Willie pressed on and there were record financial results. BA made an operating profit of £875 Million and achieved the long-held goal of a 10% operating margin. That silenced most of his critics.

Hence, based on two vivid examples of two person living across the world, each in a different society – collectivist and individual, affected how they chose to handle upsets.. Which left me two questions.

1) What kind of society do you think Singapore is in?
2) How would each of the person mentioned above handle the situation if they were Singaporeans?

What do you think?