A few weeks ago, a North American aircraft manufacturer made headlines in Japan after one of its planes was forced to make an emergency landing. It emerged that the glitch was mechanical, and therefore the fault lay with the manufacturer, not the Japanese airline or the pilot. The North American executives flew to Japan, having fully prepared a presentation on the technological prowess of their aircraft. The idea was that the company needed to put a positive spin on things, which comes quite naturally when managing crises in the west.
But when they presented their ideas to the Japanese airline, the smart salarymen shook their heads. Impossible. The only option, the Americans were told, was to face the press, bow as deeply as they could manage, and apologise to the media and the public. Over and over again.
