Nemawashi

Great organizations in any field have creative, determined "heroes"- self starters and independent minded intrapreneurs who think outside the box, who have the courage to pioneer new ways of doing things. In most bureaucracies, in any sector, a Japanese technique called nemawashi used to obtain a consensus in decision making can be very useful. The meaning of nemawashi is to manoeuver behind the scenes and under the waterline to subtly reach new objectives. Nemawashi aims to avoid public confrontation discussing decisions in advance. The idea is to disarm opponents by incorporating their views into the plan or, at least, to anticipate their criticsms and prepare in advance to answer them. The process is time consuming but perhaps not as time consuming as doing nothing at all, if that is the alternative. Instituional and other entrepreneurs must learn to practice this art form- guerrilla politics or nemawashi. For more on Nemawasi click here.

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