U.S. feds immerse themselves in Japanese bureaucracy

You may think the image of a Japanese worker slaving away 12-hours-a-day is a myth, but federal manager John D. Hill discovered the stereotype is not too far from the truth.

"A Japanese bureaucrat typically has dinner with the people he works with. He gets home late and may not see his kids in the morning," explains Hill, a Defense Department procurement specialist who coordinates U.S.-Japan cooperation on military projects. "In fact, I saw people going to meetings scheduled to start at 11 o'clock at night."

Long hours are a way of life in the Japanese government, says Hill. He should know. Hill, along with a select few other federal officials, spent a full year immersed in the government of the Land of the Rising Sun. Hill worked in three Japanese agencies--the Japan Defense Agency, the Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)--through the Mike Mansfield Fellowship Program, a unique opportunity for U.S. civil servants to see what life is like in another nation's public sector. In August 1996, Hill and six other American government officials became the first generation of Mansfield fellows. Three subsequent generations of fellows--including six federal employees announced this month--are making their way through the Mansfield program, bringing into the U.S. government a cadre of civil servants with an insider's understanding of how the government of America's most important Pacific military and economic ally operates.

Comrades-in-arms

Congress created the Mansfield fellowships in 1994, naming the program after the former Senator and U.S. ambassador to Japan. The non-profit Mike Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs runs the fellowships through U.S. Information Agency grants. Up to 10 U.S. officials are selected for the two-year program, which includes a year of intensive Japanese language training in Washington, D.C., followed by a yearlong placement in the Japanese government. After the year in Japan, fellows must work for the U.S. government for at least two years.

Last week, the Mansfield program selected six federal employees for the fourth round of the exchange. The group will include:

• Stephen Cunico, Major, United States Air Force
• Henry Malinowski, Director, Division of Pharmaceutical Evaluation, Food and Drug Administration
• Christopher Metts, Support Manager for Operations, Southern Region, Federal Aviation Administration
• Scott Olsen, Legislative Assistant, Office of U.S. Senator Max Baucus
• David Richardson, General Attorney, Commerce Department
• Jeffrey Seay, Special Agent, Naval Criminal Investigative Service

While in Japan, fellows don't just shadow Japanese officials; the U.S. bureaucrats work side-by-side with their Japanese colleagues.

Hill's work in Japan, for example, mirrored the acquisitions work he does for the Pentagon now. Japan and the U.S. frequently work together on military development. Before Hill took his current job as deputy director for Pacific armaments cooperation, hashing out the details of Japanese-U.S. cooperation on acquisition projects, he got hands-on training in the way the Japanese side of the partnership works. Hill says he felt welcomed by the Japanese, who taught him the way they do business while simultaneously helping him improve his language skills. Now that he's back in the United States, Hill knows the challenges his Japanese colleagues must deal with, so he can usher projects along with greater speed. In fact, Hill got to know many of the Japanese managers that he now works with.

"I can communicate with my Japanese colleagues with a moment's notice. I just pick up the phone and call them," Hill says. "We have a great ability to move things along really quickly."

Trading Places

While Hill and his Japanese counterparts work toward common goals, other U.S. officials find themselves on opposite sides of disputes with their Japanese counterparts.

For example, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has spent years pushing Japan to open its market to American exports. But with an eye toward friendlier relations, the USTR now has Amy Jackson, a former Mike Mansfield fellow, in its Japan policy office. Earlier this year, Jackson joined USTR after seven years with NASA. As a Mansfield fellow in 1996-97, Jackson spent six months at Japan's space agency, NASDA, and six months at the Science Technology Agency, which oversees a vast array of programs, including NASDA, nuclear programs, and scientific research and development.

Jackson says that while she was not involved in trade negotiations while she was in Japan, her year there will help her face the challenges of her new job.

"I understand how the Japanese bureaucracy works. For example, their personnel system is different from ours," Jackson says. Japanese civil servants rotate jobs frequently so that they have a well-rounded handle on their agencies' operations. "That dynamic often bothers the U.S. side. Here, managers see a program through from its start on paper all the way to its full launch. During that time, the U.S. manager may go through three or four or five Japanese counterparts because of Japan's generic rotation system."

Another difference Jackson noticed was the dearth of women in higher-ranking positions in the Japanese government, though she said that even in her former agency, NASA, men tend to hold the top jobs. But just as women are moving up the management ladder here in the U.S., Jackson sees more opportunities for women in Japan.

"In Japan, in the younger ranks, you see women coming up," Jackson says. "I see change. But it's going to take awhile for women to actually move up the ladder."

Comparing Apples and Sushi

While there are limits to the comparisons that can be made between the Japanese and American governments, Mansfield fellows have found some enlightening similarities and differences between the nations' public servants.

Stanley J. Austin, a specialist in the Environmental Protection Agency's office of wetlands, oceans and watersheds, was struck by how cozy industry and government personnel were in Japan. In relationships that would set off ethics alarms in U.S. agencies, Japanese private industry workers frequently spend time working in government offices to learn how the bureaucracy operates.

"A lot of people would say they're in bed together. And in some instances it becomes corrupt," Austin cautions. "But in general, industry and government have a good working relationship. Companies have a better understanding of what civil servants have to do."

Austin also was impressed by the respect the Japanese employees show their office's kacho (director). The kacho is the central figure in the office, around whom the employees rally. No one in the office wants to disappoint the kacho, Austin says, so they work hard to reduce mistakes. If mistakes are made that attract outside attention, the kacho takes the blame, even if the mistake is a subordinate's fault. So employees work fiercely to make sure the kacho doesn't have to take any heat.

"Kacho is like a father. If he made a motion to come, everyone would jump," Austin says. "At first, I thought, 'This is ridiculous. They worship this guy.' But by the end, I was worshipping him, too. I felt like he looked out for me, and I looked out for him."

In addition to the cultural differences between U.S. and Japanese offices, the Japanese government has stricter standards for becoming a civil servant.

Public servants in Japan tend to come from select universities, and they must take rigorous entrance exams to enter the government. Once admitted to the civil service, the freshmen work long hours doing grunt work, slowly advancing up the government ranks. In addition, Japanese bureaucrats tend to be bureaucrats for life.

"There's a golden handcuffs aspect to working in the Japanese government," says DoD's Hill.

Building Bridges

Several of the Mansfield fellows concede that it wasn't easy convincing their bosses to send them on the two-year program, which may require agencies to continue paying employees' salaries and benefits during the course of their fellowships. Only three fellows per group can have their pay and benefits covered by the Mansfield program. With tight budgets and dwindling staffs, managers often need convincing that the program is worth their agencies' bucks.

Jackson says NASA is one agency that emphasizes the importance of training for its workforce, particularly because downsizing is draining institutional knowledge from the government's ranks. Hill's bosses at DoD saw the long-term benefits of having an employee who works on Japan matters gain experience in the trenches of the Japanese government.

Including the latest group of Mansfield fellows, 27 officials from more than a dozen agencies--including Education, Energy, the Customs Service, and the Federal Communications Commission--have embarked on the Mansfield Fellowship program.

U.S. officials who have completed the program say the long hours they worked in Japan wore them out, but the experience was worth the exhaustion.

"It was no honeymoon. All the fellows, we would cry on the phones to each other," Austin says. "But it's the hardest job you'll ever love. You can make your small footprint in the international arena. You can make the world a better place."