“We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don’t it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.” Jessamyn West Tatamae and honne are Japanese terms. The first refers to your outer or public face. The one where you smile and respectfully show appropriate amounts of deference respect or asserted loyalties to a company, a person, an idea. In some ways it is tatamae that holds things together because the mask of order and peacefulness is important for keeping things functioning. This is what you would show to a neighbor that you cannot actually stand but maintain pleasantries with in the market or on the train. Tatamae is also like the party line you chose to tow or the character assumptions you make of someone. It’s kind of like a preconceived notion. Sound bytes. The black and white sentence you assign to someone. No personal growth allowed. Honne is what you actually think feel and believe. It’s also what comes after you sit and go over the years of fine print and consider more than that one sentence assessment. It doesn’t kowtow to keep the peace. You don’t show or reveal your honne to anyone- or at most a very close knit group who would also share their concerns. Honne is not what happens after too many drinks on a late night with colleagues. That’s extra advanced tatamae to maintain the appropriate comments and context despite that fourth beer tempting you to put the bottle down a little bit harder on the table and shoot things straight. It might sneak out in the intensity in your eyes though. For the first few years in Japan it was a point of sincere frustration that so much orchestration and layers had to be built around things. Change was slow and took lots of discussion and consensus. It seemed circuitous and inefficient. That was until I had stayed long enough to appreciate the purpose that tatamae served. It allows distance and space in addition to politeness in a place where there could easily be none. I remember the commute in the morning. There was a rhythm to hustling up the stairs to catch the first train, switching at Shibuya for the next and how the seats were up so more people could fit. People would queue and be within inches of one another, But somehow you maintain personal space and a sense of self. I came to appreciate how layers can help you to maintain your ownness when within arms reach of a window or a porch was another neighbor. Here still in New York I experience iterations of a tatamae of sorts. It seems more flailing and desperate than suited for a purpose. If we ignore the way things are long enough, they will get better. And if I don’t state the facts as is or I only choose the ones that make the story go the way I wish it to, well then no one will know, maybe not even me- right? How long and how hard can I spin a story until inaccuracy is more farcical than fact? In relationships and even in companies there is a desire rooted in fear to pound the same sentence on the table over and over again so it will resonate outside your fist on wood and actually be true. But after a while all that’s left is a person holding onto shadows, alone. No one buys the sound byte or listens to the story. And the characters that they try to contain as fops or as failures have lives full of facts that make those images fade. Soro soro…. It’s time to leave. Time to walk home with honne to honne talks with those who are willing to see the distance between facts and intended perceptions.]]>