“Why don’t they stay focused?” “Why do they stick to such an incidental point?” “Why do they quickly jump to action without careful consideration of associated matters?” These are typical frustrations that we may often sense coming from either Westerners or Japanese – or both. Through my experience in bilingual facilitation support for global corporations opening in Japan, I’ve come to believe that the cause for such frustration is not simply a matter of language, but rather a matter of differences in underlying beliefs and thought patterns that subliminally affect people’s behavior.