---
title: Your bilingual staff are not translators | Nobu Sato
description: "Weak ties and structural holes: value sits in the gaps. Multilingual staff stand on the biggest hole, between HQ and local. Give it a formal position."
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-11/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators-cover-en-m.png
---

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Organizations & Hiring

In this article

1. [Value in the gaps](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s1)
2. [The biggest hole in a Japan entity](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s2)
3. [The design decision: give the hole a formal position](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s3)
4. [Where this shows up in a diagnosis](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s4)

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# Your bilingual staff are not translators

What this person translates is intent, not words

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)5 min read

Contents4

1. [Value in the gaps](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s1)
2. [The biggest hole in a Japan entity](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s2)
3. [The design decision: give the hole a formal position](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s3)
4. [Where this shows up in a diagnosis](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/bilingual-staff-are-not-translators#s4)

**Series「People Don't Follow the Org Chart」** · Part 7 of 13 · Part 2 · How structure shapes behavior  
Prologue：[The people who aren't on the org chart](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/people-not-on-the-org-chart?hsLang=en)

The bilingual person in your Japan entity is probably holding up your whole line to HQ, and is probably paid like a translator. A typical case: someone who speaks Chinese, Japanese and English. Title: business support. Daily work: translating HQ emails, sitting in on the country manager's meetings, relaying what Japanese customers said back to HQ. He knows everything that goes on in the company, is involved in every decision, and is paid third from the bottom. After two years he leaves, and it takes the entity a year to rebuild its communication with HQ.

## Value in the gaps

Two findings in sociology say the same thing. The first is Mark Granovetter's "The Strength of Weak Ties" (1973). Most new information and opportunity reaches you through weak ties, because your strong ties know the same people and the same things you do. The second is Ronald Burt's structural holes (1992). When two groups in a network aren't connected, there's a hole between them, and whoever stands in it and bridges the two controls the flow of information and sees opportunities first.

Burt's findings have been replicated many times inside companies. Managers who occupy structural holes get promoted faster, see their ideas adopted more often, and are rated higher. The open question is whether the advantage holds in collectivist cultures. Some studies find that in Chinese and Japanese organizations, people who bridge holes are seen as belonging to neither side, and the advantage shrinks. I think that finding is itself the point. In Japan, the person on the hole is both the most valuable and the least trusted. That is exactly why they need a formal position to protect them.

Treat your bridge as a translator and your only line to HQ walks out underpaid

The “business support” person in this article’s Japan entity, who speaks Chinese, Japanese and English. Read through Burt’s structural holes (1992)

Cast as a translatorWhat followsGive the hole a formal position

Paythird from the bottom

→

The job is the whole line of communication. He left after two years

→

Set grade and pay by the weight of the two sides it connects. Reference point: a direct report of the country manager

Authorityjudgment only as a suggestion

→

HQ is free to ignore it. A messenger forever

→

When HQ and local reality conflict, this person’s compromise goes ahead unless the country manager vetoes it

Alonethe hole reopens when he goes

→

The box only said business support. A year to rebuild

→

Develop a second, even with weaker languages, and bring them to HQ meetings

What this person translates is intent, not words. Count how many people stand on the hole today.

Figure 1. A Japan entity that treated its trilingual business support person, the one standing on the structural hole between HQ and Japan, as a translator and paid him third from the bottom needed a year to rebuild communication with HQ after he left, so put the position on the chart, give it formal decision rights and develop a second person.

## The biggest hole in a Japan entity

In a foreign company's Japan entity there is really only one structural hole that matters, the one between HQ and local. The language difference is the part you can see. The part you can't see is a different level of detail, a different way of deciding, a different meaning of "yes." As [the foreign-companies post](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/what-foreign-companies-struggle-with-in-japan?hsLang=en) argued, this gap goes well beyond language.

Multilingual staff end up on this hole because they are the only people who understand both sides. Translation is the smaller part of it. What they carry across is intent. HQ's "as soon as possible" means this week. The Japanese customer's "we'll consider it" means no. The person who can map those two sentences onto each other is the one filling the hole.

Cast that person as a translator and a few things follow. Their pay is set at translator level while the job they actually do is the whole line of communication, so sooner or later they leave. With no formal authority, their judgment can only show up as a suggestion, and HQ is free to ignore it. And when they go, the hole reopens while the org chart shows nothing missing, because the box only ever said business support.

## The design decision: give the hole a formal position

Here is how I would set it up.

Put the position on the chart. Set its grade and pay by the weight of the two sides it connects. Language skill is a poor yardstick for this. A reasonable reference point is a direct report of the country manager, rather than an assistant.

Give it formal decision rights in at least one area. For example, when an HQ requirement conflicts with local reality, this person proposes the compromise, and the compromise goes ahead by default unless the country manager vetoes it. Without something like this, they stay a messenger forever.

And don't leave one person alone on the hole. One person on a structural hole is a single point of failure. Develop a second, even one with weaker languages, and have them sit in on HQ meetings. These are the bridge people from [the talent-map post](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/talent-map-is-not-a-list?hsLang=en). They are scarce in the Japanese market to begin with, so start early.

## Where this shows up in a diagnosis

In the first layer of my organizational diagnosis, the real power structure, I look specifically for the people on structural holes: who is the only channel between HQ and local? Then I check how far their grade is from the job they actually do. The wider that gap, the more fragile the company's line of communication.

So in your entity, how many people are standing on the hole between HQ and local right now?

**In this series**  
Previous：[Don't run a startup-stage entity like head office](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/dont-run-a-startup-entity-like-head-office?hsLang=en)  
Next：[Add people, and each one pulls less](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/ringelmann-effect-add-people-pull-less?hsLang=en)

For how employers in Japan pay for a language in the first place, as a gate, a seat or a line item, see [What Three Languages Are Worth to an Employer in Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/what-languages-are-worth-in-japan?hsLang=en). For how to test a candidate's Japanese situation by situation at the hiring stage, see [Is Their Japanese Enough? How Employers Judge Engineers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/is-their-japanese-enough-employer-view?hsLang=en).

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

[Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)[Contact](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en)

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