It works by having it beaten into for you several decades of your childhood that you don't speak up, you put the groups first, and appearances trump reality.
I don't necessarily think it's any better or any worse than western culture. My perspective is "it just has different failure modes".
Agreed and I would add to the list the ungodly amount of hours they work. I know per hour they might not be as productive (or simply held back by antiquated processes within their companies) but they seem to make up for it in part by working so much overtime.