Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

Wolfgang Angyal, President of Riedel Japan, originally grew up in Austria and came to Japan in 1985 as an Austrian representative in restaurant service sector of the 28th WorldSkills Competition and won first place. He credits this win to the trust he had of his supporting team who were all Japanese. Mr. Angyal has also been practicing Judo from a young age where he developed a deep respect and fascination for Japanese culture.

After working in the education sector as an instructor in Japan, Mr. Angyal became interested in working for Riedel as he was familiar with the brand due to his experience in the hospitality industry in Austria. Through persistency, Mr. Angyal met with Georg Riedel, the owner of Riedel, and secured a business development role for a subsidiary company. There, he was able to apply the skills he had gained working in hospitality and event management to promote Riedel products to Japanese restaurants and companies.

Staying true to the Riedel family motto of "stoke the fire, don't save the ashes," Mr. Angyal persistently approached restaurants to promote Riedel. Fortunately, this was the 80s economic boom time in Japan, and Mr. Angyal used his networks to successfully schedule appointments to meet restaurant owners in person. "I think a lot of them actually bought their first [wine] glasses, more out of pity, [thinking] this guy's sweating with this case, coming to the restaurant and waiting for two hours. Or some of them maybe were admiring the effort." Mr. Angyal worked to establish the brand within companies to build relationships with large scale distributions.

Mr. Angyal states the main challenge for him at the time was introducing wine culture to those who were not familiar with drinking wine on a daily basis. Therefore, Mr. Angyal actively promoted the product by holding tasting sessions where people got to experience drinking wine from Riedel glasses. "If you taste the difference, it's experiential. If you taste the difference between [a Riedel glass] and another glass of drinking the same beverage, you will never forget it."

Mr. Angyal then moved his base to Australia where he worked from Riedel's Sydney office as the Vice President of Asia Pacific, Latin America and Southern Hemisphere. After a brief consideration of moving to China, Mr. Angyal was persuaded by an old friend to move back to Japan in 2000 where he has been since then, working as the President & CEO of Riedel Japan.

By 2000, Riedel Japan had become an independent operation and Mr. Angyal started to build his team through referrals to recruit staff. As a leader, Mr. Angyal found challenges in driving the operation side of the organization and establishing a shared vision while going through an acquisition. In order to maintain employee engagement during the merger, Mr. Angyal organized workshops, off-site meetings and external coaching. Additionally, Mr. Angyal worked to get to know his staff through open communication and personality tests. By better understanding his staff, Mr. Angyal adjusted his communication style and worked to form a more trusting relationship. Mr. Angyal notes that as a foreign leader, he is mindful of being consistent with his decision-making and tries to be predictable with his actions. He claims that constantly asking the questions "How do they see us and what do they expect from us?" is key to leading in Japan as a foreigner.

Additionally, Mr. Angyal values open communication and provides equal opportunities for his staff to be heard even if this means rejecting his own ideas in public. Mr. Angyal also seeks to bring different perspectives and ideas from his global networks and to his Japanese team in order to provide the "right fuel for their sparks." He also has his immediate reports give him a 360 degree performance review to continue developing his leadership abilities and maintain transparency.

Riedel Japan has come up with innovation such as creating sake glasses, an idea that came out of a tasting workshop from a customer. Currently, the Japan office has independently come up with two different sake glasses - the Daiginjo glasses and Junmai glasses - by working with hundreds of brewers and testing in multiple workshops to come up with the perfect product.

For newcomers in Japan, Mr. Angyal advises to be patient and mindful of one's actions as well as words. He recommends having small wins first and then building on that to quickly gain trust and credibility. Lastly, he advises to be authentic and to be yourself to be able to survive leading in Japan in the long term.

Karl Hanhe, originally from Germany, has been in Japan over thirty years. He set up his own company here called ONEWORLD in 1992, before selling it in 2004. After remaining in that business for a couple of years, he became the President and Representative Director of Haefele Japan in 2008.

Brendan Delahunty, who is the President of SPORTS TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY JAPAN (STH JAPAN) , first arrived in Japan for the JET Program in 1993 and has been living in the country since then, for over 30 years. His teaching experience through the JET Program led him into working at Pearson, the world's largest education company. At Pearson, Mr. Delahunty ended up working as the Sales and Marketing Manager for about four years in Tokyo and Osaka. While working at Pearson, Mr. Delahunty moved back to London to work in the global project management office there. In London, he and his team members looked after all the international projects. Based on these experiences, Pearson asked him to come back to Japan in 2007. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Delahunty became the President of Pearson Japan and led the company for seven years until stepping into his current role at STH JAPAN.

While working in various countries such as Japan and the United Kingdom, Mr. Delahunty learned about leadership and how it works in different countries. Mr. Delahunty defined that leadership is the person in the team who ultimately takes responsibility and makes decisions but involves the whole team in the decision-making process, trying to make the team feel comfortable with the leader and team. Also, he mentions the key to managing other Japanese salespeople is to be a "longman" – someone who gives advice and leads – especially since salespeople are concerned about the ability of their managers to lead with confidence.

The age factor is quite important in Japan and Mr. Delahunty also knew that. Because of this culture, he got into conflict with his team members during his first years of leadership. In order to resolve this issue and build better relationships with his team, Mr. Delahunty looked for people who were not satisfied in their current working environment at Pearson. He then set up a "voluntary redundancy scheme" to better evaluate employee performance and promote those who had the ability and integrity. And what he found was that by giving skilled, younger managers opportunities that they were not expecting to receive for another 10 years, they became increasingly engaged. As a leader, he established a new young and passionate organizational culture by adjusting the old Japanese workplace structure and promoting young talent throughout this process.

Mr. Delahunty gave some advice for newcomers to Japan. Mr. Delahunty says, the most important thing for them is "to be open when you come here…[because] the ways of working here, the meetings that you do, and the sorts of things that go on in meetings, the relationships that you have, they're all very different to working in Western cultures." Therefore, sometimes silence is the best way to treat some actions from Japanese coworker when adopting Japanese workplace culture. Mr. Delahunty also says, "after you get used to this culture, start learning Japanese." Because, at least a little bit of Japanese is always useful, enough to be able to go out and have a few beers and have a small conversation. Due to Japan having a drinking culture after work, it can serve as a bonding opportunity for coworkers in Japanese.

Christian Wiedmann, President & CEO of BMW Group Japan had already arrived in Japan on one first stint back in the early 2000s. He was born in Thailand and grew up in the country for all of his youth. Due to this background, he seized the opportunity to run as the Chief Financial Officer in the BMW leasing business in various Asian countries such as Thailand, Korea, Australia and Japan. Mr. Wiedmann worked in many BMW departments around the world, and through his experience and knowledge, he was appointed President & CEO of BMW Japan Group in August 2019.

During his first few years of leadership, Mr. Wiedmann found it challenging to receive input from his team to effectively run the operations. Mr. Wiedmann explains how it is crucial that the team knows their businesses, have an opinion of where they want to go, and understand their strengths and weaknesses. Mr. Wiedmann adds, "I experienced that it is much more difficult to enter the Japanese local business leader community. It is quite open to enter the expat community or the local expat community but getting into the Japanese leader community, that's certainly hard…[although] not impossible." He realized then and now that the trick to joining the community was to "walk the talk much, much longer than anywhere else." Mr. Wiedmann also notes there is a formal side to functions in Japan, as well as a human side that is based on relationships. Thus, Mr. Wiedmann thinks it is important to establish trust, and "make the Japanese team certainly feel more and more safe and comfortable to express their opinions".

As the President & CEO of BMW Group in Japan, Mr. Wiedmann worked by trying to make the team members follow his idea and achieve great results. By doing so, he agreed that engaging people is the key to making sure everyone is working towards a shared goal. Mr. Wiedman describes the "special" way his team holds discussions. He explains: "so we have a discussion…then there's a pause. So someone says something and they think we should do it like this and this." By making decisions in this way through feedback and discussions, there is more engagement.

Furthermore, Mr. Wiedman talks about the challenge of leading in a culture that is risk averse and wants to have every detail mapped out before making the first step. In order to overcome this challenge, Mr. Wiedmann says, Japan's business style needs to be more honest. He particularly highlights that by saying: "the moment somebody gets a complaint from headquarters around having been too vocal in a meeting, that is when they get a big congratulatory message from me," indicating that Mr. Wiedmann himself would welcome receiving such feedback about Japanese team members.

At last, Mr. Widemann mentions 3 steps of advice that businesspeople who are new to Japan may adopt to succeed in Japan. Firstly, Mr. Wiedmann advises to take the time before coming here to prepare oneself for a smooth transition. Secondly, Mr. Wiedmann recommends practicing active listening, acting in an authentic manner, and reflecting one's behavior based on what one has learned through listening. Thirdly, Mr. Wiedman advises to be patient, stating: "give it time, give the organization time, and give the meetings time." Through these steps, Mr. Wiedmann explains newcomers will successfully build respectful relationship with Japanese businesspeople.

Dan Kerrigan spent nearly six years with Citibank in Tokyo as Managing Direrctor, Head of Execution Services from 2009 until 2015. For the next seven years he had a number of roles in Hong Kong with Ohara Capital Partners Limited as Principal, then Managing Director, Head of Sales Trading and Execution Asia Paciific for BNP Paribas, later as CEO at SBI Securities, and finally at CEO Woodlands Investment Partners, before returning to Japan in his current role.

Yusuke Asai is presently the CEO at Standard Chartered bank in Tokyo, Japan. Mr. Asai has spent over 32 years in the financial services industry. Mr. Asai credits much of his success and leadership qualities to Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" which he has read twice. Mr. Asai spent his first 10 years with a Japanese bank, then received a scholarship to do an MBA at UCLA in the US. He returned to Japan to work with the bank for a few more years. After this, he switched gears to Investment Banking starting with Goldman Sachs, leading him to various other organizations and eventually stepped into his current position.

Mr. Asai's first experience in leadership was when he was working for Goldman Sachs. Mr. Asai talks about his responsibilities in the role and why it was important to win mandates to progress in the position. By winning the mandate on his own and proving himself to the leadership team, Mr. Asai was able to justify hiring a better team. Mr. Asai explains that having an understanding of what is required to successfully earn a mandate, and knowing every mechanism and role within one's own team is essential to becoming an effective leader. Mr. Asai talks about this process and why this understanding is crucial regardless of what country you are in.

Mr. Asai talks about starting his senior leadership role at Reinsurance Group of America where he was a CEO at 45 years old. He worked hard to gain trust from his staff and listened to their advice on what is good for the company. Mr. Asai emphasized good communication and made it a point to connect with all the business heads and team leads in one-on-one conversations. He also connected with all staff members. He listened to all the voices of every employee, which led to increased trust and engagement. Mr. Asai emphasizes having happy clients as the key to building a strong business. He says that if the deal is successful, the clients are satisfied which in turn ensures stakeholders with increased revenue. Thus, business is a cycle that starts with ensuring clients are happy.

Advice given to experts coming into Japan would be to always be mindful that they are being watched by others. He credits good leadership to strong integrity. Mr. Asai thinks that learning Japanese is not necessary to being a good leader in Japan, but he does think it is necessary to provide strong value and be a leader with integrity. Mr. Asai talks about and defines what he believes leadership is with a single phrase - Noblesse oblige or integrity - meaning that a leader that has the privilege to lead, must act with honour and integrity. Mr. Asai believes this is an important core value for all leaders, regardless of country, culture or position.

Noboru Nakatani has been leading in a global environment in various industries including manufacturing, IT, finance, and consulting in France, US and Japan. He is currently the President and CEO of JASTEC Co., Ltd., a leading systems integrator in Japan. Mr. Nakatani graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Keio University and holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School. After graduation, Mr. Nakatani worked first as a Production Engineer at Canon Japan, and then led the Research and Development Department in their France operation. He then moved to New York, working as a Senior Consultant at Deloitte before joining JASTEC. As Chairman and CEO of JASTEC International, Inc Mr. Nakatani acquired a French company called LTU, and expanded JASTEC's business portfolio. Mr. Nakatani also successfully improved JASTEC's revenue during the first few years of his leadership after the company had been struggling.

When looking back at his early leadership years at Canon in Japan, Mr. Nakatani describes it as a "free" environment where engineers were allowed to try new things. The hierarchy was not as top-down, and the decision-making was not necessarily logical. When comparing his early leadership experience in Japan to France, Mr. Nakatani observes that both countries take their time in the decision-making process, yet the reasoning is different. In Japan, it is largely due to people being risk-averse and hesitant to make decisions, whereas in France, it is because there are so many different opinions and discussions that need to be held.

In order to maintain trust and engagement during JASTEC's difficult times as an externally hired leader, Mr. Nakatani listened to his employees and repeatedly communicated his vision and commitment to improve their business. Moreover, he worked to readjust the organization's client portfolio, and tried to maximize and diversity sales from existing clients. Mr. Nakatani points to internal training and research for his team's success in upselling, by having a well-trained sales and project management team that carefully analyzed the midterm plans of companies to make attractive proposals. Additionally, when making changes, Mr. Nakatani says it is important to start things from a small scale, where there is more flexibility and room for making mistakes. He also states how essential it is to learn from these mistakes and share the experience within the team.

For foreigners coming to lead in Japan, Mr. Nakatani advises to avoid micromanagement, as this prevents people from thinking independently and creatively. Moreover, Mr. Nakatani emphasizes the importance of listening to the team, and understanding their expectations, likes and dislikes and so on at the beginning of joining the company. From there, Mr. Nakatani recommends creating goals with a clear road map to help the employees succeed in reaching them. Being an externally hired executive, Mr. Nakatani also strongly advises to show commitment to the team and communicate to them that he or she will stay until their goals are reached. Mr. Nakatani also indicates the value of understanding Japanese clients and working on business development to increase sales as the leader. Although Japanese is helpful to know, Mr. Nakatani thinks that as long as the direct reports can communicate in English, it is not essential to be fluent. Lastly, he recommends leaders to learn from other executives from different industries and participate in training to expand their perspective.

Ikuo Yasuda is the Chairman, President and CEO of Pinnacle Inc. (IMAP Japan) and is an expert in M&A business in Japan with over 30 years of experience. Mr. Yasuda graduated from Hitotsubashi University in the late 70s and entered the Long-term Credit Bank of Japan (currently Shinsei Bank) where he eventually became a Joint General Manager. After over 20 years at LTCB, Mr. Yasuda was headhunted by General Electric International Japan (GE) where he worked with Jack Welch managing business development and M&A. Mr. Yasuda also served as Country Head of Lehman Brothers Japan and Head of its investment banking department.

Mr. Yasuda says compared to a Japanese company, western companies are very much performance driven. Unlike a Japanese company, age is not a determining factor in their status, as Mr. Yasuda's boss at GE was younger than him, and there is no seniority system. He adds that management and executive level workers also do much of the front-line work, talking to clients and making presentations. Due to the nature of such a results-driven working environment, Mr. Yasuda says he had to be very strict with his subordinates, yet at the same time, motivate them and allow freedom in how they reached their goals. He took the Ame to muchi (Whip and candy) approach in leadership, learning from his boss who took a similar style. Moreover, as his bosses were superior to him regardless of their age, and had much more decision-making power than Japanese companies, he felt more pressure to produce results. Mr. Yasuda explains that one of the "GE way" was to stretch one's goals. For example, his team will set a goal of 15% instead of a more realistic 10%, and push themselves to reach over 10% in the end.

After GE, Mr. Yasuda worked at Lehman Brothers as the Country Head of Japan. When Mr. Yasuda joined Lehman, he felt a different kind of pressure from working at GE. As GE's head of business development, Mr. Yasuda was required to make a series of acquisitions and develop new businesses. As CEO of Lehman Brothers Japan, Mr. Yasuda was hired to rebuild the Japan branch that had decreased and was responsible for producing profitable ROE.

After Lehman, Mr. Yasuda became interested in founding his own business, combining what he had learned from both cultures. As a result, Pinnacle, an M&A advisory firm, was born. When recruiting for people in the firm, Mr. Yasuda was able to receive great PR appearing on the Nikkei newspaper article as well as being a TV commentator on a nationally broadcasted news show on TBS, which prompted many talent people in finance to apply. Moreover, Mr. Yasuda sought to target CEOs of corporations and built up his client base by setting up lunch appointments and golfing. Mr. Yasuda also took full advantage of his business network, being part of many business leader associations, including the Tokyo Rotary Club. He explains, when the M&A research begins from the ground-level and is brought up to the CEO, the executive is more likely to turn it down because of the risk factors written up in the reports provided to him. However, by capturing the CEOs' interests first, Mr. Yasuda thinks the M&A will most likely be implemented.

As for the future of M&A, Mr. Yasuda thinks more and more companies will be interested in order to increase their ROE. He mentions there is much more that M&A can do with Private Equity Fund and business successions in which companies do not have a successor. Additionally, Mr. Yasuda points out that the country is going through a post-industrial revolution with the rapid-changes due to technology. This will also impact the growth of M&A.

On advice to foreign nationals leading in Japan, Mr. Yasuda says, it is important to understand the Japanese corporate culture, which can be unproductive at times. Secondly, he advises to be patient when doing business in Japan. He further explains, the Japanese market is fiercely competitive, which is something foreigners sent to Japan from headquarters would have to explain continuously. The key to a successful M&A in Japan would also be a gradual process, winning trust from a minority and slowly gaining more ownership.

Mr. Yasuda defines leadership as someone who is the most productive person in the organization and can lead by example. In this way, he thinks one can earn the trust and respect of the team. Moreover, Mr. Yasuda values fairness and treating his employees equally, and being transparent with how they are compensated based on their performance.

Yumiko Murakami is the General Partner and Founder of M Power Partners, Japan's first ESG-focused global venture capital fund. The organization was founded by Ms. Murakami, along with Kathy Mastsui and Seki Miwa. Ms. Murakami was born and raised in Japan but studied in the US and spent a significant part of her adult life abroad.

Upon returning to Japan, Ms. Murakami was shocked to experience the Japanese consensus-driven leadership style. Ms. Murakami observes this consensus-driven culture and the labor market structure leads Japanese people to become risk averse. In large Japanese companies with lifetime employment, there is little incentive to taking risks and putting one's reputation or chance of a promotion at stake. This notion of low-risk tolerance in Japan applies to start-up companies as well, as there are many legal and structural problems to start businesses in Japan.

Ms. Murakami does point out that things are changing. The Japanese government is trying to change the legal framework to push start-up initiatives. Ms. Murakami explains, when it comes to innovation and creating new businesses, the role of start-ups and entrepreneurs is critical. Thus, proactive initiatives are taken by the government and private sector leaders. Ms. Murakami sees tremendous potential in Japan to start creating this healthy ecosystem. She hopes if there is enough sense of crisis among leaders, things will move quickly. Additionally, many talented young people are eager to join start-ups or even starting their own business, which is a relatively new phenomenon in Japan. Things started to change around 2000 in the US where there was a shift in student employment interests. In the past, the labour market discouraged employees from taking risks, but young people today have more bargaining power as they are in high-demand.

To keep people motivated, Ms. Murakami thinks employees need to feel they have ownership and have the responsibility to make the organization better. With her organization, M Power Partners, Ms. Murakami feels everybody has a fair chance of voicing their views during the decision-making process. M Power is a small team, and there is not much of a hierarchy, although this becomes tricky when the company grows into over a hundred people. The core culture in their fund is to nurture a sense of inclusiveness, especially since the three founders including Ms. Murakami have always been a minority during the majority of their career. Since they are all different, they know that they can offer interesting perspectives that many do not see. On advice to achieving success in Japan, Ms. Murakami says it is important for international people who come to Japan to understand the Japanese culture and values, and realize what values they can bring to their leadership role. They would have to ask themselves, what is important about them as a person and how do they want to construct their relationships with new colleagues in Japan, setting aside any cultural differences.

Ms. Murakami additionally points out that Japanese women have been a secret weapon for international companies for a long time because they are more open-minded to hire female professionals compared to Japanese companies. So when Japanese companies are not looking at this female talent pool, there is an opportunity for international companies to hire talented Japanese women.

For Ms. Murakami, leadership is not something that one could claim by having a title but, something that one should demonstrate through action. Ms. Murakami prefers a leadership approach where she grows together with her team and learns from each other.

Mario Munoz is presently the President of Mölnlycke in Tokyo, Japan. Mr. Munoz has a long-standing history with Japan, having first come to Japan in 1979, he was studying in middle and high school until 1982. He moved to France for the rest of high school, where he continued studying Japanese. Mr. Munoz was one of the lucky foreigners who was immersed in the Japanese language and culture at such a young age. He went to the US to continue his education and attended Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. He had an affinity for an international career and with the program's heavy emphasis on international business, this was the right choice.

Mr. Munoz says that to increase innovation, there are ranges provided in terms of targets provided to an individual. He says the target numbers are set but the way in which the representatives handle the accounts differ. Mr. Munoz speaks about encouraging his staff to speak. He has made Townhall meetings, there is a section called "Ask Mario" where people are encouraged to ask questions, a hot topic on their mind or something that they are curious about.

A few things have worked from Mr. Munoz to gain trust. He walks around the office to talk to people and there are two engagement surveys done a year. Mr. Munoz says something that works in Japan is analyzing the surveys and addressing low hanging fruit and pain points. In Japan he has found, flexible time schedule and encouraging people to take their holidays goes a long way. Mr. Munoz encourages people via personal messages to take holidays.

Mr. Munoz has a lot of advice for people coming into Japan. Firstly, he advises individuals to be themselves and not try to be Japanese. He also suggests learning a little bit of Japanese would be helpful in communication, as most Japanese people can read and write in English, but they aren't as comfortable speaking English. Mr. Munoz also emphasizes that the Japanese are very patient, especially with foreigners. It helps foreigners to be patient while in Japan as well. Mr. Munoz suggests keeping an open mind, have good open communication and be ready to be flexible in the Japanese work setting. He ends by saying that investing in Japan is likely to be fruitful if you are patient.