13: Robert Heldt Founder & President, Custom Media

(upbeat music) - Welcome back to another episode of Japan's top business interviews. Today, my special guest is an old friend of mine, Robert Heldt, who runs custom media here in Japan. Robert, welcome to the show. - Thank you, Greg, and great to be on the show. - Thank you for having me. - Yeah, no, great pleasure to have you on. So, Robert, you're very well known, custom media's very well known around town. But for people who don't know you, for your listeners who may be overseas, don't know what's going on in Japan. Can you talk a little bit about your background, how you were turned up in Japan, and how you've had this business career, and how you've become an entrepreneur in Japan, and what sort of companies you've run? - Thank you. After grads, I'm originally from Chennai, in the southeast coast of India, and after graduating, I started my career in the Maldives, in the hospitality industry. I entered entry level, working in the front desk, and then worked my way up there. I was there for about six years, and I was promoted with front office supervisor, and then accommodations and guest relations officer, in which role I had to lead teams, and that was my first time to lead a diversity. Being in the Maldives and being an Indian company, of course, we had many Indian staff, but we also had the local Maldivians, we had Bangladeshi staff, we had Sri Lankans, and several other nationalities as well. So in the front office department, I had to deal with international staff, so trying to understand their cultures, trying to understand how to motivate them, so it was kind of fascinating career for me. And also being in the tourism industry, it gave me an opportunity to work with tourists from all over the world, from Europe, from different parts of Asia, and so on. I was there for about six years, then I moved to Japan in 2004. Why did you come to Japan in 2004? Why leave the sunny Maldives for Japan? So my wife's Japanese, I met my wife in the Maldives, and then we got married in India, and we were there for about a year, and then we moved to Japan in 2004, and the first thing that struck me was just advertising world. It was everywhere, it was in your face, was everywhere I went, I was just distracted by this advertising clutter. And I just felt like this seems like a very interesting industry, and it seems like it's happening here. So I was so curious about advertising, so I wanted to get into advertising. So I started working for a publisher in advertising sales department, doing advertising sales. I was there for about three years, I became the sales manager, and I just found that there was no more growth, and I wanted to do something different, and I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, I've always wanted to start my own business, so that maybe the timing is right, I saw an opportunity in the market for bilingual media, and that was it, so I set out about 2008 to start custom media. - And I think you first, what was your first publication, where did you start from, any publications? - At the time I launched a magazine called Duplex Lifestyle, it was a bilingual magazine for a service residence operator, it was just before the Lehman Shock, which is really bad timing, because after the Lehman Shock, the business pretty much folded, and my contract for the magazine after two issues was pretty much evaporated. So I had to think on my feet and do something different, so I took the same concept and launched a magazine called, with him, or what's in it for me, which is more of a bilingual lifestyle in a travel magazine, which could be found in several other service residences, including more residences, sold in hotels, like the Shangri-La, and so on. And from that, I went to the British Chamber of Commerce, so I didn't have a magazine at the time, and pitched them the idea of launching a magazine for the Chamber. And in mid 2009, they awarded me the contract, and in 2009, in November, I launched the first issue of a BCCJ acumen, so we just celebrated our 10th anniversary of BCCJ acumen. - Oh, congratulations. - Thank you. So here you've come out of the hospitality industry. You're working in the sales job, selling advertising space to companies. You start one publication, Lehman Shock contract doesn't continue, you start again. So how many people did you have at the beginning there, and how many people is it today, and what sort of publications are you covering today? - Sure, back then, we were a very small operation. I had about three staff, just two-celled staff, you know, a designer, and an editor to myself, so my business partner is Simon and I myself. So a very small team, close-knit team. - So how do you convince people to join, this is how long ago now, this is-- - 10 years ago. - 10 years ago, yeah. To join a startup, I don't think the word startup even existed in Japan 10 years ago, 20 great extent. And so people here, very risk-averse cautious about who they join as an employer. How did you convince people to come on board? That must have been a pretty good sales job. - Yes, it was quite difficult, but I think they sell the passion, they saw the vision, and they could see opportunities for them to grow in the organization. So I'd given them chances to learn and grow and achieve something with me, and I think they saw that in me, and they came on board here. - And how many of those were Japanese? How many were non-Japanese? - Had one Japanese staff with you? - Still with you? - No, she's not with us anymore, but yeah. And then two salespeople, non-Japanese. - Non-Japanese, right? And today, how big are you today, and how many magazines are you covered today? - Today we cover three other magazines. We do the American Chamber of Commerce monthly magazine, and we do the Kenedian, which is the quarterly magazine for the Kenedian Chamber of Commerce. We also work with the Tokyo American Club. What we do is purely advertising sales support, and so we are the exclusive advertising agency. - This is very in touch. - In touch, magazines, right? - So, and apart from that, we also have, you know, what annual magazines, we do a magazine for Housing Japan, again, kind of similar. They do the production that we handle, a lot of sales of advertising and so on. - Still with the British Chamber? - We still have the British Chamber. And then most recently in June of this year, we partnered with Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal newspaper, to launch their global magazine called Mansion Global, which is a luxury real estate magazine printed globally and a website portal. So we launched the Japanese version of that in Japan reaching Wall Street Journal subscribers and a wider audience. So it's a Japanese language magazine. It's our first full, fully Japanese magazine. And it's also a website portal for real estate listings, luxury listings, this is. - And how many people are in the company now? - At the moment, we are about, give or take 25 to 27 people. So with us, totally about 30 people in the organization. - How much sort of Japanese, non-Japanese mix? - We have about six Japanese stuff, but very diverse, I would say in a small team, we've got about 14 nationalities. - 14 nationalities in that team. - Yes, wow. - That's fascinating, it's, it's, it's, yeah. - Well, let's talk about leading in Japan then, because that's a nice segue into some of the complexities. Now you've started, as you say, relatively small, and then you've gradually grown over that period of time. But when you first started out, you'd been in a manager role in Meldoz, and then you're working in sales, you're not really managing staff per se, but now you're starting your own company, and you've got to manage people. What were some of the challenges you found of managing staff in Japan? - I think initially to get by in, I think like you mentioned earlier, how did you get them to join you and to be able to get them to understand your vision, understand what you're going to achieve here, and to get by into the organization, by into your vision and your, you know, your style of leadership, and also then motivating them. - How would you describe your style of leadership that they get by into? - I would say, you know, freedom to do what they do, and also give them the tools, you know, and giving them the guidance and support, and making sure that they see growth in the organization, and giving them, you know, training. So as you know, we send a lot of our team to Dale Carnegie training for several courses, investing in them. You know, people these days also care about their carriers, care about their movement, you know, showing them that there is opportunities to grow and become a leader themselves. And that helps to motivate them. You know, that is very important. Motivating people is something that I'm always invested in. And keeping that, keeps them engaged with the business, keeps them engaged with the organization, and, you know, helps them to see a carrier part for themselves. - So you've got a small team, you're trying to sell them on the idea, you just describe your leadership style. So as you've developed and as you've grown, have you come across any particular things which prove to be problematic or challenging particularly as a leader here in Japan? - I would say, you know, in an organization like ours, because it's very diverse, the challenge is always culture, you know, understanding the various cultural nuances. - Is that because it's that 14 different nationalities issues? Is that the-- - Yes. And also, you know, [BLANK_AUDIO] the different, you know, the cultures that they come from, you know, and their experiences, right? So, and in Japan, understanding the Japanese culture as well, so I think it's important to understand their different cultural nuances and how that, you know, in turn, you know, plays in the workplace. So, what sort of nuances are they? Communication is a challenge, right? So, you're talking about language and communication styles, you know, you know, some, some cultures might be more passive, some, you know, cultures might be more active, it might be seen as aggressive, but, you know, that's not, you know, the reality. So, trying to balance the different cultural and aspects of the way they communicate, and of course, language plays a big role as well, you know, we've got fully nationalities, not all nationalities are native English language speakers, you know, so trying to, I'm saying, but Europeans, you've got Asians from other, you know, parts of Asia, then of course, you've got Japanese and also you've got Native Americans and Brits and so on. So, trying to, you know, communicate effectively, and also trying to see, you know, where they are going, I think that's kind of the challenge. And my experience with Indian culture is that Indians love talking. Oh, yes, very talkative race I found. So, I'm wondering, you know, you talk about some cultures are rather passive, don't do a lot of talk. I think the Japanese can be like that, rather listening very carefully, not talking up much, maybe not volunteering an opinion. Did you sort of strike any barriers coming from a culture which is quite effusive, I would suggest, and loves to debate, loves to talk, with a very passive, you know, curious, maybe a little bit conservative approach? Yes, all the time, I would say, and I think it's like I mentioned earlier, I think that's important to understand the different cultures because, you know, often you wonder if they are, you know, understanding what you're saying or whether it's, are you talking too fast or, you know, if, you know, you start second guessing. So, I think what I've learned is to stop and ask and be a good listener. So, when you, when you be a good listener, you're able to actually hear them out and kind of push them to share their opinion in a nice way, not, you know, so that I think helps. And I think with a very young workforce, we don't have that problem because everybody speaks up. And I try to nurture that style of work environment where everybody, no matter, you know, age or seniority in the organization, can share their opinion, can share their ideas and keep it very open that way. And that really helps to get, you know, buy in and get engagement from the team. And do you find that that rich mix of 14 different nationalities has an impact on creativity because they've got such diversity there and people are willing to speak up. Does it lead to advantages around that area? Totally. That's our, you know, that's our creative edge. That's our, that's our, you know, competitive advantage, if you may, because, you know, we can get different ideas. We can get, you know, what's worked another play other countries. And then how we can look like that in the context in Japan, you know, and that really are our secret sauce, I would say, you know, to our success. Have you found that you are attracting a certain type of Japanese person to work in the company who's open and flexible and like that, or are you finding that the sort of general cultural mix is encouraging them to speak up more and be a bit more open and a bit more transparent, a bit more vocal, or how is that working out? I think it's a bit of both. I think initially when, you know, when I interview and hire the Japanese staff who like to come work for us, often I hear one of the reasons why I asked them why would you like to work in an organization like this, one of the reasons why, what they give me is that they like to work in an international setting where they get an opportunity to, you know, speak in English and interact in English. And often, you know, the team that joins custom media, I have either worked abroad, studied abroad, lived abroad. So they have an international mindset to start with. Topping said though, when when they start in the workplace, it takes them a while to kind of, you know, adjust to the pace of, of, and the communication styles. And so then you say the pace of the communication styles is just just the speed of talking, or you're talking about the sort of speed of thought, speed of thought, definitely speed of thought. And, you know, language can play a role in that because, you know, they're different, you know, I think what you'll find is understanding where it's on colloquial, colloquial, you know, British English or American English or phrases sometimes. I have tried with American English sometimes being in Australia, you know, I don't follow the TV shows or I don't have the cultural background, I don't know, sometimes you're not, you know, they're talking about so. Exactly. So there you go. So that does, you know, take take a while for them to understand and, you know, just. And also, I think they find probably, is it my turn to speak, do I need permission? So you kind of keep encouraging them even though they come in with an international mindset, need to encourage them and get them to open up. And, and of course, you know, everybody's different, you get, you know, those who just come in and from day one, they're switched in and they're ready to go. And then those that need time to, you know, adjust and adapt. And, you know, those that stay do get that, you know, and they do grow with us. And I've, I've had, you know, Japanese team members who come in the very shy to start with. And then by the time, you know, two, three years. And if they move on, they've just, you know, blossomed into this, you know, full, fledged, you know, you know, professional, that they're proud to go on and, you know, two new things. The foreign population here is basically a transient population to great extent. I mean, people like you and I have been here a long time and probably will be here forever, while we're here forever. I'm not sure about you, but I'll be here forever. But the Japanese population, obviously, this is their home country, have you found that you've been successful in retaining your Japanese team members, particularly given in the current market, the sort of demand for Japanese English speaking staff is very high. And there's an army of recruiters out there trying to get them to jump ship and come to another company. Have you found your attention ability for those Japanese staff in the current market? It's definitely challenging. Yeah, the market dynamics is such that, you know, there's more jobs than there's talent out there. And especially if you're bilingual and, you know, you've got experience working in an international environment, then you're, you're, you're, you know, prime target. But I think, you know, the way we managed to retain staff is by, you know, giving them opportunities to grow and giving them new challenges. And then they, they see that, you know, growth. And it's often not just about, you know, I get more pay. It's also having a satisfying role and having that freedom to work. I think that flexibility and freedom, but they find it's a welcoming work, work environment, you know, they get along well with their colleagues, you know, they, they have a meaningful work day. So they feel, you know, satisfied. And they're working here till 11 o'clock, like they do in Japanese companies. Oh, no, no, not a custom medium. Yeah. So what, what, what, what, in that sense, are you offering, you know, we talk about Hata Raki, Kaikaku, you know, the reform of work styles. What are you offering here for that group to be more attractive as an employer? I think, I think we have a very, you know, good work life balance. So, you know, we're a nine thirty to six study organization, you know, granted if there are key deadlines and, you know, someone needs to work in an hour, so additionally, then that's fine. But, you know, January 9, 630, people go home, you know, and that encourages others to go home as well. I think that's very important. So I, that could also be another, you know, reason why, you know, people would prefer to stay. If you want to be successful as a leader, do the leadership training for managers course. All companies need people who can both manage and lead. Leading people screams out for real skills in communication, dealing with all different types of people, being excellent at innovation, planning, delegation, handling mistakes, doing performance reviews really well, and inspiring and motivating the team. Do the leadership training for managers course now, you know, either Japanese or English? You talk before about, you know, multi-cultural workforce innovation, creativity, you're, you know, a creative agency in your area. So part of the creativity process is rather messy, you know, mistakes happen, you try things, they don't work, they blow up or they go wrong or, you know, trying to get people to break out of their normal, everyday thing differently. There comes also the balance of it's not all going to be perfectly smooth and perfected from day one. How do you balance that? Let's be creative and dealing with mistakes when they come up. How do you get that balance working for you? I think the very first thing, you know, I tell my team is there's no, you know, crazy ideas or stupid ideas, you know, so that is a crowned, you know, baseline. So that encourages them to Thank you. be creative, be crazy, think wild, think different, think out of the box. How do you make them believe that? Because, you know, particularly Japanese, they might be thinking, he says that, but I'll just hold back, because I'm not really sure if I say something wild and crazy people might think I'm an idiot, so I'm not going to express my, I'm not going to be transparent. How do you overcome that reluctance to actually break out of your cultural construct and put your ideas out there risking that they might be a bit wild and crazy? By implementing them, by leading them on to, you know, have further discussions as if somebody pitches an idea and that sounds good or sounds interesting, then, you know, others encourage their idea and help to take it further, you know. So that's a crazy idea that isn't something you can implement. How do you do with encouraging people to keep coming with ideas? Well, if it's not implementable in this particular situation or this particular project or this particular client, you know, we bring it up for future, you know, we reuse it, you know, we bring it out again in a different setting. And so they know that if it doesn't work here, it will work somewhere else. And so it's never, you know, it's never forgotten, you know, and, you know, we always, when we start discussions, we think about other ideas that we've got that worked in other places or that would have worked, but, you know, it wasn't implemented for whatever reason. So we try and bring those ideas back to life. And that really helps the process as well, because then we just feed off that, you know, we feed off, we probably have a laugh about that idea, think about why it didn't work. And then that really creates that mood to think again like that, I think, and that encourages people to, you know, bring ideas out and, you know, never get shot on. And mistakes happen, you know, we are all human beings. So, you know, I rather take an approach, okay, seeing why the mistake happened, trying to learn from that and how do we fix it? And is it a fixable mistake? And, you know, trying to make sure that the same mistakes don't happen. So giving them room to learn, granted, probably the same mistake happened once, maybe twice, maybe three times. But, you know, if it happens too often, then there's something wrong. We got to definitely need to, you know, zero in and sort it out. But giving them the space that, okay, if it happens, it's, you know, trying to get them understand why it happened, see what steps need to be to prevent it. And what happens again, then, you know, really try to dig down and see why, you know, what, what could be the cause for that happening again. But I find my team very responsive to, and if they make a mistake, they put their hands up and they say, you know what, I screwed up here, you know, this, this, you know, it's not supposed to be printed this way, it's got printed this way, whatever, right. So, okay, you know, the fact that they bring their mistakes openly kind of gives me more confidence in them that they're going to not hide things under the rug. And that gives a very open, honest discussion and shows others that, you know, what, if I make a mistake that's fine, you know, I'm not going to get shot for this. So if I turn up to you, and I say, I screwed this up, we should have done it like this. And I've got the logo around the wrong way or upside down or something, some state. What are the first words that come out of your mouth and respond to that? Because in a typical Japanese organisation, the first words out of their mouth would be something like, you're an idiot, you know, I mean, you, you read about these things, come up these days with power harassment. I remember I was reading one article, guys recalling back in his youth, not that long ago, that when he made a mistake, his boss threw an ash tray at him. Wow. All this sort of stuff, right? So very exciting in the general inside of things. But here it casts the media. If someone comes up and says, hey, listen, I'll screw this up. This sort of being like this, what are the first things that you're saying to them? Do you know why it happened? You know, so, you know, if they don't, then they go and try and find out what happened, help them to find out why it happened. But what I get now, especially with my senior team members is they come and tell me this happened and here's why this happened. So they come prepared. They know, okay, this is what we sort of done. This is what we could have done. You know, we were doing things in a hurry. We needed to get it out urgently. There was pressure from so, you know, explain the whole situation as to why it would have happened. And, okay, so you're the options of how we can fix it. So I think that level of, you know, engagement, I'm really proud to say my team brings it. You know, and they don't just show up and say, okay, I made a mistake. So for people who are leading Japanese teams, particularly or anything for that matter and mistakes happen, that's a very good habit. I admit I would say, or the first words coming out of your mouth aren't, you idiot, you know, how could you do that? Instead of something like that saying, I see, why do you think that happened? And so you're having more of a conversation, which is looking to a solution rather than accusing people of stupidity or, you know, chastising them for lack of attention or whatever it might be, whatever the crime, Mr. Mena might be. So that's a good hint. And you finding that across the board with your 14 nationalities, that works pretty well? Absolutely, yeah. I think that really, you know, works well. And, you know, you know, often because each department works closely with one another, you know, they share responsibility, they share mistakes. So it's not just under one person, you know, it could be, you know, down to a communication between team members that doesn't get passed on. So, you know, it's a shared responsibility as well, you know, and I mean, it's a shared responsibility, you know, they know to not allocate blame all this happened because he did this or she did this, but we miss this. And yes, why we miss this. So then best teamwork, you know, that really, you know, helps. One of the things too about Japan can be because it's a no fault, no defect, no mistake, culture. And people take this stuff very seriously, that often their first instinct is to hide it. And there's always a pretty good chance the boss won't find out about it, you know, sort of ninja at hiding things. And usually by the time the boss finds out it's too late, and the boss's ability to access time, power and money doesn't help much because it's a sort of time factor. But have you ever had that issue where people may not have really understood your approach to it and have actually been trying to hide stuff? Because they're worried about the retribution or worried about getting fired or worried about being scolded? I think probably in my earlier days and the company might have happened. And I think even there, sooner or later, you know, it comes out because, you know, someone's got to pay for it. And in a small organization, it will come out eventually. And, you know, so I think giving that person time to own up to that mistake helps. And I find that that approach, then you kind of slowly probe into, do you know why what happened here? You know, this happened seems like there was a mistake here. So giving them a little bit more, you know, leeway into owning up to it, helping them along that process helps. And then eventually when they kind of go back and reflect, they might have thought it's not a mistake. You know, so trying to get them to understand that there was a mistake or they were probably part of it or they responded the reason it happened. That helps them to also own their mistake. And when they own it, then you look at a solution, right? Then you, you know, okay, address it correctly. So it probably, it's sort of time-like. It could be just that the president didn't think of us wrong, you know, and it could be okay. Well, that's what I thought I heard him say, right? This is coming back to the communication and language and nuance and culture, you know, kind of probably misinterpreting what the request was and just doing things, you know, without thinking if that's the right thing or not. And so in terms of encouraging people to go the extra mile, you know, Japan is a country where this is like a naturally built-in cultural loyalty factor around association with the organization. They tend to be loyal. But being passionate or being enthusiastic or going the extra mile doesn't necessarily come in addition to that loyalty. They can be loyal and rather passive. They can be loyal and rather do their job and go home. How do you encourage people to go beyond just being loyal? But to be having some passion, having some commitment ready to go the extra mile, particularly in your business, we've a lot of deadlines with those publications you mentioned. How do you encourage that mentality? I think the easiest way to do that is to reward and appreciate, you know, success and that really helps to feed off that, you know, continued success. And also how do you do that? Say for example, someone does do something where they go the extra come on the weekend or stay late or come in early or really, you know, do something to held it all together. It's been a problem. And I've clearly done something that was beyond the norm or beyond what you'd normally expect. What is the reward? Is it money? Is it praise? Is it lunch? How do you reward them? It's a combination of all that, I'd say. And yes, it is. It is appreciating them, publicly appreciating them. And then of course, you know, you could have, depending on the person as well, it could be a one-on-one, it could be a lunch, it could be, it could be whatever motivates that person or whatever, you know, mechanism, you know, works for that person. I think it's, it's very important to see each person. I'm trying to get to understand them, you know, trying to understand each of your team members is important. Then you can know what motivates them spending time to get get to know them. But you know, you got 25, 26, 26. seven people here. My observation of you is your problem with the busiest executives in Tokyo. How does a busy boss who has got lots of things that they need to do? Carve out time to really spend with their team who are also pretty busy to really get to know them. In the workspace you can do that. It doesn't have to be you know regular lunches or although that would be great. In a spending time you're one-on-one with each individual. I do have annual reviews with them. I do. I have a very open-to-polices of their problem or a question or a request to come up to me directly and not have to worry about am I going to stop on my manager's toes. So just giving them that freedom, that reassurance that they're not going to do any wrong helps. I think during a workday you can. I can interact with my team, I try to interact with them on a regular basis during the workday. That helps as well. And I think the combination of all that really helps. So you talked about you have some cash, maybe some money in terms of reward, recognition, knowing what they, for example, the classic, they're a baseball fan, you get nice tickets, a great position for the game or is it that type of thing. It really not necessarily is always cash. Of course, in their annual appraisals you can review their progress, review what they've achieved during the year and then that could definitely improve their annual salaries and so on. It comes in bonus on salary increases. But like I said earlier often it's not just about money, of course, yes, people want to make more money and have better lifestyles and have savings and so on. It's very important. But I think when you know that you're part of something and you know that you are achieving something in your workplace and you're growing in the workplace, that's what I find most rewarding. I think at the moment I have one of my senior leaders who's taking the daily calligraphy course and just by interacting with their I can see her blossom and you know just her, you know, her appreciation of doing the course and thanking me for giving me the opportunity to do that. But for me is where I see, you know, people have more loyalty and more dedication and have more passion in what they do. You know, it's not just about the money, although it is important, you know. She did well too. She won three prizes. She won the Breakthrough Award. She won a standing presentations award and neither maybe a crashing through award or a human relations award. It's kind of correct me what the third one was, but pretty good job, you know, getting three, so well done for her. So giving people the opportunity to get that type of external training as a reward for someone who's stepped up, they get to do that. Other people see that that's happening. So they realize, okay, if I make an effort here, I will be recognized and there will be something in it for me. Absolutely. And also, you know, spotting talent and saying where they might need, you know, skills or training. You know, I've got two of my team members doing J-MAC this year. And that's another program that I've done. That's a Japan market expansion competition where they get together in teams and write a business plan for real clients for real problems. Absolutely. And they present them in a written form as a business plan and an oral form in the actual presentation to the panel of judges, right? Yeah. And I've had several of my team members go through that training program. And, you know, we've really appreciated it and said, told me several times what they've learned from it. And now they look at things now differently in business. And I have my sales team do regular sales training. You know, so it's all part of that process. Like I said, it's about, you know, at the end of the day, when they move on from custom media, they should look back and see what have they achieved while they were at custom media. And then, you know, that's for me is, you know, achieving something. While they're here, you know, paying them salaries, paying them commissions, bonuses, whatever is the bare minimum, you know, that's what you need to. But beyond that, you know, you've got to give them opportunities to learn and grow. And I'm a firm believer in continuous education. And I think it's important for, you know, every individual doesn't matter, you know, your age or, you know, your senior to your position. There's, you have, you know, opportunities to learn and you should take it on and you should push yourself. So that's what I advocate to my team. And I'm glad that many of my team members do see it and they do participate. And I got a younger Japanese, you know, team member who's gonna go off and do a one day course on social media, social media is a big thing. So it's rapidly developing, you know, industry. So we need to keep up with the trends and what's happening. So, you know, and this person came to me and said, I would like to do this. I've done, I would like, I've done some research. And I think this would help me in my job. This would help me in my career. And I'm like, yeah, sure, tell me what it is. Explain to me why. Sure, I'll support you. Go ahead. So you're funding. Absolutely. And I guess, you know, there are, as I said, you know, I think a big market now, frequently speaking Japanese. There are 1.6 jobs available for every person looking in the market at the moment. You've got recruiting companies have grown from 30 people to 300 people in the last 10 years. My company is not a 300 people yet. But anyway, so in terms of that concern, some people might have about investing in people, providing training, and worrying that they're actually helping them to be leveraged out of the company to another company. Do you have any fears about that? Not at all. I think, I think if you do that and, you know, the individual will see that you're going to invest more in them and during the 10 year with you, I don't think that should be a worry for anybody. You know, what's the classic joke? You know, the CFO goes to the CEO and says, you know, we're paying this person and what if he leaves and the CEO says, well, what if he doesn't and he stays and you haven't trained him, right? So, you know, I think you've got to take that approach. And if you invest in people, people reinvest their time and their effort and their energy back into your business. And, you know, that's at least you can do. Are you doing business with Japan? Do you really know how things work? 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A flipping point there around scale where your ability to actually lead, as you did in the past changes, how did you find making that adjustment? What did you do to make that adjustment? Sure. I think you're right. I think about 14, 15, 16, what of the number is, you can be present in all situations. You know what's going on. I think you have caught more personal connections with the team. You're spending more time with every individual. It's easy for you to have a bullseye view of what's happening. Step in whenever you're needed and predict what's going to happen with your experience and your knowledge. You've been in any situation and you know what to do and you have the outcomes, that therein lies the challenge because you've got all the knowledge. It's all up here. I think the first biggest challenge for me as we grow the business was learning to delegate and learning to build out the leaders. I think that's the biggest challenge for leaders today. It's not just their own leadership styles and how they lead an organization, but how do they create new leaders? How do they develop new leaders? Well, delegations are always a sensitive subject with leaders because the Clarion Corps is always would be fast if I did it myself. They feel that investing in people to train them on how to do something is wasting their valuable time. They just do it themselves and move on, right? So how do you delegate? What should you have a process for delegation? How do you think about delegation in terms of the actual execution piece? I think, you know, delegation is not about just giving them, "Okay, this is it. It's yours now. Do it." You know, it's about. That's called dumping. But it's about, you know, showing them, you know, the steps or helping them to understand what the end goal is or where, you know, the goal is and then guiding them to the process and then being available, you know, when have they have questions to come back to you, check in with you to make sure you're on the right track because you might delegate and they'll be going in in this direction and you wanted them to go in this direction, then you get to the end and then they've kind of gone off their own track and then that becomes a mess. - So what you're talking about there is keeping an eye on the process, but how do you balance between just keeping a watchful eye on what's going on without micro-managing the process? How do you get that balance right? - Having regular check-ins, having them to check in with you, having them to submit work and then you check it and then give feedback on the work done and then getting them to make decisions for themselves. You know, it's always the challenge, right? You can quickly make a decision and say do this, but now what I try to do is get them to make a decision and tell me why they made the decision. You know, that helps when delegating as well. - So you're looking at having more ownership on their side by having more freedom to make a decision on how things are done rather than you're telling people that we'll do this, then do this, then do this, then do this, then do this. Okay, that tends to be a very typical Japanese process of, you know, you'll do this and then I want you to do this, then you do this and you know, like they're really ordering it out. So it must be quite interesting. Did you find with your Japanese 10 members in particular where you're doing some sort of delegation that they were sort of flipping it around and sort of expecting to be told by you how to do each step, not so much, to be honest, because I think, you know, by now they understand expectations and if they have a question or, you know, they need some clarity on it, they are happy to stop buying the check-in. That's very important. So I think they really get on with it, you know, and I think having the culture of don't worry about mistakes helps, because then they don't fear am I going in the right direction. And you know, having regular check-ins, having a watchful eye helps you to keep them on track. So if they are, you know, going off track, then you can say, okay, well, this probably is not the direction we should be going, you know, how do we get here, you know, what should be done trying to put them back on track. - Do you have any particular methodology for selling the benefits of delegation to the team? Because often team members can feel it's an imposition. The boss is giving me their job to do. I've got my own job already and I'm damn busy doing that and you turn up. Now I've got to do your job and it doesn't feel like there's anything in it for them. You had a magazine called What's in it for me, I think, wasn't it? And so what's in it for them? How do you communicate that there's actually a benefit to them in taking on this delegated job? - Well, I think if they see that they're going to learn, they're going to learn how to do something, they're going to grow, that helps them for sure. And I think it's not just about giving them a task to do and for them it's about seeing where they fit into it and how what they do now will help them in that career progression and the organization. So then that helps them to go on and build teams and lead teams. So they see that, okay, this responsibility is gonna help me improve in my career and then give me the skills I need for handling this in the future. So I think that's important. That really helps and that's how I could manage it. - And how about your middle managers? How any middle managers, department heads would you have? - I've got four department heads. - Four department heads, right? And so those four department heads are now running those departments for you. So you're mainly interacting with your direct reports. - That's right, yeah, right. - And how did you find things that worked well in doing that because again, you said you got 14 nationalities now. So for those department heads, they've probably got multiple nationalities in their departments as well. Probably their degree of experience in leading is not as great as yours. How do you educate them or become better leaders? - I have one-on-one sessions with them trying to understand their challenges. Ask them about how things are going in that team, helping them to understand what are the challenges they have in the team and helping them to address those challenges. Having meaningful discussion with them, and then giving them advice on if they need, how would you do it, giving them the right advice? But also expecting them to take responsibility. I think people like responsibility if they see that it is gonna improve their ability to manage a team. So I think that's very important. Helping them to find out what the challenges are by themselves and finding out how to address them is important, I think. - As an entrepreneur, it's your money. This whole operation is your own money. As opposed to if you're working for a corporate, it's not your money. You could pay a certain amount of money. You'd probably get rewards through bonuses and incentives and that type of thing. It's not your own money. The people who work for you, it's not their business. So how do you get them to take the same degree of commitment and pride and care about the business when they don't own it? - It can be challenging, but I think, you know, if they see the results, and like I said earlier, I think if they are part of achieving something, that's what I love about my team. They really are great achievers. They strive for the best, they strive for the best quality and they have the passion to deliver and address our client challenges. Often, I think when we work together as a team, solving problems is our key goal. So coming together and trying to address a problem for a client, a marketing challenge, or a marketing challenge or whatever it is, when they are working together team, that sense of satisfaction and achievement is there and they feel it. I try, I do my best to bring it to them and get them to be involved in everything. Being involved gives you personal satisfaction because you've achieved something during the day. It's not just you came and you knock on the keyboard and then you go off, right? But it's being involved, doing something meaningful, doing something that you can be proud of, you know. - You won a British business award four years ago. Was it five years ago now? - That's right, yes, but five years ago. - Four or five years ago, right? And that's a very competitive prize. It was company of the year, I think. So as a small company, you were knocking off some pretty big rivals to win that. And I'm sure there was a lot of work to go into the application process and, you know, nerve-wrackingly sitting there in the evening, wondering if we're gonna be a finalist or not. What was the impact on the team from doing something like that? Will you talk about gathering people together, having pride in the organization, having pride in what they do? What was the impact of that? And did you drive it in any particular way after that internally? - Definitely the impact of, you know, winning on the night was phenomenal for us, for the few of us who were attentive and then, you know, following that back in the office with the rest of the team members, celebrating that was something fantastic. - How did you celebrate it? - Oh, we had a party in the office. Yes, we, you know, we shared the winnings with everybody. We had a team event. - Also, there was cash involved and you spread it out to everybody. - There wasn't cash involved. - Well, no, what a shame, okay. - But just a sense of, you know, achieving winning on the night. And definitely that has helped, you know, definitely given the team members of the time a sense of pride and sense of achieving something and meaning and purpose and seeing their work being rewarded, you know, for sure. And that's definitely also helped, you know, since then to grow the organization. And, you know, when nowadays, you know, candidates that are looking to join a company, they do all their research. You know, they look, look you up, look up the company, you know, what you've achieved. And, you know, often, you know, candidates tell me, oh, I saw you guys won the award and you know, what was that like and so on. So they feel, you know, they're joining being a part of something, being a part of a company and organization that has, you know, the capability to win awards and be part of a winning team that definitely helps you. - That's interesting. You've actually, you're putting the award information out on your site candidates are doing much more research today before they even take the chance to have an interview. So you've found that a plus, you know. And so that's very interesting. Just putting that out there in terms of free advertising and a sense, I guess, about the culture of the company, the success of the company, the prestige recognition of the company, that's interesting. How did you, well, when did you start to notice that candidates were doing that type of research? 'Cause in the old days, no one did that, you know. Billy turned up half organized for the interviews. But today, that sounded like they were switched on. - Absolutely. And I think that's a bare minimum, now I expect from candidates. If they haven't done their research, then, you know, ask the body know about us. See, even before, you know, we meet them in person, we have a very thorough interview process though. If they've done their research and they know something about the organization, then that gives you also confidence in that, you know, this somebody who's, who wants to be a part of you, who can belong here. But if they don't, then, you know, there's no way they're gonna pass the next round of interviews. But I also wanna add that, apart from just awards and positive messaging out there. What we also do for the community, we support a lot of charities. We do a lot of pro bono work. That's also a sense of satisfaction and achievement and pride for the team where they see that, the company's not just about making profits, not just about being successful, but also giving back to the community. And so we work with quite a lot of charities here, and we do what we can with the limited resources we have. That's important. So when you have a busy work day, you've got projects that you need to fulfill, the team goes extra miles, text time to work on projects that we know we're not getting paid for, but still bringing the same level of integrity and quality and passion in that work. That also is very fulfilling for our team. That's very diverse. And that's another minimum expectations these days, I think that candidates out there have organizations and what do they also do for the community, do they have this, do they share the same values? And I've had candidates tell me about that as well. I saw you did this and you did that. Your organization does this. That really helps to drive engagement, helps to drive a sense of purpose. And that also helps inform them about the type of employer custom media could be. So possibly, and I'm thinking of one company in particular, which is my own, well, we probably don't do a good enough job of celebrating the prizes that we get internally within the Dale Carnegie system. And we probably don't do a good enough job of advertising the CSR type of work we do. So maybe there are companies out there who could learn from what you're doing. And I'm mind is one of them. I'm sitting here being very stimulated by what you're saying, I would get back and get some stuff on the website and populate that a little bit more in those details 'cause we're doing them. We're just probably not maximizing the opportunity to calculate with candidates. This is a great place to work. In terms of you also have an interesting business here because you've got a whole creative team 'cause you're doing physical creation of design. Are you doing video? You're also doing sales. How's that go managing a creative team and managing a sales team? Because my experience, the creative mindset and the sales mindset are really totally different, but you've got to manage both. How do you go that managing both? And what's different between managing both? - First I go with what's different with managing both. I would say understanding what motivates them, what gets them to take is very important. So it sells people, it's all about performance, it's all about numbers, it's all about rewards, and understanding how they achieve that and the tools and training and support you give them to help them achieve that is very important. And that's how I do it with my sales team make sure that they are reaping the rewards of their efforts. - So that's your commission. - To commissions and through career progression and through training and all that, right? And giving them the freedom and flexibility as well. With the creative team, of course it's about a, recognizing the work they do, but also giving them the freedom to do that work. That's very important because creative people, you can't push quality quickly. You can't push, I need a design like ASAP. Sometimes we do and they're able to turn it deliberative. And that's because they've learned that they've got the creative space that it's not gonna just be rejected. If it's not up to par, they know that the feedback is gonna be how to improve it, not that I don't want this. Show me something else and that happens in some of some agencies, you know. So is there anything? - Yeah, from what else you've got, right? But you know, being able to guide them, okay, maybe this is not right, maybe this, maybe, giving encouragement to try different things and encouragement to explore and push the boundaries. So I think that's important for creative people as well. - Well, I've asked a lot of questions about leading in Japan and you've got a very interesting company here the way it's split up with creative sales, you know, for 14 different nationalities, you know, you've been going, you know, none of these. With any things around leadership, I should have asked you that I haven't asked you. - There are probably a few things and I've actually made some notes there 'cause I thought I was thinking about this myself, you know. What would be the other things, you know, as a leader. And I think being patient is one of them. I have to be very patient, you know, to give yourself time because I think leaders tend to be impatient and they always, like, they want results immediately. - That would be me, actually. - Perfectly description of myself, right there. - Right, so sometimes, you know, you know, allowing yourself to be patient and take your time. And remaining positive, you know, personally at all times, it's a big challenge. And it's, it's important. - By that, why is your personal positivism, positivism important in leadership? - I think because, you know, your personal positivity can, you know, influence others and impacts others. And there, of course, days when you're having a bad day and your body language, the way you interact can, you know, quickly be picked up by your team and so on. - And so you know, a master actor of hiding your head a hard day at home or having a hard day in the business and not showing that. Are you good at that? - No, I still have room for improvement and we all have our, you know, our difficult days. But I think, you know, trying to remain positive and pushing through even through challenging times. So, you know, being an entrepreneur, you know, risk is something that, you know, we take on often. So when we're launching new products, launching new solutions, it's quite risky. But you, you know, you need to, you know, handle those risks and, you know, try to, you know, control, you know, your emotion and try to, you know, be as positive as you can, you know, even when things are not going as smoothly as they should be going. And that, I think, is an area for all leaders and it doesn't matter, you know, in which positions they are and whether there is senior leader or junior, you know, a smaller team leader. So I think those are the two areas that I would say. - And if you had to give some advice to someone who is new to Japan, though, maybe they're about to get on the plane and head over here or for the posting their assignment in Japan or they're just arrived in Japan on their assignment, they're probably early days. If you had to give us a couple of pieces of, I say, three pieces of advice or something like that, anyway. What would be some advice you'd give to the newbie who's arrived in Japan who doesn't have your experience and doesn't have your background? - One, I would say, take the time to understand the cultural nuances of the country. It's very important, especially if you're coming into leader Japanese team and fully Japanese team, then it's very, very, very important. How do you learn the cultural nuances of Japan? - That was going to be my second advice, which is like build rapport, take your time to build rapport with your team, you know, and earlier, like I said, being patient is important that helps you, not to be impatient and try to get things done your way because you're new and you're here to deliver results and HQ is watching from far away. So I think, you know, trying to be patient, understand the cultural nuances, that helps you to build rapport with your team because your team would now say, okay, this isn't just another guy with the HQ ascent to fix this office, right? And the final piece of advice would be, be open to your team's ideas. You don't always have all the solutions. You're maybe the leader, but you don't have the answers. You don't have the market, you know, your teams here for a reason, you know, learn to trust them, you know, open up to their ideas, that gives you also again another opportunity to build rapport with them. That would improve your credibility, improve, you know, how your team looks up to you as a leader and helps you to, you know, then make change, if change is required, then you will get buy-in, then you will get, you know, your team behind you. So, well, this has been another fascinating journey through leadership with Robert from coming here, from the Mel Dives and the hospitality industry to go into the advertising space in sales to entrepreneurial space to study his own company and build it up from himself to now 26, 27 people, 10-year anniversary of the first major magazine he launched, which is Ackerman. So, it's been a tremendous success and he's really shared some insights today in, from the inside out in terms of working with people, what works best here, a lot of wisdom, a lot of insight, we can all learn from that. Robert, thank you very much today. - My pleasure, thank you, Greg. - So, we look forward to having a join us on the next episode of Japan's top business interviews. (upbeat music)