Timothy Connor, Managing Director of Synnovate Advisory has been a veteran of Japanese business, having worked in Japan for over 30 years. He originally came to Japan under the MEF program (currently known as JET, a program that provides opportunities for internationals to teach English in Japan) and lived in Morioka City in the Iwate prefecture where he quickly learned Japanese.
While teaching in the evenings, Mr. Connor studied fashion design at Esmod Japon and eventually began his own apparel brand still in his 20s. He specialized in making clothes for Japanese and international clients who were either very tall or small, so did not fit standard sizes. He calls the experience “great fun” and made various outfits including a wedding dress. After four years, Mr. Connor transitioned into the more promotional aspect of the creative business and began marketing for other artists and designers. As this was the 80s, Mr. Connor recalls enjoying the boom time in Japan like eating gold speckled sushi. Mr. Connor then moved on to importing artists work and promoting them in Japan, acting as the marketing arm for boutique designers.
Mr. Connor then began working in a corporate environment in a senior strategy and marketing role in a firm of 25 staff within a large Japanese conglomerate in the printing industry. Stepping into a corporate leadership position for the first time, Mr. Connor found it challenging to lead a diverse group of Japanese and non-Japanese employees in a company with a traditional age-based culture. Mr. Connor was careful in finding the right balance between being part of a team but also maintaining a certain degree of distance as this is what was expected from leaders in the company. Having led a diverse number of teams in various industries, Mr. Connor also noted the difficulty in setting goals and targets with people from different backgrounds and set of expectations. Mr. Connor claims: “one of the tricky balancing roles and balancing challenges was to paint the right picture of where we're trying to go. But give people enough roadmaps so that they knew where they should go. What are their actual targets and what are my expectations to them?” Having worked with a number of salespeople, Mr. Connor also mentored and trained his staff to be able to close the sales instead of being too relationship focused with the client.
After the firm closed down due to the economic downturn of the 90s, Mr. Connor worked with the parent company’s president for a few years. Mr. Connor then took a leave and pursued his MBA at Duke University. Upon his return, Mr. Connor was released from his company and began his own management consulting business. Mr. Connor mainly consulted startup type clients and maximized his general manager skills he had acquired working in a large Japanese company. Mr. Connor eventually joined one of his client’s company that sold online coupons to be used in restaurants as their general manager. After realizing the infrastructure for the marketing not being present, Mr. Connor joined the parent company that provided face-to-face marketing and sales and event marketing services to consumer products. There he worked as a managing director looking after three divisions of the company in sales, retail products, and legal, as well as HR when in need.
On team engagement, Mr. Connor tries to maintain a balance between setting expectations as the leader but also ensuring his employees enjoy their work. Mr. Connor states: “What I discovered was we had people doing things and I wouldn't say they were struggling, but it seemed to me that they could shine doing something else. And so I would move people around from time to time doing different things. And when people are doing things that they're good at, they just stayed to automatically grow into it. That was a great discovery just to see that actually people do progress and grow and do things much, much better if they enjoy what they're doing.”
On innovation, Mr. Connor encourages people to come up with their own ideas by being patient and having open communication while asking leading questions. He also uses this style of communication to finding commonalities and gain trust, while noting the importance of “reading the air.” Mr. Connor also finds that showing and communicating that you trust someone further enhances the relationship.
For newcomers leading Japan, Mr. Connor advises to learn the language and understand work and home life are different for Japanese people although this is changing for the younger generation. “I think there is a lot of change happening…also, there there's a lot more openness now about people having stress-related issues. The ability to actually go to the boss and say, I'm feeling stressed out…It’s a different world now [from the showa era].”
