Episode #68: Jeff Crawford, Managing Director, Zo Digital Japan
Japan's Top Business Interviews
Jeff Crawford provided great insight into the tech and digital marketing industry from his experience as a programmer in Silicon Valley to becoming the co-founder of Zo Digital Japan.
Mr. Crawford originally worked in Silicon Valley for 16 years working in famous companies including Apple and Microsoft. Living in San Francisco, he became familiar with Japanese food and culture, and took frequent vacation trips to Japan. He eventually began working at Microsoft’s Japan branch for five years as a Program Manager. Mr. Crawford then stepped into a managerial position, leading a team of five staff as well as managing vendors. Next, Mr. Crawford moved into Adobe Systems Japan, also managing a team of approximately 5 people . Afterwards, he got the “entrepreneurial bug” and began a digital advertising service for music and dance schools in the US. After realizing the business model was not going to work, Mr. Crawford moved on to started Zo Digital, an SEO and digital marketing agency.
Mr. Crawford first began as a consultant before starting Zo Digital, and eventually started hiring contract staff to run as an agent. On starting his own business, Mr. Crawford reflects: “Fortunately for me, I had management experience at places like Microsoft and Adobe. I think I understood how to manage people, how to have good processes, that type of stuff. And so for me, personally, everything came together. I've always had a love of user experience with computers. I'm very strong and very interested in things like analytics, looking at data to see what people are doing.”
In 2015, Mr. Crawford began a professional network organization called Tokyo Digital Marketers. The first event had about 10 people, but the organization has grown to over 2000 people registered and usually 50-60 people showing up in events. Mr. Crawford has also been active in other business organizations such as the American Chamber of Commerce Japan and the Japan Market Expansion Competition. Through these networking opportunities, Mr. Crawford has been able to connect and recruit people. Mr. Crawford also actively hire people online through discussion boards to find people who want to work in an international, flexible environment.
The challenge Mr. Crawford faced as a leader in Japan was change management as he faced strong resistance to change in the culture. For example, there was an occasion where his Japanese team who was focused on the Japanese market suddenly had to expand to support China and Korea as well, and had to speak English. Therefore, Mr. Crawford explains the importance of explaining to people the need for change and having an open discussion about people’s concerns and ideas.
Mr. Crawford developed his leadership schools through reading books and using techniques, including Dale Carnegie’s books and listening to management podcasts. He also highlights the need to understand how to use the learned principles in Japan. He also tries to ask his staff on what would work to try to pull out their thoughts and ideas while sharing case studies from his experience. Mr. Crawford also notes that if a team member comes to him with an idea, they have most likely already shared those thoughts with others and rewards such situations.
Learning and Development is something Mr. Crawford also puts emphasis on and helps his staff grow their career paths. He believes in investing in his people to grow their career paths and enable them to add further value to the company. He finds innovation also happens in this way. Over the recent years, Mr. Crawford has found people in his company stepping up to more leadership roles.
On advice to newcomers leading in Japan, Mr. Crawford recommends to be careful of who you favour, as ability goes beyond just being able to speak English. He also advises to maintain a balance between being humble and assertive, and try to be observant in order to “read the air.” Mr. Crawford also emphasizes the importance of understanding Japan’s relationship-based business culture. He explains: “What often affects decisions [made in Japan] is that they're taking into account everybody's relationship. And a lot of times what you may not realize, especially if you're a new manager, is all these relationships exist around you, and they’ve been built over years... compared to other business cultures or other countries, you may want to take more time to understand the situation before making those executive decisions.”