Episode #91: Derek Young, President, Japan Fidelity International

Originally from the United States, Derek Young is the President of Fidelity Japan for the last 3 years. Fidelity International provides world class investment solutions and retirement expertise to institutions, individuals, and their advisors. Prior to Japan, Mr. Young was working with Fidelity and had been living in Boston, USA for 22 years. Mr. Young had visited Japan on business briefly before 5 or 6 times before shifting base to Japan 3 years ago.

In his initial days in Japan, Mr. Young started by approaching the Japanese market by examining his own strengths and weaknesses. His strengths lay within the investment space, having a deep understanding of Fidelity and having decades of investment experience. His weaknesses were in not speaking Japanese and not understanding the Japanese market. Identifying where his weaknesses were allowed him to collaborate with people that had those language skills and to take the best possible combination of strong investment knowledge, strong language skills and the best understanding of the clients to combine them for the highest probability of excellence and success for the clients.

Mr. Young emphasizes that modelling what works elsewhere may not necessarily work in Japan. He believes that Japan has some of the most demanding clients in the world. Strong attention to detail is ingrained in Japanese culture and that is the expectation everywhere in Japan. His team had this understanding on attention to detail and this pressure to deliver yet he had to learn this. For example, if he was wanting to increase efficiency but this increased client errors, he realized that clients could leave for that error regardless of performance in the portfolio. Thus, anything that is done to improve efficiency cannot increase the risk for client errors. The tolerance for error is significantly less in Japan compared to elsewhere in the world.

One major difference that Mr. Young found about working in Japan is that there is a general appearance of calmness within the employees in comparison to the US. For example, in planning for a large event, employees in the US may be more vocal about the pressures they are facing. In Japan, culturally there is hesitation to be vocal about that pressure and even though they seem calm, they may be facing pressure. These pressures are underneath the surface, and it is the Japanese way is to make things seem under control. Mr. Young has found that having one-on-one conversations to be a good way to truly understand what employees are thinking and providing them the tools they need for success and that makes employees feel comfortable in having these conversations with him. For example, asking for a translator may help the employee feel more comfortable. Even though to an outsider they seem like they speak perfect English, with a translator they may feel they have more time to frame their thoughts. Mr. Young also emphasizes connecting with employees on a more personal level has made them feel more comfortable with him as a person, and not just as the President of their company. He gives examples of asking for restaurant recommendations, vacation spots from the local Japanese people to connect with them on a more personal level.

For foreign leaders coming into Japan, Mr. Young advises individuals to keep an open mind, to really examine your own personal strengths and weaknesses and really listen. He emphasizes that you must listen to what your team says. The team should feel that they are truly being heard and you are taking what they say, and you are responding to it in a genuine manner. He provides an example of keeping an open-minded approach. Something that may work well back in your home country may not work well in Japan and the employees should not feel that you are just forcing what you think is best on them. He also advises that learning the Japanese language and understanding the culture may help. If the Japanese language is a barrier that having the right people with the correct language skills on your team is essential for business.