Episode #92: Simon Wallington, Managing Director, Cornes and Company

Simon Wallington is the Managing Director of Insurance for Cornes in Japan. Cornes and Company was established in Yokohama in 1861 and is the oldest international trading house in Japan. Mr. Wallington worked in the UK from 1977 to 1985 and was looking for international experience, so when an opportunity opened in August 1985, he relocated to Japan as number two for Sedgewick Forbes Japan. Mr. Wallington worked in Japan until 1991 and then decided to move to Sydney, Australia. In 2009, Mr. Wallington’s former boss moved to Cornes and asked Mr. Wallington to join him, so he did. In 2011, he took over as Managing Director in Japan and has been in this role since then.

Mr. Wallington believes that a trait unique to Japan compared with some of the Western countries is that the people are not very expressive, so it is more difficult to understand how employees are feeling. Mr. Wallington tries to spend some one-on-one time with employees by taking employees out to coffee individually every 2 months. He tries to engage with the employees to see how they are doing, how their work is going and to pick up on any cues on mental tiredness. He says that recognising mental tiredness is especially important during these COVID times.

Mr. Wallington talked about how the meeting matrix works at his company. They have four teams, and they have a weekly team meeting and a monthly division meeting. The news is given at the monthly division meeting. The teams each have team leaders, a general manager and five or six people on each team. He says his teams work very hard and the demarcation between home and work is less, especially nowadays. Currently, his teams come into the office three days a week and work two days a week from home. For families with very young children, they provide more flexibility. Mr. Wallington finds remote working more difficult as it is more difficult to read body language and trying to get his point across. He thinks he is maybe 70% more effective as a leader when he is working in the office as for example, he tries to explain to his staff why certain things are done in a certain way so that they will not need him for future similar problems, and this will be more efficient in the long term.

In Japan, culturally people tend not to disagree with the boss. Mr. Wallington says that his general management team is quite good with disagreeing with him when they don’t think an idea is going to work. When asked how Mr. Wallington got his staff to openly share their thoughts with him, Mr. Wallington says he credits this to two things, the first is his open communication and getting to know each staff member individually and the second is admitting to making a mistake. Admitting you have made a mistake or when something wasn’t a good idea allows the staff to see that they can share their views with him and their boss is humble enough to admit when he is wrong, this provides open communication and more freedom for them to share their views with him.

Mr. Wallington shares his view that the most effective leaders he has seen follow a servant leadership mentality. He says you do this by rolling up your sleeves and being there with them and solving problems together. This creates mutual understanding and a closer understanding of working relationships. He believes in the servanthood methodology of leadership and leading in this manner has worked well but when he needs to make a hard decision, he does that. Mr. Wallington is Christian and serving is in the Bible. He tries to apply this principle in many aspects of his work. Because after leading this way, results and good relationships follow.

For foreigners coming to Japan. Mr. Wallington advises having a sense of humour helps. To get the best of the employees, the employees must see that you are here to stay and not just here for your short stint. Although, many foreigners are in Japan only for a few years, making sure that you leave it as a stable organization and not as an organization full of politics and high turnover is beneficial. A stable and productive organization is a great gift you can leave your Japanese colleagues, so that when you leave, the company’s much better.