108: Mitch Kristofferson, Director, Customer Success, UpClear

Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

Mitch Kristofferson is currently the Director of Customer Service Japan for UpClear. Mr. Kristofferson was a Pre-Med student during his bachelor’s degree at Stanford University. His first experience of Japan was when he came on exchange, and was place in a teaching hospital at Yamaguchi prefecture. He graduated from his undergraduate degree and worked in the oil exploration space for 5 years before doing his MBA at Stanford. The MBA led to a pivot for Mr. Kristofferson, and he moved into marketing, working in various companies in Japan and the US.

Mr. Kristofferson explains how leadership and bringing about change in the workplace can take multiple steps. He admits the challenge of stepping into a new role and making changes. Mr. Kristofferson starts out by explaining the direction he wants to take the company but in many cases, he initially gets resistance from people who want things done the old way. He explains that when something like this comes to light, people are divided into 3 groups - those who are keen to innovate and bring about change, those who are hesitant and in the middle, and the third group who are not willing to listen at all. Mr. Kristofferson says that he must deal with each group differently. Mr. Kristofferson explains that not everybody is ideal for every job in every company, and in some situations, it is a matter of finding the right fit within the firm. For those in the middle group, Mr. Kristofferson has attempted to encourage them to try new innovative ideas. For example, Mr. Kristofferson has brought the middle group of marketing professionals with the sales team. He says that the sales department typically has good innovative ideas as they are on the ground and meeting customers and talking to clients everyday. Hence, trying to engage the middle group with such groups seem to work well. On the contrary, he explains that the early adopters are usually the people that have the best ideas and sometimes they reach out to Mr. Kristofferson and try and fast track the innovation for the company.

Mr. Kristofferson has many advice for someone coming into Japan. He explains different cultures in terms of their approach to conflict and expressiveness based on a Harvard business review article. He cites the example of the Philippines where people are expressive but don’t like conflict. In Germany, people are not too expressive but are alright with direct communication and conflict. Japanese don’t like conflict and they aren’t very expressive either. Someone coming into Japan needs to be mindful of the more reserved nature of the Japanese. People may have some great ideas, but they won’t necessarily be direct in sharing them. Becoming comfortable with silence in meetings is something that newcomers can be mindful of. Mr. Kristofferson explains that things are slower paced in Japan, but great ideas come out of people and solutions are more methodical and sometimes end up with more fruitful results in the long term.