120: David Bennett, former President, Lenovo Japan

Mr. David Bennett has been in Japan for more than 10 years in
total. He has lived in Japan throughout his student years, and
came back after graduation on the JET program for two years
before joining AMD, an American multinational semiconductor
company in Tokyo. His first leadership role would be with Lenovo
Japan and NEC. Currently, Mr. Bennett has moved on from Japan and
has become the Chief Customer Office at Tenstorrent Inc in the
US.


 


As the President of Lenovo Japan, and the CEO of NEC Personal
Computers, which is a joint venture between Lenovo and NEC
Corporation, Mr. Bennett led both a foreign and domestic company.
Since the skillset required to lead a multinational company
versus a traditional domestic company is different, he created a
hybrid culture, blending the best of both worlds. He took certain
parts of Japanese traditions and business approaches and
fine-tuned them to make them more suitable for the organization.
Additionally, the organization spent much time holding cultural
and social events to increase employee engagement and
cooperation.


 


To get innovation while managing two companies with different
characteristics, the company would implement many initiatives
such as holding contests and giving out awards. These activities
pushed the team to feel they could be more open and try something
new, and others will have their back. As a result, the company
kicked off things that had never been done before in the PC
industry, like the world's first Gaming PC Leasing Service, Sugu
Game. Mr. Bennett accepts mistakes as long as the reasons
behind them are rational and the intention was to benefit the
business. Moreover, Lenovo has a concept called Fu Pan. This is
similar to Kaizen which is a continuous process of reflection.
After major sales activity, the team would go back and reflect on
what went right, what didn't go well, and what can they learn.
Mr. Bennett says through those meetings, people gained innovation
and felt empowered to try new ideas and take risks.


 


To get employees further engaged, Mr. Bennett has several mantras
he follows since becoming a leader. One of his mantras is “win
together, lose together.” Although everyone understands the
meaning of “win together”, he frequently got questioned, “why
lose together? “ Mr. Bennett explains that it is easy to win
together. But if something bad happens, he says it is important
for everyone to take responsibility and figure out a solution. He
is proud of helping to change the culture at Lenovo and NEC in a
way that the team came together and started taking risks. Being
explicit with the head office also helped him win the trust of
the organization. However, Mr. Bennett notes the difficulty of
ensuring his messaging permeates to the bottom of the company,
past his direct reports.  He insists, when you have a large
organization, it is important to be consistent with your
messaging.


 


On advice to newcomers wanting to lead in Japan, Mr. Bennet says
the most important thing is to listen and understand what is
working for the team and what you can learn from them. He says
that in Japan, what people tell you about the business may not
necessarily reflect the actual state it is in. Mr. Bennett
further adds, one cannot completely change how the Japanese
ecosystem works, nor how one’s partners, customers and the
commercial buying behavior works. Hence, it is important to truly
listen. Secondly, he advises to become familiar with the Japanese
language. For Mr. Bennett, knowing Japanese has helped him gain
quicker connection with his team. Therefore, the combination of
understanding Japan, the Japanese language, and his management
style and supportive approach helped create trust and engagement.


 


Mr. Bennett’s goal is to empower his employees and to make his
team successful. To him, empowerment means everyone is facing the
same direction. Mr. Bennett feels it is essential to inspire and
empower people to work towards the same goals and encourage them
to take risks. By doing so, he believes people will become
further engaged and the organization will continue to grow.