108: Mitch Kristofferson, Director, Customer Success, UpClear

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.