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.