53: David Wouters, President, InterSearch Japan & ex Corporate Liaison Manager, Coca-Cola Japan

David Wouters is the President of InterSearch Japan, an executive
search and human resources consultancy company, and the former
Corporate Liaison Manager of Coca-Cola Japan. Mr. Wouters first
arrived in Japan in 1969 to work for Coca-Cola as the Marketing
Manager after working in the US and Southeast Asia for a number
of years.


Mr. Wouters developed a Coke systemized training program in Japan
to train employees on both the American and Japanese side to be
able to better sell and market the product in Japan. In comparing
Japanese and American way of sales and marketing, Mr. Wouters
points out the Japanese are more relationship based whereas the
US had a rigourous system and specific set of objectives. In
order to join these two different cultures, Mr. Wouters
encouraged open communication by having many meetings and looking
at case studies. Mr. Wouters explains: “I found the best way to
teach a program like that was [to] find out what they wanted and
get to their thinking and then utilize their thinking with the
other side’s thinking through meetings, organizations, sales
programs that we developed.” He also later brought in the
independent bottling companies to the meetings as well to ensure
Coca-Cola and the bottlers worked well together. Mr. Wouters
adds: “We had to make it a join effort. Wasn’t easy at the time
[but eventually] I got a lot of cooperation from both sides
because they both wanted to be strong.” During Mr. Wouter’s time,
Coca-Cola also began a recruiting program that hired young
Japanese graduates who had studied overseas by visiting
universities. Out of the pool of these graduates, one eventually
became the company president.


As part of forming good relations between diverse range of
employees, Mr. Wouters also encouraged playing leisure activities
together, such as golfing. He claims: “if you make the people
that are working with you happy, that's one of the secrets of
training. If you strictly authorize or direct, you're going to
have a problem. I had to make both sides want to work together
and sports to me was one of the activities that work best.” After
playing golf, Mr. Wouters recalls having a drink and then holding
serious meetings on marketing and sales. Mr. Wouters emphasizes
the importance of getting cooperation and getting people to
understand what results and benefits the project will bring to
them. He adds: “you had to do it in a way that was appreciated.
It's the same thing in life. You have to gain appreciation by the
way you act or react with other peoples and their situations.”
Since the training programs were successful, the US asked Mr.
Wouters to replicate it in Atlanta. Mr. Wouters then went to
graduate school at New York University’s Stern School of Business
and eventually resigned from Coca-cola in 1976. After
establishing his own company, InterSearch Japan, Mr. Wouters was
asked by Coke to join them again in 2019 .


On advice to new foreign leaders in Japan, Mr. Wouters highlights
understanding the culture and people to be key. Secondly, he
advises leaders to work together with your team in order to lead
them, and choose to work with people who work with each other on
a “pro-positive” manner. Thirdly, Mr. Wouters emphasizes the
value of being receptive which he finds brings people closer. He
explains: “get involved with them, not above them…If you are with
them, they have more tendency to be with you.”