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A full transcript follows.
In Vol. 14 of Diversity rocks innovation! I talk with Bryan Sherman, founder and president of Gramercy Engagement Group, a global HR consulting company. Bryan has been a mentor to me in my entrepreneurial journey over the last couple of years, and has a wealth of experience and knowledge that he uses to help companies evolve and shift their HR functions and people systems. Bryan is also a trusted Guide for the enjoi Wolfpack DEI Executive Education Program for Men in 2022.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- How going to an international summer camp in New York City helped foster a sense of interconnectedness with people from different cultures and nationalities
- The first time Bryan came to Japan as part of a student exchange
- How Bryan feels about being a non-Japanese person in Japan, and finding the balance between integration and retaining his identity
- The journey Bryan took from working for various companies in the US and Japan, to founding Gramercy Engagement Group
- Bryan’s advice for Japanese companies operating globally
About Bryan Sherman:
Born and raised in the United States, Bryan is a Global Human Resources professional with 20 years experience of involvement with Japan. Prior to founding the company, Bryan got his start in global human resource management by working in both the US and Japan as an external consultant and as an internal HR manager in the IT and retail sectors.
Bryan is a trusted Guide for the enjoi Wolfpack DEI Executive Education Program for Men in 2022.
Useful links:
Bryan’s book: https://www.worklifejapan.com/pages/eigodejinji
Connect with Bryan:
Website: https://www.gramercyengagement.com/index.html
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-sherman
Connect with Jackie:
Website: https://en-joi.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-f-steele-phd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/enjoidiversityandinnovation
https://www.facebook.com/jackiefsteelephd
Instagram: www.instagram.com/enjoi_diversity_innovation/
Transcript
Jackie: Welcome to Diversity Rocks Innovation, Volume 14. My name is Jackie Steele. I’m a Canadian political scientist living and teaching in Japan and also the CEO of enjoi Diversity and Innovation. enjoi is a Japan based global facing business, working in English and Japanese, and sometimes in French. And we support leaders in corporations in building out diversity positive workplaces and corporate cultures.
We know that diversity rocks innovation. We know that diversity rocks innovation under certain conditions. Systemic inequality undermines innovation, and it undermines diversity. So we’re really interested in building out inclusive innovation, innovation that really amplifies and supports equity, equality, and that powers our people systems for personal and collective good, and for the long game, we’re talking legacy.
So this live stream shines a spotlight on the diversity of enjoi thought partners in our network. These are wonderfully dynamic thought leading and pioneering individuals. Who really have shown up for this vision of how to build out a diversity positive environment in Japan, and they support women’s leadership, men’s leadership, and they understand that diversity is everywhere.
So each week I invite one of my enjoi thought partners to thought partner out loud with me organically. It’s a collegial exchange of expertise, of worldviews of talking about who we are and what our internal diversities are, and why that can move the dial for innovation. So we throw away the business cards in terms of sempai, kohai dynamics, or hierarchies based on age, or gender, race, or other facets that really slow us down in society and only build up bridges that block us, or walls that keep us apart.
So today we’re going to thought partner out loud and I am so excited to welcome on today’s show, a wonderful thought partner and a business mentor to me, Bryan Sherman. Bryan welcome to Diversity Rocks Innovation, Volume 14. Thank you for joining me.
Bryan: Thank you very much, Jackie. Thank you for that introduction. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!
Jackie: Yoroshiku onegai itashimasu. So Bryan, you’ve been such a fabulous behind the scenes person, supporting my fledgling journey into being an entrepreneur over the last two years. And you’ve helped me figure out a lot of things. And I am grateful for that.
You’ve obviously, you’re 10 years ahead of me on this journey and I want you to share about that journey, but before we get to that, we kind of really want to know, and I want our listeners to get the benefit of doing a little bit of a deep dive first into what makes Bryan tick and what are the pivotal experiences and diversities and values that you’ve built yourself around and your unique individuality.
So can we maybe step back and go a little bit back in time first, and think about where you’re from?
Bryan: Yeah. Okay. Well, it all begins on an island in New York City. Actually, I was born in Brooklyn, but I was raised on an island, Staten Island. But I think probably my sense of who I am today. I mean, I can really come back to an experience I had at age 13. I mean, at age 13, I’m still talking about that now that I’m not yet 50, but you know, getting closer to that.
But so many years ago, that first experience of coming to Japan, which was my first experience to leave my native land, and to come on a student exchange all the way across the world. And I think what really struck me so much at that time was, while I appreciated the cultural differences, I appreciated Tokyo for what Tokyo is, and how it’s clearly superficially very different than New York where I came from.
I was so struck by the interconnectedness that I felt with people, you know? So it was 10 Americans, 10 Japanese. And we were young, 12, 13, 14 years old. And we laughed, we cried, we had fun, we’re pubescent, so whatever goes along with all of that. And I just thought, here it is, I’m in a country that’s supposedly so different, but I didn’t feel that it was so different.
I actually felt more of a commonality and a familiarity, that’s a difficult word to say, with being in Japan, which led me to, I remember when we’re all getting on the bus and saying goodbye and everybody else’s crying, I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t crying because I knew I’d be back.
So for me it wasn’t goodbye. It was just see you later. And I did, and I came back and I was in high school. I spent a month, I was an American representative to a summer camp, which recently has somewhat gone defunct, but that was a camp, an international camp called Pacific Rim International Camp in Tokyo and Nagano, related to a camp that I had gone to during my freshman and sophomore year summers of high school in New York State in Rhinebeck called Camp Rising Sun, which also was a very global camp. My camp mates were from all around the world. I had a very close friend from Texas who for the first time met a Jewish person in my family.
My second year, I was very close with a guy from Nicaragua who was 13 or 14 when he was drafted into the Sandinista army to fight against the, I think it was the contras, if I’m getting that correct, which was supported by the U S government.
So there it is, my camp mate is somebody that just a few months previously, my own government was probably supporting the fight against. So meeting people from all around the world, even before I got into college, definitely shaped my world view of thinking, I do have identity. I have identity in who I am and where I come from, but I didn’t necessarily think that I needed to stick with that same group.
So here it is. So many years later, I’m happily living in Tokyo and enjoying this kind of international global experience, which I get every day by being right here in Tokyo.
Jackie: What a fascinating opportunity and at such a very young age that you would be going all the way to Japan at age 13.
I mean, not only as a parent, that kind of makes me go, Ooh, my daughter’s 10 and that’s three years out. Wow. But also, this camp you mentioned, The Rising Sun, was it created from Japan?
Bryan: Actually, no, it wasn’t. It had nothing to do with Japan. It just happened to be called Camp Rising Sun. It was started in the 1930s by a philanthropist named Freddie Jonas who started the camp. And originally it was a camp for New York city boys. So think about, you know, New York city boys, summertime get out of New York city.
I mean, everybody goes upstate. Upstate is what we call it, upstate New York. And in the first year or two, the international campers came from Western Europe. And over the years, the camp was still predominantly made up of New York City young adults, but ultimately they were representations from people from all around the world.
A few years later, there was an Israeli camper in my year. A few years later they had the Israeli camper and a Palestinian camper together at camp. Two people that probably wouldn’t have gotten together within their own natural home environments. And they were able to spend a summer together there. But I had campmates from all around the world and just that experience of living with people from all around the world opened me up.
And ultimately, I kind of walk away with less of a sense of the differences. The differences are all on an individual level, of course. You focus more on, okay, well, where are we all the same? You know? And I find that interconnectedness is something that absolutely affects the values and the choices I made in my life since then.
Jackie: I can imagine, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I think what a beautiful first experience for so many young men, into the sheer diversity of men, and the sheer diversity of masculinities that are existing on the planet around the world, so that you don’t also maybe box yourself in as a, what does it mean to be a man or real men do this.
And we have some fairly narrow cultural tropes in North America, or in Europe, or in different countries that box men in. But you connected with all different types of men and young men.
Bryan: Yeah definitely. There were, and we had different activities. I mean, we have the activities from arts and crafts to hiking and canoeing.
Now in 1989 there was also, the girls camp was founded. So it actually was a camp for boys from the 1930s to 1989. And then the girls camp comes, and the girls campus was a distance from the boys’ campus, but you can imagine on days that we all got together, the boys are taking showers for the first time all week, you know?
And so there was definitely that dynamic too, the male, female dynamic there. But to your point, understanding the different ways that we can all be, you know what I mean? Of course there’s the jock types and the very athletic types, and then the more creative types, and seeing that at a young age too, and people from all around the world. I was able to say from a young age, that’s not, I could look at somebody and say, not just Japanese people, I could say, well, that’s Keijiro that’s Takao, and I know who they are.
And I know their very differences of personality. So, looking well beyond just that first level cultural layer, is something that I was able to experience up to college. And then in college, spending a year at the Doshisha University?, and then after college, two years on the JET program, back to New York for 10 years to develop my professional discipline, and then back to Japan in 2007, where I’ve now been living stably for the past, 14 years or so.
Jackie: I think, to your point that you mentioned that you didn’t just see a Japanese kid. I mean, you go to camp with these, or a Nigerian kid, right? You end up getting to know their individual, unique parts of their personality, of where they’re from, what they like, and then you have fun together.
And I think, I mean, one of the reasons I picked the name enjoi for the business is really to say, we want to enjoy the diversity that’s out there and we want to enjoy innovation, but we also want to enjoy each other’s diversity so that we can see the individual and move beyond the stereotypes. You don’t enjoy it until you really see the full individual and say, oh, that person’s fun.
And I want to go to camp and do sports with them, or do fishing with them, or do canoeing, or arts and crafts, or whatever it is. And you bond, right? You bond through the activities. So then you’re no longer just a caricature of that country, culture.
Bryan: Definitely. So being able to kind of experience that, understand that at a young age, changed the trajectory of my life, you know?
And I know, when I first had that opportunity to come to Japan at age 13 and I went home to my parents and I said, Hey mom, dad, we’ve got this program that I could go to Japan with. I’d like to apply. And the first answer was, oh, but that’s so far away son, and I gave it up for a little bit until one day, I’m called into the principal’s office to say, Hey, we have this program. Why don’t you reconsider? And then went home and my parents put their hands up and said, okay.
Jackie: You needed that extra nudge from also the principal, which is good because I mean, we underestimate the, it takes a village, we need positive influences towards global minded culture and exchanging with other people who are different. And taking a risk of going abroad and doing something new.
We need support for those choices in our home life, and in our school life. Catherine, last week, talked about the importance of her home life and having her choices supported by her home and her family and her brothers. And it’s so pivotal.
But also if you don’t get it at home, then hopefully you get it at school and it nudges you in that right direction. So many adults, I think, mentor children in real time.
You also have spoken about your New Yorker upbringing and how sometimes there is a, birds of a feather, flocking togetherness, in a way that’s maybe not so interesting and that you chose to move away from it, can you talk to me about that?
Bryan: Well, I think probably two aspects of that. I still say, I still always tell the story. I think the biggest culture shock of my life was not moving from the United States to Japan. I say it was moving from New York City to Western Massachusetts for college during freshman year.
And just, I think anybody going to college for the first year, there’s a bit of an adjustment, but it was the first time I came into recognition of my New York identity in that I had a New York accent. I think in my freshman year, I still had a bit of a gold chain, which I was wearing. My hair was short then, more by a choice rather than right now, where I’m going bald, but a little spiky. So I get to college. And I had this kind of New York demeanor, and I just didn’t really understand that I had this New York demeanor.
So I think over freshman year I was in a transition to a different demeanor. So that’s even maybe what I was thinking on the inside and my exterior was going to become more into alignment. So that was one thing. Just kind of recognizing that difference in myself.
But I think the other point is maybe, growing up where I did in New York City, in Staten Island, I grew up in a relatively kind of white neighborhood, but among white people too, we were kind of either Italian, Irish or Jewish. I’m of Jewish descent. And so I had a bar mitzvah, I went to Hebrew school and I did have some friends within the Jewish circle as a result of that.
But I never kind of accepted that because there’s a ‘born into’ identity that that’s the identity that I need to sort of take all my life, and that’s the group of people I need to be with just by default. I wouldn’t call it a rebellion, but I think counterbalancing that message of, sticking together with your ‘kind’, this is not the nicest term, versus seeking out people that are from different countries, different cultures, speak different languages.
I definitely, through the experience I just explained, have more of a proclivity towards that. And that pretty much has become a big part of my identity, even today.
Jackie: And I think it’s interesting. I mean, particularly when I think we’re based in Japan, and I think we’ll talk about this later too, in more depth, but there tends to be kind of a dichotomy around, you’re either Japanese or you’re a foreigner, and often foreigner is really subliminally signaling whiteness often. Right? White American is almost even, and yet it’s interesting that, of course, in white America, and even if we speak about European descent, white Canada, in Montreal you see that too.
You see that there’s a diversity of whiteness in the city in terms of how white communities don’t identify as white. They identify as Italian Canadian, Greek Canadian, Jewish Canadian, Irish Canadian. And so in Montreal you would have these very clear neighborhoods. And when I was at university, I lived in the in-between zone of the Orthodox Greek, the Hasidic Jewish, and the Italian community, in that sort of overlapping area.
And you would see these distinct neighborhoods that I think we maybe set in time in the 1970s, eighties, nineties, that was more the case. And then eventually more multiculturalism has really moved those neighborhoods to be fully diversified and to mix a little bit more, but there still are some set boundaries around that.
But how does that, I mean, we often fail to problematize the idea that whiteness is a cultural identity because it’s not, right? It’s your skin color, but as you suggest, back in the day, there were distinctions that to be a part of the Italian community was different from the Greek community or the Jewish community of New York.
How did that play out in terms of schools? And was there bullying across those different groups in the school grounds? How did that play out?
Bryan: I think my overall experience is more on the neutral side and I don’t have so many memories of so much, but I do remember we lived in a block, you have some block of houses and I think growing up there is kind of a recognition of, which family is the Irish family, which is the Italian family, which is the Jewish family.
And then it comes Christmas time and the houses that are celebrating Christmas have the lights up, and then the Jewish family houses, the least colorful, unless you have a menorah in the windows. So those kinds of things people are aware.
Or maybe occasionally you might say, oh, here’s my friend. Here’s my Jewish friend, or here’s my, you know, and somebody might introduce you that way if you’re getting into a different group.
But ultimately, I mean, I think I’m just, I think I’ll just sum it all up to say, that default kind of identity, that kind of default sense of this is who you need to be with, this is how you need to live, is not something that from that young age I kind of accepted, which put me on a different trajectory, and makes me feel very comfortable living where I live now, which is Tokyo, Japan. And I am very happy to say, when I take business trips, people say, where are you from? And I can say, oh, I come from Japan, I came from Japan, come from Japan. But then, originally I come from the United States, I come from New York.
Jackie: There’s always that extra question, but where are you really from? Cause you can’t actually be from Japan if you are visibly white and there’s that tension, right?
Bryan: But now, maybe to shift slightly, but one thing I’m thinking is, you know, being a non Japanese person here in Japan, by definition and by word, we are gaijin, we are “Soto no hito” right? And Japan is very much about Soto and Uchi. Right?
Jackie: So external and internal for those who don’t speak Japanese amongst our listeners.
Bryan: Right. And sometimes I think that there’s sort of a lamenting among the foreign community that foreigners are not fully integrated into Japanese society, but I just don’t, actually don’t see it that way. Or I don’t, I don’t feel that way either. I feel we have a very nice position here in Japan and that sometimes, being an expat means, sometimes we can be very fully integrated.
You know, there have been more than enough times when I find myself to be the only non-Japanese person in the room. And it’s a completely Japanese context, and you try to blend in a little bit, but then at the same point, I never feel the need to be Japanese. You know, don’t need to even want to aspire to being Japanese.
I like the fact that I can be non Japanese, but find a way to integrate with my Japanese colleagues and friends as myself. And that’s the different value that we bring, right? So this kind of finding this balance in Japan, I think is a struggle for some, and it’s a challenge for many, to be able to be accepting of the fact that you will always be a gaijin, “a soto no hito” to some extent, but you can find ways where you could be integrated.
But then at the same point, you could take a step back and say, but you know what? I am not Japanese, so I’m not going to do that. Or I’m not going to do it exactly like that. Or I will take a different approach and that’s okay. So I think being non-Japanese in Japan for the most part, it’s a good thing.
Jackie: Well and I think, right, there’s ways in which there’s the maybe formal, legal belonging, of not having a passport citizenship, and the legal political rights that are associated with that. And that’s one level of inevitably being external until dual nationality is an option, for those of us who are permanent residents, and would aspire to have those two loyalties be really true in our legal and political rights, and being able to vote and have a voice in those systems. Because it affects all of what we do as business people, it affects our children going through this school system.
But there’s also, I guess, the element of how do we dis-aggregate or take apart, and this is, I think a process for the Reiwa era to really struggle with is, how do we think about building a Reiwa era conception of Japanese-ness that is not tied to racial identity, but it could be you’re a member of this country, without that signaling racial content.
And I think there’s always going to be a cultural content. Because I think there’s a cultural-ness to this country that foreigners also take on. And when they immigrate, like all immigrants, they take on the cultural benefits of that host culture and that host country.
And they make that a part of themselves in a positive way. And so we can have the cultural Japanese-ness and the linguistic Japanese-ness, but if we could just disassociate it from the racial component, it opens up so much more room for Reiwa Japan to build their population base, and the sense of who is “uchi”, like the sense symbolically of who is then allowed to really be seen as insider, regardless of skin tone or those attributes.
And if we can separate that out, we really would shift, I think, and move the dial in terms of, oh, so, you know, there’s different people from different ethno-cultural racial makeup who all aspire to being a part of the Japanese cultural global focused space and cosmopolitan society that is Japan, because it is vibrant and it thrives, and it thrives because of all that internal diversity.
So I think that’s an exciting idea.
Bryan: Let me question. I mean, yes, okay. Maybe you’re right from the political standpoint. I mean, I think if we wanted to get Japanese citizenship, there is a process we could follow as well. Right. So politically speaking.
Jackie: For naturalizing, if you let go of your own nationality.
Bryan: You know, getting the permanent resident card, being a permanent resident, for the most part is, as I see it, it’s kind of the best of both worlds. I mean, I get to maintain my US passport, but I also get the right to live here with the one exception of, there was that period of time, a few months ago, when the COVID pandemic started. And I think it was the policy that if we, as permanent resident people even were to leave Japan, we would not be able to get back into the country.
Jackie: That actually continues. For certain nationalities it’s not clear cut. So not everyone has easy access of re-entering Japan if you’re a permanent resident. So that’s one issue. And I think the political voice, political voice being the other area.
Bryan: But putting aside the politics of what is nationality, right? For what we’re talking about now, about the need for a kind of an integration, and we’re talking about new diversities within Japan, I’m gonna venture to say, I think we’re moving there.
Japan is getting to that point. It’s getting to that point whenever anybody like you, me, are living in Japan and we make a life here, because we are adapting. And as I said before, I made a comment, I don’t need to be Japanese. I don’t need to, but what I meant by that is I don’t need to completely shed all of my experience and identity that I had before I came here.
But we absolutely have to adapt. So I’m creating a training program right now. So I’m going to just speak from that. It’s the three steps of thriving in Japan. To thrive in Japan requires first appreciation of your context, which is about appreciating your culture, cultural elements.
So understanding “uchi”, “soto”, “giri to on” the difference between using san, sama or kun, to refer to people and understanding all these different cultural relations
Jackie: Polite speak, the titles, and obligations.
Bryan: So that creates the context though. So we have to first appreciate the context and then we need to figure out how to adapt.
And I think everybody that lives here needs to ask themselves those questions. Which elements of the Japanese context do I want to make my own? Do I appreciate it enough that I will adapt to it and change in a certain way. And then at the same point, where do I maybe put my hand up politely and say that that’s not for me?
I draw the line at natto. Everybody always says, natto is good for you. I don’t care. I don’t eat it. I don’t like it. I always joked, I said, as soon as I start eating natto, that means I’m going to have to go to the embassy and turn in my US passport. I don’t want to do that.
Jackie: And there are so many Japanese people who don’t like natto, so we are in good company.
Bryan: Exactly, but even today on the TV, it’s an interesting story is, because of the COVID restrictions, restaurants are closed. There’s a lot of rodo inshu, you know, people are drinking on the streets and hanging out. And they showed how the Kamo gawa in Kyoto is being dirtied and people are leaving their trash and they’re doing the same thing in Tokyo.
And first I look at that and I think, wow, this is the level of reporting in Japan, but when you think about it, when you’re out in public, and if you have a PET bottle, you have your garbage, are you going to just flick it on the street and leave it on the street? No. Right. So that’s an adaptation.
I mean, I know for sure that until I find the right receptacle for my garbage, I will carry it. And if it means bringing it all the way home, I will do that. In other places, maybe you didn’t worry about that. You just threw it away. But you know, part of being in Japan and being a good “shakai jin” person of society is recognizing that there are these kinds of adaptations that you need to take.
So I’m not sure if that’s the best example, but it’s an example of just how clearly ideas about the external world and your relationship to it in the rest of society, changes. And if you’re going to be in Japan, you definitely need to adapt in certain ways.
Jackie: I think that’s a beautiful example of one of the things I appreciate so much about the sense of civic space in Japan or public space as a shared space, that no one person or one group can just take over because they’re louder, or you can’t colonize. Public spaces are not up for grabs for the loudest person to just dominate it.
It is a shared space.
Bryan: Or they shouldn’t be, but when people are doing that, when people are leaving their trash around, before COVID it was summertime at the river or something, and they show how people have left all their barbecue garbage there. And that makes news, right? So it makes news because you’re not supposed to do it.
You’re supposed to think about others.
Jackie: That’s not the good life. The good life here is that you share your public space and it’s a shared space, and I love that. I think it’s an important part of political philosophy that we’ve lost about civic sharing of what is held in common. Can I ask you about where and how you pivoted your global minded, or cosmopolitan, view from a business perspective?
Because I know you worked in New York for, I think it was New York, for many, many years, and then you decided to go on an entrepreneurial journey. I mean, those are interesting pathways. Why did you come back to Japan for that journey?
Bryan: Well, if I summarize my experience quickly, I have worked in different locations, I’ve worked in different companies and I’ve had different roles, but I’ve been following the same theme throughout my career.
So after having graduated from college in 1997, I came to Japan, it was the JET program, and I realized going to JET program is great for what it was. The first year I did the ALT teaching in a school.
In the second year, I was the CIR, the Coordinator International Relations, working in a city hall office. And all of that was great, but I knew it wasn’t leading to any kind of career per se, but it gave me a nice experience. So in my mid twenties, when I’m kind of having a little bit of angst about what I should do with life, I thought, well, I could move to Tokyo, or I could just go back to my home country and get my roots there.
So I did go back to the United States, but I was able to pivot in a nice way there. I found a small entrepreneurial consulting company that was focused on the Japanese company market in primarily New York, but in the eastern seaboard area, and was able to write to the president at that time and say, here I am, I don’t know anything about HR consulting, but I have some of this cultural background in this experience and I’d love to do something Japan related. I’m not sure what it is. And so entered that company. And for a few years I worked in New York City and then I was able to go to California and startup some business in California.
So I got my first kind of entrepreneurial taste when I was still working within that company, and still focusing on Japanese companies. So I was developing my professionalism as an HR manager consultant, learning through the eyes of particularly the Japanese expatriates who were sent from Japan to manage in the United States.
So after having done that for a few years, and having a little bit of feeling, maybe imposter syndrome in that I’m teaching about HR, and I’m saying, this is what you should do based upon what I’ve learned from my boss, who is the head consultant. I realized, wait, I need the internal experience. So I left the consulting world to go work inside a customer organization where the president, I was offered a job.
And so then I got to understand the inside of the company and I did that. So I got that facet and did that.
Jackie: Insider, outsider.
Bryan: Yup, insider, outsider, and then 2007, my wife and I, for personal reasons, were deciding it could be a good time to return to Japan. I did my job search and was able to find a position with Fast Retailing, the parent company of Uniqlo.
I first did interviews from New York, had a video interview, came to Tokyo for the final interview, with the HR yakuin on one day, and then the final interview was the next day with Yanai san, who is the president of Fast Retailing and the richest man in Japan.
Jackie: Not intimidating.
Bryan: And yeah, not so intimidated, but I made sure the previous day when I spoke with the HR yakuin and I understood that if they were bringing me to that final interview with Yanai san, it was their reputation as well, right? They wouldn’t put me in front of him if they didn’t think I was good enough. So I made sure that I got some sense of how to approach Yanai san on that day, what to say, what not to say.
So I got that and yeah, a few minutes after that interview, I was given the offer of employment. So I was able to move back to Japan and be what I believe, I think I can say, it was the first non-Japanese person to work in the group HR department of Fast Retailing. I wasn’t the first gaijin at all to work in Fast Retailing, but I was the first in HR.
I did that for a few years, was able to understand the headquarter operations, and having headquarter operations, overseas subsidiary operation experience, HR experience throughout, in 2010 I said, now I’m gonna try my hand at being an entrepreneur, myself, and founded Gramercy Engagement Group, which I’ve been running for the past 11 years.
Jackie: What was the challenge you were seeking in shifting to this new business of your own?
Bryan: I definitely, when I had worked initially in the consultant company in New York City and then went to California to start business there, I definitely had that flair for trying to start my own thing.
I just liked the challenge of starting from a zero base. When you start something from nothing and you can build it to something, there’s satisfaction in that. I think that was probably the first impetus for it. And then from there, the timing was right. In that I think working in Fast Retailing and Uniqlo’s expansion overseas meant that the headquarter operations needed to transform itself from being that very domestic only focused corporate headquarters to a corporate headquarters that’s really managing a worldwide business.
Even to this day, there are many Japanese companies that are still struggling to pivot in that way. But what I was experiencing at Fast Retailing, those insights I got there, were very much applicable to a lot of companies generally. So I was able to incorporate some of that insight into my initial consulting.
Which then also, as I’m doing that, and I realize companies are requiring training and facilitation, I was able to expand my own professional base of what I do, to say I’m a consultant, trainer, facilitator. And now more recently I’m getting more into executive coaching and I can say I’m an executive coach as well.
Jackie: What is the pivot that you mentioned, and that is involved in truly, instead of having a Japanese company with overseas acquisitions, but really stays as a Japanese company, compared to a Japan based, geolocation Japan based, company that is a global company, and in terms of mindset and they “tama tama nihon ni iru”, we happen to be based geolocation in Japan, but it’s a global company.
What is that pivot?
Bryan: I wanna just sort of, I think you’re describing a spectrum. You’re describing the spectrum of being a very Japanese company that just has some overseas business, to being a “mukokuseki” having almost no nationality. I’d like to say, even with a few exceptions, any company still maintains its corporate identity and its original country of establishment.
So a Japanese company should still be an unapologetic Japanese company. For that point, one thing that I’ve learned from working with a lot of Japanese companies, and some of the projects I do, is the kigyo ninen Shinto, which is thekigyo ninen is the corporate philosophy. And shinto is the dissemination of that philosophy to the overseas subsidiaries.
And many Japanese companies have pride in their history of course, they have pride in their values. And when they’re able to express those values equally to their overseas subsidiaries, the people in the overseas subsidiaries 99% of the time have shown appreciation for that whole, Wow, this is an idea that came from Japan. This is how the company was established.
And they develop more of a sense of identity with a recognition that it is a Japanese company and it has its origin here. So in that way, I’m saying yes, still be a Japanese company.
Now maybe to get to your question, right?
The challenge for all globally operating Japanese companies right now is to I’ll say, recognize the gray in the world.
There’s still too much black and white in terms of operations. So what do I mean by that? So many times still, when I can start talking to a company and I work a lot with the corporate functions, right? So from a corporate function, they’ll even say HR will take the HR corporate function.
The HR department, let’s say for argument’s sake could have a hundred people in it. I’d say 75% or more are all focused on what’s happening in Japan. Their entire area of work is the domestic market. If you have an HR department, if there’s anybody who’s focusing on the overseas business, the overseas subsidiaries, they’’ll be normally a sub-team of the HR department.
And then the work that they do is primarily expatriate handling, you know, selecting people, sending them overseas, doing pre-departure training and manage. So they’re still dealing with the overseas business, but they’re dealing with the expatriates.
A very small percentage might be thinking about who the people working overseas are in the subsidiaries and how to develop and retain those best talents. This is not good. It has to flip. So this has been my message to a lot of the companies I’ve been working with for all these years is that, yes, you do have a domestic HR function, which probably needs to, it’ll always stay like payroll.
Payroll will never be globalized and it shouldn’t be and it can’t be because payment of salary is done on a very local basis. And of course you might have union issues. So you definitely have a domestic HR, but the global headquarters should be that global headquarters. It should be that what’s happening in Japan is just one small sliver of the totality of what the function is looking at.
And there should be much more integration. You know, when you’re looking at your top leaders, your top leaders should be a pool of people that are coming from the headquarters, as well as from overseas subsidiaries.
Overseas subsidiary people should be given the opportunity to take positions in the headquarters in Japan, so bring the overseas people to Japan, or in other subsidiaries, they become third party, third country nationals. That dynamic global talent management is being done in some companies, for sure, but not nearly enough companies, if you look at their global footprint. So that’s my sense of where the Japanese company needs to change in terms of its operations, and in terms of recognizing that sei shain, sei shain basically means tadashii shain, right?
Jackie: Correct, full-time employee.
Bryan: In most of the delineation still, sei shain is a group of people that have been hired in Japan, probably as shi sotsugyo new graduates and the people that are working overseas are no more than just NS or locally hired national staff.
And most of the companies, when I start working with them, their assumption is, well, you know, they’re NS, so they don’t want to do anything more, maybe the highest they would get is to be a top manager in the subsidiary if they no longer send expatriates from Japan. So there might be some localization, but what happens is the people that are really the global talent will realize, wait, the company is not giving me those opportunities.
They’re not even recognizing me. Sayonara.
Jackie: There’s nowhere to go up the food chain all the way to headquarters because of the way it’s constructed internally.
Bryan: And so really what we’re talking about here is a global talent management and development structure where the headquarter people clearly need to focus on Japan.
But at the same time they’re focusing on Japan, they also need to be focusing on what’s happening around the world in terms of talent management and governance compliance. But still many of the companies are saying, but our purview is right here in Japan because this is what we do.
Jackie: Well, and this is where you’re starting, you’re talking my language.
And we’re on the same page because of course, the diversity equity, inclusion, innovation conversation is all about diverse talent, acquisition, retention, and then mobilization to hopefully all levels of the pipeline. And we do see high levels of attrition of women and of global talent, because there is no room to go all the way up and to be seen and accepted as an insider, who will be a leader, the next generation leader, of the company.
And so your only choice is to step off and to go to a different company, right? And that institutional knowledge and organizational knowledge then, is just constantly bleeding out of these companies who really would want to retain that talent and mobilize it, but it does require a shift, and I’ll ask you if I’m understanding your point.
You mentioned that it’s sort of HR function and global HR is a subset within that. Whereas I feel like you’re saying it should be global HR and Japanese HR is here and there’s acquisition abroad, or each foreign entity has a subset for that piece, but it’s all got a global mindset and broader, big picture vision around how to use all that talent across the whole ecosystem.
Bryan: Yeah. I mean, it’s exactly as what you’re saying. I mean, it’s basically, if you’re looking at your headquarter operation, if it’s a Japanese company, it’s in Japan. Now a few years ago, some companies were beginning to say, oh, but maybe to be globally competitive, we need to shift our headquarters overseas.
And I’ve actually seen with some companies, they create this really strange power politic because they take some functions and they say, well, this function will be headquartered in the United States, or this function is headquartered in Singapore, but they still have their major executives still residing in Tokyo.
So that doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work out nicely. So I believe that Japanese companies can and should retain their corporate headquarters in Japan. And again, be unapologetically a Japanese company, but yeah, the corporate headquarter functions, marketing, sales, R and D, HR, finance, those are corporate global corporate functions.
And in so doing, to create that, it’s easy to create on paper, but to create it in reality? And this is what I find to be so fascinating is when I can look at similar companies in the same industry, or we could say, well, but Bryan, every industry has a different business model. Every industry has a different approach. So it’s going to depend upon the industry.
Except it doesn’t because I’ve seen companies within the same industry and I can see how they take a radically different approach. And so what does it come down to? It comes down to who’s in charge, and what that person’s experience was.
What did they do when they were 13 years old? What did they do when they were 16? What did they do in college? Did they live overseas? Did they not? Have they had experiences to sort of open themselves up or have they only focused their entire career on the Japanese market? In which case once they become Bucho, Hobucho or Yakuin one of the high level positions.
Jackie: Division chief or director.
Bryan: Yeah. Unless they’ve had some kind of experience that opens them up, they’ll still see things in terms of that binary of kokunai versus kaigai Japan domestic versus everything overseas. But the reality is there’s a gray, and we need to sort of constantly be intertwining.
You need to be able to pick up the phone and answer in Japanese and hang up the phone, and then get on a zoom with your global colleagues and speak in English. And you need that flexibility to pivot. And right now that’s still the area of challenge for many.
Jackie: I’m hearing two things that I think are so exciting in terms of moving beyond, like you say, the black and white dichotomy, that things that are domestic are domestic and therefore everything global is outside Japan, as if globalist lives outside Japan, when globalist needs to and does frankly, live in Japan.
And you’ve shared to me about this point, but how do we then build and have recognition and appreciation for the globalness within Japan? And does it really also depend on high functioning, bilingual leadership? What extent do you think that is?
Bryan: Yes and no. So here’s something, I ask this question when I do training a lot, or I start with this and I say, what is the meaning of global?
Okay. And for the most part, what people, and the word global in its regular parlance, wherever I think we are, well in Japan, people will respond, oh, that’s overseas. That’s out there because we are domestic. We are here in Japan. And I say, well, hold on. Really? What’s the meaning of global? Overseas.
Well, now what’s a globe? Chikyu, the earth. Where’s Japan? Is Japan located on the moon, on Mars? No. And Japan’s right here. And where’s America and where’s Europe? Okay. We’re all here.
Now our position on the globe is different, longitude, latitude, but is there any specific place on the globe that is more global than anyplace else? No.
So logically global is not out there. Global is here, there, everywhere. Global is us. It’s where we live. So, and I say that sometimes in jest, but I think I make, I use it to make a point. Global does not mean getting on a plane and leaving Japan. For you and me, we’re having a beautifully global experience every day that we’re here because we’re living on the globe and we’re living in a different place.
So we’re having interactions with people. So the point is this, global is not out there. Global really is a mindset too. And so I think what that mindset is as I’m defining it, and also some of the training I provide, is I’ve come up with nine different traits, right? But one of them is a sense of interconnectedness, you know?
So if we’re looking Uchi and Soto, you know,, what is the biggest uchi? The biggest in-group is humanity, right? So, and of course, I mean, there are Japanese people that get this. But there are many times people, because they’ve lived in constructs where we need to sort of organize things and it’s very easy to sort of say in and out, domestic versus global, but so we’re all part of that same humanity that interconnectedness.
And if you’re doing a global business, you absolutely have to have that sense because there’s no part of your business that is more important than the other, as soon as you hang your corporate banner somewhere, especially from a governance point of view nowadays, right? What happens in your business in Africa can have a major impact on your brand, back in the home country, or wherever it is.
So it’s a mindset.
Jackie: I feel like, correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like the word global is used as a shorthand to really mean you have a cosmopolitan viewpoint that goes beyond your own cultural and linguistic rootedness and upbringing, to think about countries around the world and integrate multiple cultures, and multiculture, interculturalism and potentially multilingualism, but at a minimum, even if you’re not multi-lingual, you’re intercultural in the sense of seeing that the world doesn’t just revolve around your own cultural identity and national rooted situatedness.
And that cosmopolitan identity we talk about in political science and political philosophy as the root of high mobility cultures, and particularly advanced professional classes that have high cosmopolitan value in terms of mobility around the world for work.
But it’s not everybody who’s experiencing that yet. Of course it is really tied to education levels often too.
Bryan: It’s education. It’s the experience. I mean, from that standpoint too, there clearly are a lot of places in America that are not global because they only see what’s there in front of them in America, you know?
So I think every country probably has people that have that cosmopolitan thinking, that range. And does everybody in Japan need to have that? Most likely not, but if you’re working in a multinational company and you’re working in the corporate headquarters, right?
And here’s probably my final point too, clearly what we’ve run into is, okay, we run into the language barrier. And so what I try to tell the people that I work with is, to get them over this language hurdle, is they need to re-shape their relationship with English because English is this global language.
And I say, you use a computer, right? How’d you learn to use the computer? You know, why do you use it? Well, it’s a tool. And did you have classes in it? And they’re like, I kind of taught myself because I realized it was an important tool. Well, isn’t English just a tool as well?
But you see, English for Japanese people to this point has been a test, or it’s been something that’s been held over them. And it’s never been what you use as a tool of communication to increase your interconnectedness. But that’s what I try to tell people. That’s what it is you need to get, you need to re-establish a relationship with English where it’s not held over you. It’s an implement, it’s a tool that you use in order to make connections with people.
Jackie: Hopefully it’s a tool that brings ultimate joy through those connections.
Bryan: And that’s the point, right? You know, as soon as you create connections and you can find those similarities. So that’s what’s necessary now in Japan, and sometimes it’s about dealing with the foreigners who are, of course, at the overseas subsidiary. Now more and more it’s about dealing with the people that are right here in front of you, working side by side, finding your interconnectedness, find ways of working together, your commonalities, also as foreigners, we are doing the same and we’re adapting.
So that’s ultimately what the Japanese company needs for its success in this era is absolutely strong Japanese leaders, but also strong Japanese leaders walking hand in hand or walking together, shoulder to shoulder, side by side, whatever it is, with non-Japanese leaders and non-Japanese people that appreciate the Japanese context, and can go together.
So this is what I’m trying to do in my work. I’m just trying to create the sense that the Japanese company should again be unapologetically Japanese, but at the same point needs to be integrative and inclusive of those people that are not Japanese, so that the Japanese strengths can be enhanced in some areas where they don’t have that perspective or that skill, it can be made up for by the non-Japanese person.
If the Japanese company can reestablish itself with this mindset, Japanese companies have a lot to give to the world. And I’m extremely happy to be doing my work from a Japan base.
Jackie: Well, that’s a fabulous, fabulous takeaway, Bryan, and fabulously inspiring. And certainly I know that Gramercy Engagement Group and enjoi, we’re going to have lots of fun together doing things out in this space.
And it’s going to be fun and disruptive and positive, in terms of like you say, giving space to that role for Japan to shine through global Japaneseness, if you will. And I think that’s going to be the Reiwa era’s next contribution, I think, to the globe.
Well, so thank you for a fabulous conversation and learning.
Your book is so exciting.
Bryan: Yeah, everything I’m talking about is somehow included in this book, which I published last year with Waseda professor Shiraki. We wrote “Eigo de Jinji”, which is 日英対訳のよる実践的人事, which is a completely Japanese English, bilingual book about pretty much my experiences in HR.
Jackie: I highly recommend it to everyone. And I think, we’re going to be certainly, probably circling back and coming back to Bryan several times for things in the future. So we will hear from you again, thank you for these really important insights on how we build out space for diversities and for commonalities. Cause that’s what we hold together, right? And this is going to move the dial.
So on that note, thank you so much, Bryan.
Bryan: Thank you, Jackie. Thank you very much.