92: Simon Wallington, Managing Director, Cornes and Company

<p>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.</p> <p> </p> <p>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.</p> <p> </p> <p>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 wor