The Double Pivot

      Makiko Eda, VP of Intel’s Sales and Marketing Group and president of Intel Japan, is one such master pivoter. As a native of Japan, she enjoys working for a multinational company that respects her leadership skills and imbues her with authority—something that would never happen in a Japanese managerial hierarchy, where women are rarely welcome, she says. But she also enjoys, during her quarterly visits to Intel’s headquarters in California, being “a translator of my culture to the Western world.” Traveling between her office in Tokyo and Intel’s operation in Santa Clara, she reflexively pivots, modifying her leadership style to project credibility in both environments.

      “I do put on my cowboy hat at headquarters,” she says. “People are debating: you have to participate. I’m not used to it; I’m used to being asked for my opinion, not to have to cut off people in order to interject it. But especially in topics where I’m assured of my expertise, I’ve learned to do it.” Once back in Tokyo, however, she drops the combative style and resumes her respectful stance. “My reports tell me that it’s a function of the language I’m speaking,” Eda relates. “I’m very assertive and strong when I speak English; I’m very polite and soft when I speak Japanese.” It’s a linguistic difference, as well as a cultural one, she explains: English is more clear and direct in its word order, whereas there’s more unspoken in Japanese; its very structure is indirect.

      With her sales team and with clients throughout Asia, Eda adjusts her leadership style as local cultures dictate. With Koreans and Taiwanese, she works to coax out the unspoken in one-on-one conversations, as they rarely express their thoughts unbidden, and certainly won’t share them on a big call. Whereas in India, where there’s a culture of open debate—“each of them will have to say something about everything”—Eda asks clarifying questions and makes sure to hold individuals accountable. “India’s a good example of where they’re Asian but not my Asian,” she explains. “Coming from Japan, from headquarters, I knew how they’d feel: there would be a battle for authority. (‘She’s never been to India and she’s managing marketing!’) So I have adopted an approach of total humility. ‘Teach me, tell me why you do things that way,’ is how I win their trust. It isn’t my instinct, necessarily, but if I were them, that’s what I would like to hear from my management.”

      Indeed, employing empathy—doing what Eda calls “the mind meld”—has served her extremely well in all local markets. “In instances where there’s likely to be cultural tension, I try to get inside their psyches and simulate how they’ll react in my head before I interact with them,” she explains. “Then I ask questions; I show a willingness to learn.” It’s a tactic, she says, that has helped her bridge gender and age differences, as well as cultural differences. “Once I make it clear I’m not there to criticize or judge but to support them in the best possible way so that we can do the best possible job together—they trust me,” she says. “Empathy works.”

      Integrity

      As Eda’s story illustrates, the double