Takeaways: My Conversation with Bel Japon President and CEO Aytekin Yildiz

On September 12th, I conducted an onstage conversation with Bel Japon CEO Aytekin Yildiz with my colleague Maïa Maniglier for the French Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

You might not be familiar with the France-based Bel Group in the healthy snack food industry, but you likely have heard of, if not enjoyed, Bel Group cheese products like Kiri, Laughing Cow, and the Baby Bel with its iconic red wrapping.

Below are my takeaways from that conversation.

1. Innovation requires comfort with failure, because most good ideas don’t work. As a leader, you must thank and reward people for the behavior of coming up with ideas, regardless of whether or not they are successful.
2. The best way to convince your head office of bold, local innovation is by one-on-one conversations with key executives and developing personal rapport before a meeting with a group or committee for evaluation, rather than presenting ideas for the first time to the group. In Japan, this practice is common and known as nemawashi  (根回し). However, the same practice is effective outside of Japan as well.
3. If you expect your people to come up with bold ideas and present them to you without hesitation, you must demonstrate that you do the same with your superiors if you want to be credible.
4. Salespeople often have a “customer is god” complex, and feel subservient to customers. They feel obligated to abide their every request, even when a request is not in the best interest of the customer. Sales is a noble profession. Salespeople help customers improve their businesses and their lives. It’s OK to confront a customer when it is in the customer’s best interests. As a leader, you too need to demonstrate the same boldness with customers if you expect your salespeople to do the same.
5. Innovation is the only path for business growth, and even maintaining a steady state. Lack of innovation inevitably results in decline.
6. Innovation is not just about products, but also about selling processes, marketing, production processes, delivery channels and packaging. Every employee is responsible for innovation regardless of role.