Hi, my name is Evan McKenzie and I am originally from Winnipeg, which is in the province of Manitoba in Canada. I’ve been working at Tokio Marine Holdings since 2015 and my current role is as Manager of the Group Talent Division. My main objective in this role is to ensure that we have the right people in the right place who are capable of operating at a group-wide level for the Tokio Marine Group.

Why work in Japan? 

I came to Japan by accident. In 2004, I was working at a marketing company in Beijing after finishing a program and came to Japan on vacation without any passion for working in Japan or any long-term vision. When I first landed in Japan I thought this was a great place and a good fit for me so I decided to move to Japan. Growing up in a small town in Winnipeg, Canada, I didn’t plan on staying there. I have always been interested in living abroad and traveling. On my first trip to Tokyo, I remember after arriving at Haneda Airport, being near Hamamatsuchou where the road was new, perfectly black asphalt, the lines completely straight and beautifully painted. There were many people standing at the red light, not crossing the road and it was perfectly silent, no one was talking. The road was impressive and the attention to detail was surprising. Also being in a crowd so big, but that was so silent was an eerie but pleasant experience. I appreciated the effort that was put into doing things well regardless of the additional time or cost.

When I was 17, I entered a university in Canada and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in philosophy and a minor in anthropology. After graduating in 3 years, I spent a year in the UK doing a working holiday, mostly traveling around Europe while reading lots of books. It was a lot of fun to do when I was young but it was not a permanent situation and I realized that there was not much of a career as a philosopher. In the early 2000s, a popular saying was that to be a successful business person you should study Arabic or Chinese. So I went back to university and studied Chinese and management which led me to land a job in Beijing after I graduated.  I was in Beijing for a short time, only six months, but I felt it was not a good fit so it was at that time I came to Japan for vacation and decided I should move here. So I went back to Canada for a few months to get my visa and then moved to Japan. I got a job teaching English at first. I didn’t expect to stay in Japan for so long because I was on a 6-month working holiday visa initially but I ended up staying a couple of years working in Japan. This didn’t feel like a long-term arrangement for me while I was working in Japan so I decided to go back to Canada to get my Masters in Anthropology. My thesis research was on expatriate performance in corporate Japan and I was working as a consultant for different companies. 

Life lesson in University

I believe that going to university is not just about learning a subject and it is more about the things you do end up learning along the way by experiencing life. University is like a life with training wheels - its many peoples’ first experience living alone, making money, and trying different things - this is where I learned my work ethic. I knew I was not the smartest, but I knew I could work harder than anyone else. One of the main things I learned in university was not in class but the mindset that if you’re willing to put in the effort you can do anything you put your mind to. This taught me the lesson about the value of hard work. 

“You don’t make money, You 'earn' money”

This advice is not Japan-specific, but in any workforce. One of the ways you can be a valuable asset to the company is by being useful. When you are young,  you may think that you are better than this, and that you do not need to do menial tasks. But you need to get rid of that ego and think about how you can be useful. Working in a company, for the first 6 months or so, you are basically a loss to the company since you can’t provide much value to them immediately. Therefore, the humbleness to do what is required and make yourself useful is what I would want to suggest to prospective employees. It is something similar to the quote from John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” but in this case about getting things done. 

Be Humble - Outside of the Job Description 

As a foreigner working in Japan, you provide value to your company in many ways, some probably outside of what you imagine. That means that you will probably get asked to do things that aren’t in your job description, like they want your input on a project based in your home country or want your commentary on a document in English because you’re a native speaker. The idea of having a job description is a Western approach and most Japanese companies do not have one. They want to find someone who will match the team instead. If your approach to these requests is “It’s not in my task, don’t talk to me about this”, it’s not going to be a successful long-term strategy. Being useful is an asset. As a non-Japanese employee in an environment where oftentimes there are mostly Japanese employees, you add a unique value to the company. So be flexible in taking on these tasks.  

“You should plan not to succeed most of the time”

While you’re looking for a job, stay open-minded all the time, don’t be turned off by job descriptions and just go for it if you’re interested. When I was younger, I wondered whether I should apply for the job and assume that they were going to hire me and try to think if it would be a good fit for me. The truth is they’re probably not going to hire you. You’re going to need to apply to many companies before you find one that is willing to hire you. In the same way, I’m all about the shotgun approach when it comes to things. When it comes to learning a language people spend a lot of time looking for the one-and-done best way to do something. At the bookstore by our office people are there looking at the language section and spend 20 minutes trying to search for the perfect book. And the answer is, there isn’t a perfect book. You just need to put yourself out there and try everything to see what works.

Know when to stand out

Sometimes you want to stand-out and differentiate yourself from the crowd, but you need to balance how much you stand out. You want to show to the company that you’re ticking the boxes, got the basics down for the type of person that they need while showing some character in moderation - I think it’s a good thing to do. But no one wants a total “surprise”. Expected surprises such as a surprise birthday party are pleasant, but no one likes total surprises such as waking up and your car is missing. As a foreigner, I strategically deploy my foreignness depending on the situation. You need to be able to walk that line between being foreign and assimilating into the local culture. Even companies who want to hire foreign talents don't want to hire a complete alien who is not willing to learn a new culture. So rather than focusing on standing out, you want to think about who the customers of that company are and what they want from the company. For example, you may think that coming to an interview in a flashy suit is innovative or expressing personal style. However, in a business where they are looking for traditional trust, it isn’t the best approach. In Japanese companies, if you come in 100% unique, you may be quite far from what they are looking for.

We are responsible for developing top-level group talent for the Tokio Marine Group. In the past 20 years, there was a need to diversify the portfolio outside Japan so we have been acquiring insurance companies abroad. The companies that we brought into the Tokio Marine Group were already doing great in their markets so by joining us they gained some new benefits and  support to continue doing what had made them successful already. One of the implication of this type of federated business model is we have many different group companies all over the world and these companies will be experts in their home environments because essentially insurance is a local business. So my role is to think group-wide make sure that we have the right people who can operate on an overall group level.

Work Culture

One of the strengths of Tokio Marine is the Japanese word 挑戦（ちょうせん, chosen）, which translates to English as “challenge”, but the nuance is slightly different. It’s all about effort, and trying, the company thinks it’s valuable to put in the effort because it’s a better long-term skill than succeeding without it. Those who try hard and try new things are respected. This is a great place to grow and learn in that sense because we have a culture of respecting effort and seeing its value. In the business of insurance, there’s a lot of uncertainty and you don’t know when accidents are going to happen, but we do our best in dealing with the situation and that’s a good metric of how we can handle it. 

Challenges

There are hundreds of challenges that we have to face: my job is about dealing with those challenges. Being a manager, I have more responsibility, and that comes with more expectations. But I would say if your goal is to have a life with no challenges, then you set the wrong goal for yourself. You’re bound not to be happy. If you want to continue advancing in your career, then you need to like the challenge and embrace it. Don’t expect none because our job is to deal with the challenges and overcome them. I remember hearing somewhere about two types of fun: Type 1 fun and Type 2 fun. For Type 1 fun, it’s enjoyable while it’s happening but after it’s not fun (or worse), an easy example is going out drinking. Then there’s Type 2 fun like running a marathon, where at the moment it’s not very fun, in fact it's painful but once you complete it, it becomes fun and there is a sense of achievement. I’m all about embracing the Type 2 fun.

What kind of person is a... 

Good FIT

If you’re interested in trying hard and trying new things, then I think you would find the Tokio Marine Group to be a good match.

NOT a Good FIT

If you like doing what you did last year and sticking to a routine, it may not necessarily be the best fit.