Get Comfortable Not Knowing Everything: Interview with Rei Aiba, CEO of Bodygram
I recently went one on one with Rei Aiba, CEO of Bodygram.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Rei: My path to Bodygram definitely was far from a straight and narrow journey. An early challenge was deciding to move from New York City, where I grew up, to Tokyo in 2012. At the time I knew roughly 5 words in Japanese and had no intention of living here long term. That all changed when I was given an opportunity to intern at Simplex Asset Management based in Japan. The firm had never hired someone like me, straight out of college with no Japanese language ability, this was significant, for both of us. Our CEO inspired immense respect in me and I felt a strong desire to achieve goals and objectives that would drive the company and my career forward. Through self-determination, mentorship, and grit, I became the youngest Director in the company’s history.
2020 presented a new opportunity, pivoting my passions from investments to body data and partnering with my friend Jin Koh at Bodygram. I started as COO at Bodygram and then was promoted to CEO in 2021. There have been plenty of challenges, lots of trial and error, and mistakes to learn from. Pursuing Bodygram was uncharted territory to me and gaining the confidence to “challenge the unknown” was a major barrier.
Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?
Rei: I believe a successful business starts from within, from the people that walk in the door. We have a strict hiring process that helps us bring in talented people who are agile in their ability to learn and execute.
More times than not I don’t know the answer, and I don’t think I should. With a team full of great minds and great people, we work together to find solutions and develop answers. The best way to scale and grow your business is to nurture the people within, and have shared goals and visions of the company, so together you can bring your business to the next level.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Rei: I believe that it’s important to care about your employees and develop shared principles by which to work. Several of our key company values are: clear communication, focus on impact, and continuous learning. The best way to manage teams is to ensure employees understand the work they are doing so they can be passionate about it.
An ongoing challenge that I think most companies face is communication and expectation setting. Something I’ve become very cognisant of is that what one group understands may not be understood entirely by the rest of the organization, and this can understandably lead to miscommunication. Being clear on objectives, success metrics and ownership of tasks, is imperative to be understood by all in order to build a high-functioning team.
I am also a huge advocate of revising the traditional model of how businesses approach bringing in new talent. While most companies would say, to hire for the future, I believe it is most important to hire for the present. If you hire for “the now”, you know you have a team that is equipped to tackle current challenges and are also forming a team that will have the experience and teamwork to handle other obstacles that may arise in the future.
Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them?
Rei: Machine Learning (ML) is at an inflection point; it and highly sophisticated models are progressively moving toward becoming a commodity. More than ever, it’s proprietary high-quality datasets that companies will be building competitive advantages. In other words, the output from ML models will be the differentiator in what they produce, meaning that the uniqueness of the datasets will be the driving factor in producing valuable insights.
Bodygram embodies this trend at its core and is focusing on building the largest dataset of human body measurements in a private and secure way.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Rei: Accountability always comes to mind when I think of imperative leadership skills. An effective leader is able to acknowledge their weaknesses as much as their strengths. A leader who is humble enough to admit to their mistakes, and take them as an opportunity to learn is a leader who sets a solid foundation for others to follow. Continuous learning is one of our company values and I believe in this strongly, “we are humble, and value learning over being right”.
Rei: An effective leader also has the intuition, and the humility, to be able to pivot. Pivoting comes with patience. It takes trial and error to figure out what’s working and even more importantly, what’s not. A leader needs to be able to identify the problem and work with their team to find a solution. Problems aren’t always product driven, it is on a leader to identify problems within their company such as workflow, culture, and processes, and move quickly when identified. The best leaders won’t find the solutions themselves, they will listen to their teams and test and retest to find the right resolution. If it doesn’t work, which happens more often than not, a leader will be able to maintain morale to help their team stay motivated to try again.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Rei: Understand your role and the expectations that come with it, and fully embrace accountability. Be clear in communication, be an active listener, and make decisions with the information available to you with high conviction. It’s also important to understand mistakes will be made but sometimes these are good and the company can grow from the lessons. What I’ve experienced as one of the biggest dangers are inaction and ambiguity. It is best to move quickly, but ensure clarity so your team members are always aligned along the way.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Rei: My best tips are what guide me to be the best leader I can be.
Remember your roots. For me, the people who believed in me along the way have kept me motivated throughout my career and have encouraged me to keep pushing to get Bodygram to the best it can be. If I have inner doubts, I remember the people who took a chance on me and served as great guidance to help me get on the path I am on now.
Be passionate about what you do. Bodygram to me is more than innovative technology, we are addressing larger, societal issues. I love that Bodygram is at the forefront of changing the retail industry for the better, helping to dismantle the mass eCommerce return crisis the industry is battling. For me, knowing that this company is redefining the retail space is what fuels me to give it my all each day.
Get comfortable not knowing everything. As I mentioned, a leader's job isn't to know the answer to every question. Our superpower is guiding our teams with humility - admitting when we aren’t sure and leaning on co-workers to help us find a solution.
Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing, and branding?
Rei: It is vital to sell with integrity. It’s important to paint the picture and generate excitement, as long as it is based on factual data. Building relationships based on trust through listening to needs, expectations, and aligning on the value that you can deliver will lead to lasting and fruitful partnerships.
Understand your product entirely and what differentiates you from the market. Understand your customer. Be sure you can eloquently tell a compelling story of how your product will add value, and be able to adapt to new information from potential customers to tailor your story. If your knowledge of the product is deep then you can find a way to connect your value to any customer.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Rei: “The people who walk through those doors every day are the ones that will make things happen,” meaning treat your employees well and they will treat your customers well.
Another piece of advice I love is from Phil Knight, in Shoe Dog - “Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”This is something that resonates deeply with me and aligns with my belief that if you hire the best people and teams, they will be the experts to help you make the right decisions.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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