Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

Jeanne Grosser on solving international business issues using American methods

16 Sept 2022 · 1 min

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In this segment, Jeanne Grosser recounts her 1.5‑year stint in the APAC region while working at Google. She managed an inside‑sales team based in Sydney that covered Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia, and she visited a struggling sales team in Japan. Observing clear operational and cultural dysfunction, she chose to address the problems using a direct, American‑style intervention: gathering the entire team in a room, laying out the issues she’d heard, and facilitating an open, confrontational discussion to surface and resolve the challenges. Throughout, she encourages professionals to seek international experience to develop cross‑cultural competence.

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So can you touch more on your experience globally? And specifically, I'm curious to hear more about how you learned to adjust to operate across different cultures. Yeah, I really can't encourage folks more to go have an international experience. So I spent a year and a half in APAC while I was at Google. So, you know, good example. So while I was out there, there was a— we actually ran all the bulk of Australia, New Zealand, and then Asia sales out of Sydney because it was an inside sales team. And then we had a team up in Japan. And when I went up to meet the team in Japan, it was, you know, like super obvious to me that it just wasn't functioning well. I think I got good insight into some of the problems, and then I decided to solve them in a very American way, which was basically like, I'm gonna have an intervention. We're gonna lock everyone in a room. I'm gonna be like, here's what I'm hearing from you all. Like, let's have it out, you know, let's discuss it, get it on the table.