Tell People Clearly What You Want – And You Can Achieve Your Dreams

An Interview With Haruka Mera, Founder and CEO of ReadyFor Inc.

Haruka Mera has helped 250,000 people raise 3.86 billion yen to achieve their dreams through her crowdfunding business and website ReadyFor. How amazing is that? What’s more, she started the business when she was just 23 years old and was the youngest Japanese participant at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2012.

I was honored to have the opportunity to interview Haruka via video conference and fully agree with her encouragement for more people to say what they want and ask for help to achieve it.

What kind of communicator do you want to be?

I want to be able to communicate effectively with different types of people. For example, in my company there are two types.

There are people like me. They’re idealistic. They want their life and society to be a certain way. For those people, I simply give them the high level of what we’re aiming for and they’re fine.

Then there’s another type. They work toward the goal immediately in front of them. I need to explain to them in more detail my role, the company’s role, and what type of society we’re aiming for. When they see that clearly, they can work toward that.

What is one communication success that you can share with us?

This is linked to what I just said and it comes from a failure. Originally I wanted to grow, but didn’t have a specific image. I wanted to create value in life and be an entrepreneur. I thought highly of myself and thought everyone thought the same about themselves.

When I started my company and it was still small, people had the same mindset. But when the company grew, it changed. I needed to change the way I communicated with my team. It was easy to talk to those who wanted the best quality and were motivated to improve.

I’ve been in business since I was in my 20s. I’ve seen many successful people and patterns that focus on growth. I looked at how I could change or impact the world.

There were lots of young members in the company. They could contribute value regardless of their age or gender.

My success was that for those who were unlike me – those who needed a clear goal in front if them – I learned to explain clearly where they were, what skills they needed, and exactly how to reach the goal.

What is one communication failure that you can share with us?

At first I didn’t know that I needed to explain step by step in detail to some people. They didn’t know what to do next and became quite anxious. This meant the quality of work suffered.

When did you realize you needed to do things differently?

We have a team of 50 or 60 people now, and I realized this about six months to one year ago. We have four levels in the organization. The executives and managers are easy to communicate with, but it’s difficult to talk one-on-one with people below that. I realized that I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted. I was more hands-on before when the company was smaller.

What did you change?

I changed two things.

First, I increased our communication. I started to understand that background is important, so I increased communication about that and encouraged more casual communication to close the gap and make it easier for colleagues to speak with each other. We spend a lot of time at work, so it’s important that we share personal information to understand what type of people we are and what we want. We introduced more nomikai (going for drinks) and coffees.

Second, I made it clear what the next action should be.

What is most challenging for you in communication right now?

I want to create a type of society that’s like nothing we’ve seen before. This excites me! But some people aren’t motivated because they can’t picture that. It’s challenging to communicate something that no one has ever seen before.

What communication skill, resource, or advice would you recommend to our readers?

We started using StrengthsFinder (an online assessment to help people uncover their talents) in the company. It’s good for us to get to know each other and understand each other’s preferences.

What else do you want to say to Sasuga! readers?

I realize how difficult communication is. My company is a communication service. I help people to achieve their dreams. My company makes it possible for people who don’t know each other to communicate and support each other. They can create a group of friends. I think this is important and will become even more important.

My role is to create this type of collaborative society. Communication is essential.

I think lots of people want to achieve something. But not many people communicate this clearly – especially Japanese. If you do tell people clearly what you want to achieve, the resources and opportunities come to you. If you want to do something, find friends and a story that people can empathize with, and then spread the story. I really encourage you to communicate with others and tell them what it is that you want to achieve, so that you can do that.

*     *     *     *     *

If you’d like to me to email you every Tuesday with more interviews with wonderful working women, practical communication techniques, and glimpses into my personal life, go here to subscribe to Sasuga! Tips For You.

It’s absolutely free and you can easily unsubscribe anytime by clicking a link at the bottom of the newsletter if you don’t find it valuable. I definitely don’t want to clutter your inbox with stuff you don’t need 🙂