Gently does it … or else
A career may take many directions, and Michel Lachaussée has made choices that set him on course for both challenge and satisfaction.
To start with, having studied pharmacy in Lyons and begun work at the university hospital clinical pathology laboratory there, he then accepted a position with bioMérieux, a leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics of infectious diseases. At the time, in 1975, bioMérieux was a relatively small French company, but it was going global in a hurry. Lachaussée would go global with it, spending half his career as an expatriate.
“If I had stayed in the laboratory, I would have been in the same place my whole life,” he says. “With bioMérieux, I had the opportunity to travel, and discover other countries and cultures.”
His first assignment outside France was as managing director of the company’s German subsidiary. While studying the local language at the Goethe Institute, he met a Japanese female fellow student who, he recounts, changed the course of his career. The encounter led to marriage and a lifelong fascination with Japanese culture and language.
The European Commission’s Executive Training Programme provided a chance for Lachaussée to spend 18 months in Japan, studying business and yet another language. Then, in 1988, he was given the task of establishing bioMérieux in Japan. From Tokyo, he later travelled widely across the Asia-Pacific region, expanding sales and setting up a number of subsidiaries. Eventually reassigned to HQ in Lyons, he still felt the call of Japan. This prompted the move to animal health company Merial. He returned to Tokyo as president of Merial Japan, with responsibility for an Asia-wide business unit.
“In 2006, the corporate structure changed, and since then I have been focusing only on Japan,” he says, explaining that this change in circumstance allowed him to take on the chairmanship of the French Chamber of Commerce in Japan. He has also chaired the EBC Medical Diagnostics Committee and the EBC Animal Health Committee. He is still expanding his horizons.
“I have always been interested in sales and marketing, and developing new subsidiaries, but in recent years I have become more interested in human resources,” he says. Issues related to teamwork, motivation, cross-cultural communication, etc., inspired the company president to travel to California in 2009 to become a practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). Merial Japan now applies NLP techniques of self-help, motivation and organisational change.
“We do training in emotional intelligence. This is far more important than IQ,” says Lachaussée. “An extremely competent person may have difficulty communicating, or be overly aggressive. We recommend ‘position change’, which means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.”
Lachaussée is rightly proud of his company’s low personnel turnover, and prefers a gentle approach to resolving conflicts or behaviour issues – as long as it works.
“Sometimes you have to be tough,” he says. “It may just be necessary to say that some things are not acceptable. Some people only understand strength.”
Anyone who has moved house or office would understand why stress levels recently may have been slightly elevated at Merial. As a full subsidiary of Paris-based pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi-Aventis, Merial is changing locations in Tokyo as it becomes more integrated into the parent company.
At 63, retirement is not far away, but inactivity is a long way off.
“After retirement, I intend to stay in Japan and do something professionally in the coaching/consulting area,” he says.
As for private pursuits, he enjoys Japanese visual and performing arts, and loves to spend the occasional weekend at a ryokan with his wife.
Unsurprisingly, he loves animals.
“I prefer dogs, but my wife likes cats, and cats are easier to keep here,” he says. There are two cats at home.
His reading tends toward history, philosophy, religion and psychology.
“Had I not studied pharmacy, I would probably have studied history,” he says.
On the business front, Japan’s thickets of non-tariff barriers are always tricky, and last year’s disaster was seriously disruptive. The timing meant that many pet owners skipped or delayed springtime preventive treatments for such problems as fleas, ticks and heartworm.
“We hope for a rebound in 2012,” says Lachaussée.
The livestock side of the market was also affected, but is now recovering.
“Merial is an innovation-driven company, and to grow the business, we need to bring in new products,” notes the Merial Japan president. “Thanks to the EBC there is some improvement in the regulatory situation, but it is very slow.”
Even if Japan and the EU can hammer out an economic integration agreement, he warns, change will still require persistence and hard work.
“Many laws, some requiring parliamentary approval, will have to be changed. It will be difficult for us to get what we want,” he says.