From New Zealand to Japan: Learning to Aim Higher

My ambitions did not start out particularly high. They grew as I met people who showed me a bigger world, and as I learned to take responsibility for what I could contribute to it.

I am Murray Clarke, Founding Partner of Aspiring Partners. After more than 20 years in executive search in Japan, including helping build search firms and leading my own business, I am still interested in the same question: what helps a person raise their expectations of themselves?

For me, the answer began well before recruiting.

A small world, then a wider one

I grew up in the countryside in New Zealand’s South Island. I went to university about two hours from my hometown. Before then, my experience of the wider world was limited. Even a school exchange to the North Island opened my eyes to how differently people could live.

At the University of Otago, I met people from around the country who had travelled much further. Some spent New Zealand’s summer working on Japanese ski fields. They came home with savings, a developing language skill and stories of experiences I had never considered.

During my holidays, I was working in my father’s construction business. There was nothing wrong with that work. But conversations with those friends made me realise how little I had explored and how low I had set my own expectations.

Taking responsibility before I had a clear direction

I was trying to do two degrees, playing rugby and basketball competitively, and spending too much time partying and too little studying. I was busy, but I was also lost.

Then my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember seeing her before she began chemotherapy and feeling deeply ashamed of how poorly I had done in my first year. I had opportunities in front of me and was not making a serious effort to use them. I promised her I would do better.

The exams were close. Classmates who had been attending lectures shared their notes, and I worked through them in a frantic effort to catch up. I took No-Doz caffeine tablets for roughly three weeks and somehow got through the exams. I would not recommend that approach. But I passed, and from that point I took my studies more seriously.

I remember my classmates’ help as clearly as the work. Taking responsibility did not mean doing everything alone. It meant admitting where I had fallen short and accepting the help I needed.

Japan changed my expectations

Japan appealed to me partly because of what I was studying in commerce. It featured prominently in our business textbooks: strategy, manufacturing and management practices that seemed important to understand firsthand.

I came for what was intended to be a year away. I had planned to work on ski fields with a friend, but I stayed in Tokyo and found work teaching English.

Some of my students were senior professionals and business owners, including the president of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association and an entrepreneur in the fashion industry. Our conversations introduced me to a much broader world than the one I had known.

I enjoyed that year enormously, learned a great deal and fell in love with Japan. After returning to Otago, I pursued a scholarship opportunity that brought me back to study at the University of Tokyo. Each experience raised the benchmark for what I thought might be possible.

The night I stopped trying merely to survive

My first job was in financial sales. I had no real mentor, did not understand the work well enough and felt frustrated. Much of my effort went into avoiding the bottom of the performance table.

One evening, I received a letter setting out targets I needed to meet to keep my job. I went home and spent the night thinking about what I was doing. I realised that trying to buy more time was not a serious plan.

I decided to make an honest attempt to achieve the targets. If I failed after doing that, I could at least learn from the effort and consider whether the role suited me.

The next morning, I arrived early and started calling prospects. Within two months, I had exceeded the target substantially. I then stayed at the top of the company’s performance table for several months.

My boss also helped me understand something basic that I had been avoiding: I needed to ask for the business. Activity without a clear purpose was not enough.

What I kept, and what I would not repeat

That period showed me a level of purposeful activity I had not previously understood. It also left me burned out. I would not present sleepless nights or an unsustainable pace as a model for managing people.

The useful lesson was that results require enough of the right work. When I get stuck today, I ask whether I understand the problem, whether I am doing what matters and whether I have made a serious attempt before deciding something cannot be done.

In recruiting, that means learning the client’s business, speaking with the right people, asking useful questions and following through. A high call count is not the same thing as a well-run search.

The ambition I look for now

I enjoy working with recruiters who want to become better at their craft. They do not need to know everything. They need the humility to recognise what they do not know and the willingness to do something about it.

That is also how I think about leadership. I want to help good people see a higher benchmark and give them useful support to reach it. At Aspiring Partners, AI and our TalentHub platform are part of that support. Curiosity, judgment and responsibility still have to come from us.

My journey did not follow a tidy plan. Other people widened my perspective, and a few uncomfortable moments made me change my behaviour. I would like to help other recruiters make that progress with clearer guidance than I had at the beginning.

Read what I look for in recruiters joining our team →

Written by Murray Clarke, Founding Partner of Aspiring Partners.