Lesson 6 Decision-making
In most Korean companies leadership decide on direction and
major issues. In turn, the working team's role is to implement or gather needed
information.
In cases where overseas leadership and teams hope to offer
a new service or program, local Korean management's role is to gather
information and then share with the appropriate senior team members, who are
often in Korea. The local opinion is valued, but review may come from Korea.
My suggestion....
When conducting a meeting where a decision must be made
please recognize that your local Korean team(s) will have considerable say in
it's outcome. This may include both the operations and finance teams. First,
since the topic and subject matter may be new to your Korean team, I recommend
you share prior to the meeting any needed background documents (best provided
in PPT format). In addition, have an informal pre-meeting Q&A with the
Korean team leader to brief and update them on any specifics. Note: they may
need a day to review proposals and agreements, so timing is critical.
Even in the best cases, expect that the Korean team may
want to postpone any decision until they can carefully review and perhaps
confer with Korea. I suggest all documents and meeting PPTs be immediately forwarded
to the Korean team. I'd create a sense of urgency with a timeline for execution
and implementation. Regardless, expect some delays and be patient. Over the
years, I've found that Korean teams appreciate when their overseas co-workers
recognize that the internal approval process takes time and be ready to offer
as needed supportive data or documents.
BTW, if your firm provides services to a Korea--based
partner, provide both the western and Korean teams with background information
prior to any meetings. Moreover, be prepared to share the meeting's content in
digital format afterwards with the Korean team, too.
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