Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

As I have shared before, supporting clients and their challenges requires getting to the core issues. It’s distinguishing between what may be, for example, a local organizational, or what may be tied to the Company in Korea. It then requires probing for any cultural impasses before providing a practical solution and a work through. Much of this work is first listening carefully to clients and their challenges. Equally valuable is walking around the corporate offices, observing and capturing multiple viewpoints. Nothing beats being onsite. Nothing beats getting face to face. Too often, I find challenges as murky, complex and layered with frustrations, so a deconstruction is needed. In most cases, I bring a fresh perspective—one rooted in years working with Korea-facing business. I’d like to share that in addition to mentoring, my work also involves directly supporting specific and very select high profile projects with clients.    Next Steps As a next step, I sugge...

This remark can be heard often.  I personally have experienced it pop up in discussions while working for Korea companies. It surfaces often in chats with my Korea facing international clients.  In particular, it’s an issue when Korean firms promote themselves as “global, “ but push back with few wanting to move beyond the standard response “That wouldn’t work in Korea” or the caveat “That’s not how we do things at [insert company name] – most often this is when international teams seek to share their global approach to business. Frankly they are right--things do work well in Korea, but this is the very root of the problem for a list of reasons.  For one, if global brand or company enters the local Korean market with a new product or service they bring an international model, which needs to be followed A-Z. I’ve seen brands and projects falter when they do not embrace fully or the local partner picks and choices what they see fitting well, dismissing what they...

This remark can be heard often.  I personally have experienced it pop up in discussions while working for Korea companies. It surfaces often in chats with my Korea facing international clients.  In particular, it’s an issue when Korean firms promote themselves as “global, “ but push back with few wanting to move beyond the standard response “That wouldn’t work in Korea” or the caveat “That’s not how we do things at [insert company name] – most often this is when international teams seek to share their global approach to business. Frankly they are right--things do work well in Korea, but this is the very root of the problem for a list of reasons.  For one, if global brand or company enters the local Korean market with a new product or service they bring an international model, which needs to be followed A-Z. I’ve seen brands and projects falter when they do not embrace fully or the local partner picks and choices what they see fitting well, dismissing what t...

I’m just back from Seoul. With “Meet and Greets,” more than once casually bumping into few longtime friends in the hotel and at the airport, a number of high level presentations, a VIP tour of Hyundai Card’s two newest venues—the Music Library and the Vinyl and Plastic retail store, and an even a day trip to PyeongChang, home to the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics, the days and nights stayed busy. Amid all the travel, I study the corporate Korean workplace. It’s the sub-culture within the different Groups and their affiliates—nuances-- that capture my attention. Marketing teams, for example, dressing ever more casual, ties less and less commonplace, meetings in coffee shops adjacent to corporate offices, not to mention many teams working Remote in the cafes with easy to access Wi-Fi. Still often we see some constants—older senior executives in their company car, usually black Mercedes, BMWs or Hyundai Equus (now Genesis G90, but badged in Korea as EQ 900), the exchange business...

A respected colleague shared their thoughts on last week’s commentary “Hit the Target”—noting is was “a timely topic!” “… Especially as we enter the fourth quarter…” Several readers also chimed in-- lamenting that local leadership and teams receive little guidance in HOW to hit the target. To add some context, HOW has considerable to do with Korean workplace culture norms.  Leaders give directives, and teams execute in a top down manner. In some cases, well meaning leaders withhold detailed instructions to empower their teams to work through it themselves…. In other cases, some in less progressive management feel there are being paid to do a job…. And teams need to struggle like they themselves had earlier in their careers…  While others recognize providing direction may be efficient, but hope their team will find new and better ways to tackle the challenge.  In particular, some form of “hail Mary” that drives sales and even better at a low cost. Frankly...