Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

The Year of the Red Rooster: industrious, outspoken, sharp-witted, and extravagant Korea (as well as China, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore and other Asian countries) celebrate two New Year’s-- one on Jan. 1 and the Lunar New Year celebration, which this year falls on January 28 of the Gregorian calendar, with the legal holiday in Korea from January 27 to January 30. This year, 2017, is referred to as Jeongyunyeon (‘Jeong-‘ means ‘red’ and ‘-yu’ means a rooster) or “The Year of The Red (fire) Rooster. Each lunar new year has an associated animal, as well as a related element like fire (red), water (black), earth (yellow), metal (white) and wood (blue), all which rotate over a 60-year cycle. Hence, Red (Fire) Rooster, or Black (Water) Snake, White (Metal) Dragon, etc. It’s a great time to re-connect with Korean teams and friends. For your Korean colleagues (in Korea), you can wish them “Happy Lunar New Year” by phone, text, or email, by EOD on Wednesday, January 25 (so, Th...

Following up on my preview commentary, I’d like to add another “Must Do.” As I have shared, teams and leadership initially will require Korean corporate culture immersion and then continuing support and mentoring. This ranges from on-boarding folks new to your organization as well as anyone that may have moved into a new role and responsibilities that bring them in contact with Korean teams and exposure. In the best cases, I am brought in literally day 1 with new leadership, in contrast to waiting for issues to surface that perplex and bring question.  As a caveat to this “on-boarding and support,” immersion should extend to vendors and service providers new to your organization. Frankly, in my experience, the best partners embrace the opportunity to learn about your company’s Korean ties and influences. More so, it can pro-actively reduce many of the challenges that surface in the relationship and improve overall productivity. I’d be happy to discuss to ensure w...

Must do #1 Stay informed on the economic and political issues in Korea that will impact business in 2017. For many of you, I do this in daily updates. If you are not receiving and would like to be better informed, please let us know and we’ll add you these updates. Must do #2 Mentoring and coaching has never been as vital. Anyone in your organization that has exposure and interactions with Korean teams and leadership need this support. This can range from training sessions to one-on -one mentoring. Assuming teams will “get it” is like throwing someone in the deep end of the pool and expecting them to swim and not sink. Sadly, the later has been the model, with a few exceptions…frankly this attributes to employee and leadership struggles—for example, trying to second guess Korea HQs perspectives, or investing time and resources in projects only to have them stalled, postponed or dropped. The investment in mentoring always offsets the huge costs tied to frustrating a...

2016 in retrospect.  2017 before us.   From a string of weekly trips to OC/ Irvine, California, home to the U.S. HQ offices of Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, Genesis, MOBIS Parts, Innocean and Hyundai Capital, to somewhat longer trips to a Vegas Dealer Show, NY and LA Auto Shows, HATCI R&D in Ann Arbor, KMMG and the Tier One’s in Georgia and Hyundai in Canada and even longer treks to Seoul, in 2016 I supported leadership across the Korean OEMs and their affiliates. This said, it was a challenging year for both the western and Korean overseas teams. Bluntly, we all felt the frustration; the common thread---the need to hit steep sales targets. Layered on top was mounting anxiety from South Korea over a declining export economy and a weakening Won. Not to mention, the political scandals touched to the heart of Korean Groups—their Chairman called into the National Assembly and probed if pressured to contribute monies in exchange for special presidential treatment. Sadly we...