Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

I’d like to share a new Korean business Toolbox that provides solutions to a recurring and deep concern by western management of South Korea-based companies. I find this issue surfacing often and so draw upon what I have found to work best to overcome and move forward. Here’s the Link: http://www.bridgingculture.com/assets/toolbox-2017_-intervention.pdf In crafting the Toolbox over the past month and sharing sections as drafts, it’s received considerable feedback and positive reviews. These are always much appreciated. As always we look for your comments and thoughts, too. So please share.

Korean Business with Don Southerton As shared in my book Korea Perspective there is an interconnectedness in the Korea workplace. In particular, complex relationships abound. This is true whether operations are in South Korea, Germany, Brazil, India or the Americas. Directives and requests originating in Korea headquarters radiate to global operations. In turn, inputs from local working teams, Korean and western, make their way back to Korea impacting decisions by leadership. Relationships also play a strong part in this process. What may appear one sided and perhaps top down may actually be the result of months of study, benchmarking and research, as well as internal discussions and Korean peer input. For reasons unclear to local overseas teams, projects can stall, while others re-boot. Amid the disruptive business conditions, how overseas teams, Korean and Western, work together matters. We all recognizing that within divergent cultures and mindsets it requires both sid...

In this final segment in the series on Korean business intervention, as promised, I will provide some proven workarounds—in particular, tempering Korean teams’ pressing for immediate results.   1. Foremost, to soften the Koreans’ inclination to jump into implementing a plan with hopes of producing immediate results, look to minimize the anxiety for both the local Korean team and the headquarters team.  Show confidence that the challenge can be overcome (I can coach you on specifics). 2. Acknowledge your high engagement and insure the teams that action will be promptly taken. 3. A next step upon receiving a directive from Korea is to have an informal discussion with local Korean teams to brief them on possible action steps that enable the team to work through what needs to be explored more deeply. 4. Follow up with email correspondence confirming what was discussed verbally.   5. Allow a day or two for the Korean team to review. In many cases the K...

Korean Business with Don Southerton In my last commentary, I noted the huge challenges surfacing because of the current disruptive Korean business climate. In particular, I shared the “why” behind Korean expatriates intervening in the local decision process. In some cases, these decisions are one-sided, lack collaborative and mutual engagement and have consequences. In turn, western team see themselves consulted only to validate preconceived ideas or to implement directives from Korea. Drilling Deeper This has lead to local management seeing their input and expertise being marginalized-- more so with complex situations and long-term planning “drilling deeper” may uncover ramifications. More specifically, Korean teams under pressure are driven to take immediate action. This can result in little joint discourse related to potential trade-offs and risks in projects assigned to the local subsidiary. Particularly with a narrow and reactive workplace approach, one ca...

I was recently asked to address a Korean Business concern by local management. Before sharing, I would like to state I work closely with Koreans daily.  Many serve as expatriates, many on overseas teams.  Like all individuals, no two of us are alike --same goes for Koreans…each with their own unique strengths, skills, experience and personality. All said, the challenge I was asked to address is the company’s Korean expatriate partners (commonly referred to as Executive Coordinators) were intervening in what should be broad local decisions. Probing deeper, local management felt based on their long experience in the market and industry that these decisions were often short-sighted, reactive and not aligned with their well thought out strategy.  Of greater concern were decisions were one-sided and not a collaboration. In any case, local management felt their input and expertise was being marginalized. Frankly, this intervention is very cyclic.  ...