Everything Korea Office Chats: Be Prepared

Welcome back to another episode of Everything Korea Office Chats. 

First I’d like to thank everyone for subscribing to the YouTube Channel, Liking, and sharing the posts.  Your comments are also deeply appreciated, too. I’ll cover a few comments later in this YouTube episode.

 

With the Lunar Holiday weekend winding down, Korean teams and leadership will be back in the office. 

 

We’ll also see the Q1 work pace speed up especially with Task Force Team (TFTs ) as leadership will be expecting now the holiday is behind up updates to see real progress. 

 

I often find project flow as sprints vs marathons.  Weeks and even months of preparation, benchmarking, and correspondence at a constant pace, can shift to sprinting to meet deadlines or prompted by leadership calling for a status report.

 

This can apply to updates for ongoing projects, new 2021 initiatives, decisions on outstanding RFPs, or whether to move forward based on a TFTs recommendation.

 

In any case, it’s important to recognize and be prepared to what may have been moving at a constant pace will require considerably more attention. 

 

Turnaround time on what has been days now needs to be hours for Western and Korean teams—again noting that with the time difference it is not uncommon for Korean teams to email requests with hopes for a quick reply.  

As a hint and to streamline this process, I find working with teams in Korea especially on off hours that Kakao Talk works well. 

 

To sum up, staying flexible is the key when working with Korean teams—projects ebb and flow— some slow down and others speed up. Recognizing this, you can adjust and meet expectations. Something your Korean teams and colleagues will more than appreciate and respect.

 

Okay, let’s shift some now and look at a couple recent comments…

 

I’ve been asked when I plan to be back in Korea?  With COVID  in two of my 2020 trips, I was granted exceptions from the mandatory 2 weeks Quarantine. I have to thank my friends at KOTRA/ Invest Korea in NYC for their support in making that happen.

 

For 2021, we may see some changes with getting the inoculations and testing Negative before traveling. I am hoping for an April trip. I’ll keep updating you on my travel plans.

Meanwhile, I am open to Zoom meetings and chats. 

 

Another frequent question and one that showed up last week several times by both Korean and westerners is my read on business trends in 2021. My short answer is like in the US, I see it as very sector-driven. Hospitality and travel will take time to recover, technology and especially mobility doing well. 

 

I am also following a number of the recent high-profile MOUs, JV, and partnerships in the tech mobility sector between Western and Korean companies—my concern is hopes and expectations always run high but soon can stall— in fact, few go as planned. Early intervention is key.  As always I can be more specific so if this is timely for you, let’s chat.

 

This wraps up this week’s episode.  I’ll post a copy of this week’s chat below, too.

 

Again, feel free to reach out.  If you haven’t yet please subscribe. And we always appreciate you sharing and liking the posts.

 

Again, wishing you all the best. Stay safe.