Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

  Opening Most teams that fail in Korea did not fail on the numbers. They failed on building solid relationships. A proposal that was approved in the meeting never got signed. A "yes" in the room turned into silence afterward. A partner who seemed aligned sent a counter-proposal three weeks later that reopened everything. Nobody on the American or European side could say exactly what might be going wrong. That gap between the two sides is where Korea 101 lives. For more than twenty years I have worked on that gap, inside Korean groups and alongside Western firms, and I have watched the same patterns decide outcomes again and again. The fundamentals don't change; the stakes do.  The problem Korea 101 solves Korea is not hard because the language is difficult or the market is challenging to understand. It is hard because each side sees the other through its own rules. Approvals often move out of sight of the people you are talking to. Silence can mean "not yet," ...

  When quizzed on our consulting services, here is the Q&A. Q. Why do we need coaching and consulting? A. This may be the first time working with a Korean or Western team, or you are seasoned. Still, there is a need to better understand the partner's culture, workplace norms, and expectations. In most cases, Western teams will interact with the Korean HQ and expatriate teams. Some of the teams will hold a line managerial position with day-to-day responsibilities alongside Western managers, while others will hold key management C-level positions, such as CFO or CEO. In many, if not most, cases, these teams may operate as a " shadow management " with considerable oversight and operational control over local operations. With the best of intentions, the Korean teams will look to build strong collaboration and teamwork and try to avoid a sense of them and us. However, they do bring Korean work norms that can conflict with Western norms and working methods. More so, Korea...

    https://www.prlog.org/13173221-don-southerton-announces-connected.html   New book shows how Korea's industrial groups and technology companies build, govern and secure connected systems across ten sectors GOLDEN, CO. Bridging Culture Worldwide founder Don Southerton has announced Connected: How Cars, Factories, Chips, Robotics, Smart Manufacturing, Ships, AI, and Biopharma Run on the Same Architecture , is to be released October 15, 2026. The Kindle edition is available for pre-order now on Amazon, with the paperback following on release day. Connected cars , smart factories , semiconductor fabs , robots, digital twins , battery plants, shipyards, AI , smart cities and biopharma clusters look like different industries. Southerton shows that underneath, they run on the same architecture: sensors, controllers, a network, a gateway to the cloud, and software that updates. Drawing on more than 30 years of work with Korea's leading industrial groups and firsthand visits...