Chapter 2
Favouritism prevails in our society due to strong political, academic and blood ties… It worsens social division, denies fair chances to ordinary people and therefore makes their social mobility more difficult. Chung Seon-sup, Chaebul.com
Relationships
Relationships are the core of Korean society and business. During a recent Seoul office chat a team member reminded me that Korean communication, too, was based on relationships. Although I am familiar with the Korean language use of honorification and recognize the elevated status, I gained some new insights as my colleague explained how a conversation is shaped by the relationship between the speakers. For example, how one communicates with another person is dependent upon the junior/senior relationship. Honorification is required towards a person who is senior in age or position.
Additionally, my colleague reminded me that while polite and respectful conversation is a plus, the power distance created in the use of honorification could distance co-workers and created inequality, which can be seen as detrimental to a modern workplace.
This conversation then shifted to how these hierarchical power distant relationships in the workplace reinforced by language also lead to a related issue — strong loyalty with juniors expected to support leadership and visa versa.
In the extreme a loyal subordinate may take the blame for a superior’s actions and even cover for a boss’s questionable activities—a surprisingly common occurrence in Korea. Such loyalty in the past was expected to be rewarded with superiors sharing earned fortunes and opportunities with loyalists.
It is no surprise that to ensure a high level of loyalty, executives, traditionally, hired friends, acquaintances, and classmates to fill the managerial positions below them. Additionally, the persons hired typically were associated with shared alma maters, such as Korea University, Yonsei, Sungkyunkwan,and Seoul National, creating a tight network. This was the rule, not the exception.
Today these past practices are viewed as favoritism and are now under considerable scrutiny. More so, these hires are seen as irregular, circumventing the normal employment procedures others have to follow, and contributing to inequality. However, the main problem with these “prioritized” loyalties is they interfere with hiring and promoting competence, especially in areas requiring expertise.
Seoul JUNE 4, 2018 South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in is struggling to ferret out widespread nepotism and cronyism that has plagued the country for decades after revelations of hiring practices that favor those connected with the wealthy and powerful.
Despite Mr Moon’s reform efforts, allegations of favouritism in the jobs market continue to make headlines, dealing a blow to his key economic policy of boosting growth by creating jobs in the public sector and fuelling discontent among South Korea’s youth.
Nepotism in hiring is politically embarrassing for the liberal government and Mr. Moon, who was elected on a platform of tackling corruption, rooting out cronyism and promoting equality…
Young people’s frustration is building up even under this centre-left administration that is pursuing a fair society free of corruption, said Park Ju-geun, head of corporate analysis group CEO Score.
But experts say Mr Moon faces an uphill battle in stopping favouritism as they suspect unfair hiring practices are even more prevalent in the private sector than in state-funded institutions, because it receives less public scrutiny.
“If favouritism is tolerated, competent human resources are not allocated to the best places, weakening the country’s economic efficiency and social justice,” said Park Sang-in, a professor of public administration at Seoul National University .
Regarding public scrutiny, the tide has turned. Media coverage of what is now seen as unfair practices has been quite extensive. Government agencies, financial institutions and private industry have been cited, with their leadership coming under investigation and being prosecuted.
We see this systemic overhaul to fix unfair hiring practices as another aspect of the change in the Korea workplace. That said, many of these changes such as honorification, seniority, and loyalties are deeply rooted in tradition and practice.
In particular modern Korean society still is challenged to part from the ways of Confucianism–the Confucian emphasis on the importance of the family and the group over the individual that had been extended to South Korean business.
Employees once were expected to regard the workplace as a family, with loyalty to the head of the company as the patriarch who enjoyed exclusive rank, status and privileges. Importance was also placed on attributes such as age, kinship status, gender, education, and sociopolitical standing. All today seen to be in conflict with a modern and fair workplace. Still relationships matter.
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Building Bridges: Understand the Culture
My mission is akin to the aphorism “a rising tide lifts all boats.” I work to building bridges among the members of Korean, American and global teams
I feel the issues and impasses that surface are less about “them and us”. Frankly, it’s more about working through the issue and collaboration.
I’d like to share with you my two step process, which I hope will be insightful.
To Begin… A colleague once forwarded a well-crafted article titled, “Stop Blaming Your Culture.” A long time employee of a major Korean subsidiary, he recognized the concept had value for working with and within their Culture.
More so, they feared a major and far-reaching initiative was in danger of not being considered by local senior Korean management. Insightfully, the colleague reached out and asked me if perhaps there was merit in taking a more Korean view and approach to the assignment.
Learning more about the project, as well as its strategic importance to the client’s organization, I explained my approach when tackling Korean projects—one groomed over years working with Korean leadership and teams.
This approach echoed a quote from “Stop Blaming Your Culture,” [it’s] Critical to fully understand the culture, then be able to de-construct and simplify aspects relevant to your situation.
Before crafting some action steps, we looked at what his team had laboriously researched and prepared. I then suggested we tackle with two strategies, which I am sharing with you.
Strategy #1 First, instead of the common western approach founded in considerable upfront research, discussion and review in which a sole, singular course of action is recommended—it’s best to instead prepare three options with their related costs.
This approach allows teams to consider alternatives, a common decision-making methodology in Korea.
Some background on “Why 3 options?” Stepping back to the mid-2000s and a joint American and Korean management workshop that I facilitated for a client, one of Korean team managers pointed out that in Korea it was norm to present multiple options. He explained that to support their leadership’s decision-making at least 3 options would be prepared for his seniors… and as many as 5 if the proposal was going to be elevated for review by their Chairman.
In most cases, following this initial presentation, leadership would ask for additional details requiring the team to drill deeper prior to a decision. All said, this process resulted in an approved course of action.
I also recall how not following this model can have consequence. I was called upon by a frequent Agency of the Year winner to assist in dealing with their Korean client and a relationship troubling the agency’s dedicated account team. Probing, I found the agency had presented what they felt was the best plan for their client—a well thought out global branding campaign for which the agency was confident in their decision.
The Korean client feedback was less than expected and came as a shock to the agency team. In my asking, and of little surprise to me, the Korean client was disappointed and had high hopes for a range of ideas from the agency. They had expected to be dazzled with creativity and not just a single idea. In my opinion this was driven by the advertising agency’s world class and award-winning creative reputation.
In following up with the western agency , I recommended the agency also present the preliminary concept work which they had developed internally prior to picking what they felt was the best. This would allow the client to have voice in the decision. Sadly, the agency was rigid in their thinking, feeling they had submitted their top work and that was sufficient. Not surprisingly, they parted ways some time later.
Strategy #2 A second strategy along with “3 Options” is taking a Pilot Approach….
Recognizing the strong cultural Korean risk avoidance tendencies, I recommend offering a limited pilot program as an option to mitigate fears and concerns—with costs scaled down proportionately from a bolder rollout. Depending on the project, this often can be demonstrated in a test market or dialed back to limit in scope.
In all cases, the pilot needs to be capable of expanding in stages with associated incremental costs.
There is one caveat to this approach I often see taken in Korea. Once they test market a project and then decide to move forward, they execute a full rollout incredibly fast. My advice is to plan accordingly in advance with an action plan that includes a rapid roll out…. the faster the better.
In closing, these two strategies are “building bridges” examples of working with the Culture, time proven and align well cross-culturally.
Questions, Comments, Thoughts… always welcome.
Don
Seoul eFM Koreascape