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The KBC 9.9 with Daniel

"How should a foreign business coach adjust his/her approach to be most effective with Korean employees?"

Click the button to hear the podcast online, or download the mp3 file to your computer (10:05 min. length).

In this podcast, Daniel Lafontaine is joined by three other KBC members (Eun-Shil Boots (Park), Lara Tosh, Victor Jechev and Brian Jung) to discuss the week's topic.

Full Transcript of Podcast

Daniel:  Hello, everyone. This is “KBC 9.9 with Daniel.” As you know, I am Daniel. Today we have four excellent people, and a little bit around the world. We have Eun-Shil in the Netherlands. We have Victor in Bulgaria, Lara in Seoul, and Brian in Seoul. As everyone knows, I’m Daniel, and I’m in Ulsan, Korea.

First off, let’s get a little introduction. Eun-Shil, would you like to do the honors?

Eun-Shil:  I’m an entrepreneur here in the Netherlands. I’m doing some import/export, and besides this I’m also a consultant for Dutch companies going with their products to Korea, also Korean companies coming to the Netherlands.

Daniel:  Excellent, and Lara, what about you?

Lara: I’m a counseling consultant and coach, and I help people make changes. I stir up chaos wherever I go.

Daniel:  And Victor, what about you?

Victor:  Well, I am a chef for a couple of years now professionally. Right now I am a sous chef at Bodega restaurant, a vision-inspired Spanish restaurant here in Bulgaria.

Daniel:  Excellent. And Brian, last but not least.

Brian:  I am a creative director. I work in advertising marketing agencies. I come up with big ideas, and I convince people why they should buy different stuff.

Daniel:  Cool. And as you all know, my name is Dan Lafontaine. I’ve been here in Korea for 12 years. My latest thing is being able to do a coaching seminar last week for a very large consulting firm in the world. I had a great time talking to VPs and managers from different countries of the world.

So the question is, how should a foreign businessperson or foreign coach adjust his or her approach to be most effect with Korean employees? Let’s start off with you, Brian. How do you think we should do this?

Brian:  As I was saying, last time we had an issue with this. The problem was although we had a vision for the company, and although we had a philosophy and a story that we were building about how we were going to be an open environment and we weren’t going to be like every other Korean agency, it didn’t quite work because everybody that we hired had come from that traditional background and that very regimented system.

Daniel:  Exactly.

Brian:  What we had to do was we had to create some systems and we had to create some very strict communication lines so that everybody knew where to go and what to do in certain situations. So we to kind of Koreanize ourselves a little bit in the beginning, but as people started to get acclimated, we started to wean them away from that. We started to take certain things away and make it a bit more relaxed as people got more comfortable with each other. Because really, in a small company, a lot of it is really the people.

Daniel:  It’s always about people. What about you, Eun-Shil? What do you think?

Eun-Shil:  I think that Brian is right. It all goes about people. When you first contact a Korean company or Korean employees, as in a restaurant person or company, it all starts with phone calls in English, meetings in English, and a lot of emails. Finally, you end up with a face-to-face meeting somewhere in Korea or somewhere here in Europe, and then it all comes down on people.

As a foreign business coach, you will see that you have to pre-coach them before they meet each other, let’s say, the European side as well as the Korean side. So Brian is right about it.

Daniel:  Exactly. What about you, Victor? You’ve done some coaching with Koreans, or you’ve met a lot of Koreans in your time or a few Koreans in your time. What do you think is the most important aspect of working with Koreans and how to approach them or how to coach with them?

Victor:  The most important aspects that I’ve seen from my experience is that when managers, especially when it’s different, like interns who are introduced to a very different culture, like the ones I’ve seen in America, for example, in the hotels, is that they should explain and put them slowly into place because there are a lot of changes which are usually going on. That makes them stressed, and that makes them not very good with dealing with different stress.

They should know exactly who is the manager, who is the person they can go to who is the next step to kin, because something as upfront in starting with a first-name basis, even with managers and older people, gets them confused. So sometimes they don’t know exactly what to do.

Daniel:  Lara, what do you think? How do you prepare your employees for going overseas when you know that it’s going to be harder for them being in a more open environment?

Lara:  That’s actually not what I do. I don’t prepare people for going overseas. What I do is I usually work in a counseling coach sort of role, helping Koreans do international global stuff here. I found the most important thing for me, or at least what works for me, is I help them feel safe. The way that I do that is I generally let them know that I understand what’s going on in their brains.

Daniel:  How do you make them feel safe? How do you make them feel safe?

Lara:  It depends on the person. Generally a lot of people respond really well to what I call mind reads. Of course I’m not really reading their mind. But I basically describe what I know is going on in their head based on their position in the company and what their career has been like up to that point and that sort of stuff.

Daniel:  For me, that’s what I always think about, too. I think from all of you, you’ve all talked about the fact that you’ve got to in some ways base it a little bit on trust. You’ve got to be able to create the trust inside of each in their own way.

Lara:  That’s what safe is all about.

Daniel:  It is very difficult. It is very difficult.

Eun-Shil:  I think the first very important lesson you have to do, actually, is that you have to be honest about yourself and show a little bit on the inside of your personality, about your private life. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s the truth, and they will see that. As soon as they experience that you are honest about yourself, they open up as well. They easily start talking and connecting with you on another level or start telling more about themselves, and that’s only at the position in the company.

Daniel:  You know what that’s called when you share with them and they share with you? In Korea, there’s a very basic business concept in the Korean language that they use to explain that. Do you know what that’s called?

Eun-Shil:  No, I don’t know. So tell me, Daniel.

Daniel:  I will, I will.

Lara:  Brian, what’s it called?

Brian:  We call it hoishik.

Daniel:  Actually, the other is nunchi. It’s called nunchi.

Eun-Shil:  I’m so happy, Daniel, that as a Canadian, you tell me, as a born Korean, outscored in the Korean language.

Daniel:  I was teaching it last Wednesday, and the Americans I was teaching and the Frenchman I was teaching, they were actually impressed because they knew that nunchi is the core to work with a Korean. Nunchi is the idea of mind and heart working together so that when you open up, you’re opening up your heart and they slowly start to understand your mind. It’s called nunchi, and nunchi is a very important thing.

Brian:  I would say that it’s true. I think that’s a good way to get to understand the people you’re working with or are below you. But it also is a bit of a shallow relationship in a way, because on top of that, you’ve got things like the Korean business title. You’re their boss. Some of these supercede that nunchi in a lot of ways. So you have this shallow relationship or you get to know them personally, but on the other hand, they have to call you sajangnim or something like that.

Daniel:  Exactly. Outside of work, when you’re drinking, when you’re socializing, you do the nunchi thing. And then when you get to work, now it’s hierarchy. Now you’ve got to behave.

Brian:  Exactly. So it’s hypocritical in a lot of ways.

Victor:  That’s true, but as a manager you also have to know when exactly you have to draw the line. Even though it’s okay to go out with your employees, you also have to know when you draw the line, because sometimes some managers forget that and things can go overboard.

Daniel:  Exactly, they’ll always do that. If you put too much nunchi during the daytime, then they won’t respect you.

This is 9.9 with Daniel. This has been a quick one again. I hope you enjoyed yourselves, all, and please come back to KBC 9.9 on the discussion pages and give us your thoughts. Eun-Shil, Lara, Victor, and Brian, thank you so much.