The Importance of Choosing the Right Executives to Send to Korea
By Heejeong Haas | October 2, 2007
So, what lesson did I learn a few years ago?
I talked about assigning the right type of personnel in a Korean operation. That’s right, the right type of person. We all know that to implement and carry out a certain effort, there must be a qualified person who is a perfect fit for such a task. When it comes to Korean operation, the the same theory applies. Only that who you think is perfect may later prove you that the person was not only the wrong choice, but also the whole operation became a complete failure because you just assigned a wrong person.
A few years ago, I had an opportunity to represent an American company to locate a Korean manufacturer and pave the way to enter a successful negotiation. I spent a great deal of time to build up that personal relationship with them and promote the image of this American company and worked hard to have a successful negotiation for every single aspect of their Korean operation. So, everything was set up and two companies were good to go to run the full operation. When I learned who the company chose to run the day-to-day Korean operation in
When I sat down with him to go through all the necessary cultural differences that he had to be aware of, I noticed that he was quite irritated about a few things I was suggesting him to do. What was I suggesting him to do? “Go out with them, be careful with your email messages if you are not to have a staff who is fluent in both languages so that he or she can aid you in communication effort, try to learn some phrases in Korean so that you can get by, these are Korean holidays when you may want to send gifts to them and reinforce your personal relationship with them, and many more….” I expressed my concern in a very passive way as I knew that it was not my place to say something about it. But they thought that he still was the perfect fit.
When he landed in Korea and started working with them, not only that the Korean business partner felt like they were in a business deal that only seemed great when I was representing and working with them, but also they constantly felt like this American employee was quite condescending to them. He never wanted to go out with them, he would only communicate with them for necessary business matters, the way he was treating the people around him was not pleasant. He simply couldn’t handle that personal aspect of Korean business culture. It was too much for him. He was not at ease dealing with people in such a way, and he thought it was quite backward. It simply was his personal preference how he professionally performed, however it was the wrong attitude to have in Korean business world.
And when the company finally learned that the things were not going great at all, in fact, their operation was at the brink of shutting down, they pulled him back and contacted me again. As I learned what had been happening, it was an eye opening experience to me, and at the same time, I felt greatly responsible for not being clearly expressive about my concern. One of the reasons I was not clearly expressive was because I didn’t want to cost somebody’s job or damage somebody’s reputation without any proof. However, their relationship and deal were both mended with a great effort costing both companies huge expenses.
Since then, I carefully observe executive members whom I have to accompany to Korea on a business deal or assignees going to Korea to run an operation, and tell clients what I think without hesitation. I learned that it is a lot better for them to ridicule my opinion and not trust me and for me to be proven wrong than my clients’ having to find out that their effort is about to be ruined. Even when I am not in the position to say so, I do it anyway as I learned what it will cost my clients.
There is also one more important lesson I learned from this very experience—email and messenger communication. But that is to the next post.
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Establish a Personal Relationship with Your Korean Business Partner
By Heejeong Haas | September 25, 2007
As I mentioned in my previous post, it is crucial for you to build a personal relationship with your Korean business partner. I say it as “personal relationship” although many other experts like to define it as “human relationship” or “interpersonal relationship”. Although I understand perfectly well why they would use the terminology I listed above, I still say it is rather as a personal relationship since the relationship gets very personal, focusing mainly on satisfying each other’s emotional needs. Furthermore there is a huge difference between human relationship and personal relationship. There “must” be a human relationship even in American business culture, in fact in any business culture in the whole world. Otherwise businesses cannot go far, as businesses are run by “people”, and people have a relationship one way or the other within their cultural boundary as it is suitable. So, when I say “personal relationship” and “personal bond” in Korean business culture, I mean it to a much higher degree of any kind of personal relationship and bond you will have in American business culture.
Let’s look at one very telling factor of this. Until recently, written contracts were not widely used in Korea. Business dealings were mainly arranged on verbal agreements that stemmed from mutual trust that again was stemmed from the personal relationship they established and nurtured together. Therefore, nurturing a personal relationship and bond was such a crucial part in Korean business culture. Imagine you are entering a major business deal without a written contract; very likely, all the American businessmen will have a heart attack if this has to be done. However what would you do when there is no legal paper bounding your every single action? You have no choice but to rely on your relationship with the other party. Just like you now invest so much on marketing and sales to expand your business, this is the degree of importance you will put to nurturing the relationship.
I have seen so many Korean businessmen taking the legal process lightly and going right against their contract when they feel like it. Emotional? Yes. Wrong? Maybe, maybe not. And you know what the worst thing is, when Korean business partners do such a thing, there actually is not much American companies can do about it. Because you are dealing with an overseas partner, and to do anything legally will cost you tons of money.
Best,
Heejeong Haas
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Saved Time and Money by Establishing Good Rapport with Your Korean Business Partners
By Heejeong Haas | September 13, 2007
I introduced Paul Young’s blog, “Product Beautiful” in my last post. In his recent posts, “The Challenges of Overseas Manufacturing Part I-III”, he covers challenges and other crucial factors that American companies may face and have to take into a consideration. The first of the three posts talks about communication issues. It inspired me to talk about how important it is to establish the “right” kind of communication line with Korean business partners.
I have seen many American clients have an attitude that can be summarized as “everybody reacts to money, and if they want to be successful in the global market, they should accept this deal.” And they readily ignore this important “establishing personal rapport” part with their Korean business partners. This view is not only wrong when it comes to another culture especially like Korea, but it can be very dangerous as you will end up wasting a huge amount of money pursuing a deal but coming out with no good results. And even though your business relationship somehow takes off, you will encounter lots of hardships if you don’t take care of this “establishing personal rapport” part. It means that you will have to set some time for doing activities for this purpose only.
In my next post, I would like to talk more about some of these personal elements and relations in Korean business.
Heejeong Haas
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Major Korean Holiday Alert: Chuseok
By Heejeong Haas | September 11, 2007
I hardly can believe that it is already mid September. Hope you all enjoyed summer. I mostly stayed in town in August as all my projects took place in
About 2 weeks ago, I also found out that one of my clients, Paul Young, had this exciting blog about product management and marketing, “Product Beautiful”. I worked with him last year for their communication effort with a Korean manufacturer and developer. I was completely immersed soon after I started reading his blog as he is not only a good writer but also he provides great and expert insight on product management and marketing.
I had the honor to be introduced in his blog; however he didn’t forget to mention about my notorious “balcony” story. It seems that many of my readers get amused by the balcony story more than anything else. If I only knew that my clumsiness would get more readers and entertain them a great deal, I would’ve posted all of my notorious clumsy accidents sooner starting from how often I lock myself out of my own car. Some of my clients who read the story sometimes text me or email me saying “do you want me to call the front desk?” or “hey, I’m sending XXX to a training session to unlock a deadbolt just in case you have to travel with him next time.” Yeah, you know who you are!
In September, I find myself often longing to look at the autumn sky of
Your business partners will greatly appreciate if you can send them a holiday wish for their Chuseok. Speaking of Chuseok, now my mouth is getting watery. Although Chuseok dishes do not involve turkey at all, I find them far better for me and diverse than any holiday food in America. After all, I was born and raised for more than 2 decades in
I will be cooking some delicious Korean dishes although I will never be able to make anything like my mother. 
All the best,
Heejeong Haas
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What to do if Koreans “Fall Asleep” During Your Presentation
By Heejeong Haas | August 7, 2007
A few days ago, I was talking to my husband who is now working for a Korean company in Korea. He told me about an incident that happened during an executive meeting in his company. They were in a meeting, and one new American executive member started making his presentation. At one point he stopped for a while and looked at my husband and gave him a hint to look at the Korean executives. As my husband looked, the Korean executives were all closing their eyes. He smiled and gave him a signal to just keep going on with his presentation. Later on, he explained to the American executive what was going on.
My husband’s story made me chuckle a little as it happens a lot between American and Korean businessmen, so I decided to write about the particular behavior of Korean businessmen’s closing eyes during a meeting. In business meetings, I also see this happen a lot–Korean executive members closing their eyes appearing to fall asleep. It can completely look like they are falling asleep or they are not paying attention to what you are saying. The older the Korean business partners are, the more of this you can find in meetings. However they are not sleeping or ignoring you. This is rather an expression of deep concentration on your presentation or what is going on at that time, and can be the sign of respect as well.
So, when they close their eyes, do not panic or be irritated. Just know that they are paying attention to you and trying to grasp what is going on at the moment. Go on with your talk or presentation as you have been doing.
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Why You Should Never Write Names in Red When Dealing with Koreans Part 2
By Heejeong Haas | August 3, 2007
Let’s talk more about red and its historical value in Korean society. There was once a syndrome spread throughout the nation. And that is called “red complex”. The red complex has been eased quite a lot, however generations who went through the Korean War still don’t view the color red kindly.
Korea underwent one of the bloodiest wars in history—the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. What the people who were chased by communists saw at that time was the red color being used by the communists and blood everywhere. They started associating the color red with communists. Furthermore, after the war, when the country adopted an anti-communist national policy, the color used to describe communists was red. They would appear in text books or anti-communist educational material in color red with all sorts of horrifying figures illustrating communists. All this created the feeling of fear and deep disapproval toward the color red.
As more and more of the post-war generation grew up and started becoming the main stream of the society, this red complex started dying out gradually as well. One can easily see that the red complex is almost gone by now. In the World Cup 2002, the name of the cheer team for the Korean soccer team was the “Red Devils”. They wore red shirts as the Korean soccer team wore red colored uniform. Furthermore, some experts say that the Red Devils actually played a big role in further easing up the leftover red complex.
There is a personal story of mine related to this red complex.
It was in early 1980’s. I was still a very young girl, and my youngest uncle who was living with us was in his early 20’s. One day, he was very busy preparing for his company picnic. At the very last moment, he asked me if everybody was out of the room and to keep my eyes open if anybody would come into the room. I complied as he was my favorite uncle who used to play the guitar for me to sing. He quickly ran to a drawer and took out the red shirt and put it on and stood in front of the mirror appreciating the view of himself. I was too busy admiring the view of his powerful red shirt as well. While I was busy looking at him, my grandmother came into the room, and she started scolding him as if he was a little child. She said, “I did not raise you to become one of those reds. Your father fought against them. Your oldest brother (which is my father) had to walk with me miles and miles running away from them. You don’t know anything about it because you were not even born! How ungrateful this is! You like red? Why don’t I give you one of those armbands of theirs so that you can wear it around your arm and march like them too!”
Of course, bless her soul, my grandmother went through the war with 4 kids barely walking miles and miles to escape from the North Korean soldiers’ ever-watchful eyes since my grandfather was a police chief in South Korea and now fighting in the war against them. No families wanted to take them in to sleep at night; no families wanted them to be in the same place as that might harm their life greatly. So, she had the horrifying experience, and she never changed her view about the color red or communists until the day she passed away. Even my father once said that, more than the communists, the color red always reminds him of all the blood he witnessed during the war as an 8 year old boy.
The red complex is almost gone. However our business partners can be in their 60’s or 70’s. That means this red complex lived throughout their lives at one point.
I have seen one Korean executive member in his 60’s complained about the red carpet in the hotel hallway whereas his subordinate cheerfully said he felt like he was in a red carpet moment. I painted my bedroom red, and my father never understood the intention of it when he visited me whereas my brother thought it was very bold and cool. I posted my headshot picture with the red wall background, my father literally asked me to change the picture since he couldn’t stand looking at his daughter’s face on the messenger with the red background. When I changed it, my friends then complained telling me that they liked that picture a lot better than my current one.
I think this has been an enough story about red. Hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you did!
Heejeong Haas
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Why You Should Never Write Names in Red When Dealing with Koreans Part 1
By Heejeong Haas | July 31, 2007
I was in a resell shop for baby clothes and toys on the weekend. My little girl will be 4 in August, and I realized that I was cluttering the house with her old clothes and toys. So, I decided to drop them off at the resell store where they also can donate to the families in need. After I went through the whole process with the store, they gave me a paper to fill out. I looked at the paper, and I automatically shrank. Studying in
What is “that thing”? The pen they gave me was red! And every name on that paper was in red. I laughed at myself yet reluctantly filled out the form suppressing my desire to ask for a different colored pen. While I was driving back home, I thought about a couple of incidents that involved writing down names in red.
About one year ago, I was in my client’s training session with their Korean engineers. The trainer handed out red markers to the engineers to write down their names on the tent card so that they could place it before them on the table. When these engineers picked up the pen, they looked at me as if they didn’t know what to do.
One engineer said, “Ah, but the pen is red…”
One of them responded, “Dude, just do it, they don’t know. It’s ok. We’re in America.”
The previous one said, “But it’s still red. I don’t want to write down my name in red.”
I walked over to the trainer and explained to him about the meaning of writing names in red in Korea, and the trainer was very amused about the new finding and gladly changed the markers to black markers.
Another incident I remembered was that when I was helping an American company plan their negotiation strategy and presentation for their Korean business partner. As we were finalizing our PowerPoint presentation, I noticed that they used the red color to name the Korean team member’s name at some point. I pointed out that we’d better change the color of the names to black and explained to him why they were not supposed to use red to write down somebody’s name when it comes to Koreans. The VP of marketing also was very amused about that finding and gladly changed the names into black.
So, where does this taboo come from in Korea? There are many stories behind why it became such a taboo. However one very reliable theory is as follows:During the Japanese occupation in
Koreans do not write down their names in red, and this is taught to young children from a very early age as well. It is one of the big social taboos. So, if your business card has your name in red, think before you send it out and localize it. Change your name to black. During your presentations, meetings, or in documents, you can use red effectively as follows for your Korean business partners as follows:
- Underlining or check marking an important part
- Inserting important notes within a document
Hope it helps.
Heejeong Haas
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Travel Tip: How a Deadbolt Nearly Killed Me
By Heejeong Haas | July 27, 2007
I have been talking about the things I experienced at the conference and pointed out several things that can go wrong. Now, since we have been studying so to say, I will talk about what kind of stupid thing I did while I was staying during the conference. This has nothing to do with your doing business with Korean business partners, but it may have something to do with the fact that next time when you work with me, you may have to call the front desk of the hotel where I will stay.
My hotel was right by this river, had a beautiful view, and wonderful aroma from tons of restaurants around the river. One night during my stay, I got caught up with some work and stayed up late. It was about 1AM when I finally started feeling very tired. As I didn’t finish all the things I wanted to get done, I decided to step out to the balcony to refresh myself while looking down the river and all the buildings downtown. So I stepped out, stretched and sat there for a while enjoying a little peaceful moment. As I got up and tried to open the sliding door, I realized that the door was locked behind me! I didn’t know what to do, so I sat there and thought for a while what I was supposed to do in order to solve that situation. I looked down the river, but nobody was around as it was late. But I decided to get people’s attention. By the way, my room was up on the 8th floor.
I just screamed and shouted “hello” many times… Finally a group of people passing by the hotel and they heard me. All the way from the 8th floor, I shouted explaining to them what happened and asked them to please go to the lobby and let them know that I was locked in the balcony. (I doubt that he is reading this blog, but thank you very much!!!) So, about 10 minutes later I could see somebody was trying to open the room door through the curtain from the outside of the balcony. But alas! The deadbolt was on, and the hotel crew couldn’t even get in. One assistant from the hotel walked outside and explained to me what was going on, of course shouting, all the way from the ground level. They couldn’t open the door so that they were thinking about either taking the door down or calling their senior security officer who might be able to unlock that deadbolt. I was very frustrated and petrified. But what can you do? I just had to wait. All I could do was sitting there looking into my own room through the white curtain and looking at my beloved laptop screen displaying my screen saver while they were trying to “rescue” me. When I was finally rescued, it was already way passed 2AM. The hotel profusely apologized and offered to give me the credit for that night since it was their fault that the door was malfunctioning. Well, actually, it didn’t make a big difference at all to me since I didn’t pay for the hotel.
So, all of you, be careful when you close the sliding door behind you. Better yet, when you work with me next time, please make sure that the sliding door of the hotel works. My requirement for a hotel used to be “high speed internet” and “workout facility”, now I have one more requirement to say “no auto-lock sliding doors”. And watch out for that deadbolt… That really is the bolt of death.
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How Choosing the Wrong Visual Aid Can Ruin Your Presentation to Koreans
By Heejeong Haas | July 24, 2007
Now we know about the truth about telling jokes. Similar to this story, there was a fairly big mistake made by this same speaker. All too innocent on his end, but the damage was quite big. When it was done, it was too late to correct the course of the action, and he personally offended the Korean official at the conference.
During his speech, the speaker started talking about the wrong idea of punishing people. To add a little fun and spice, he prepared very good visual aids with his speech. However when he came to this “the wrong ideas of punishing people”, he showed a picture of the ancient Korean punishment system as an example. The Korean official was very uncomfortable and embarrassed. I was also a little bit surprised to see that although I have been in many awkward moments. And the picture was up there for a long time. The Korean official said, “Why are they keeping that picture up there? It feels like they are trying to point out that Korea is not doing well.”
To Americans, it was a very innocent and harmless gesture. On the receiving end, especially to a person from the Korean culture, it can be a huge insult. I still would like to say that depends on a Korean individual, but generally, it will be taken as a bit of an insult. It is simple. Using some of the historical and cultural stuff to prove or aid your point why something is wrong can be taken as an insult. Koreans take their cultural and historical matters very personally and seriously to their heart. One can say that you can see the essence of nationalism living in every single individual Korean up to this date. When you live in a collective society with a nationalistic view, a joke as simple as this can be taken as an insult.
Petty? Yes, it may seem that way. However, cultural nuance and the cultural aspect of a country are not there for the rest of the world to judge it as petty or wrong or bad. Every single cultural aspect is there through out their millions of years of own living experience cumulated and interactions with the rest of the world. You may come across a funny and exotic picture from other culture, and you are completely entitled to feel whether it is funny or not. However, when you use this to present your ideas, you should take a caution such as if that won’t insult anyone’s culture, if you can display it in public in a way that you want to, or if you are using the material in the right context. And I don’t mean the right context from an American’s point of view. So to be safe, do not display pictures or image symbolizing cultural aspects of Korea along in a negative context to just laugh or to show the example. No matter what your intention is, it won’t be taken kindly.
Heejeong Haas
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The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
By Heejeong Haas | July 21, 2007
Did you finally find any humor in the story? No matter how hard you think about it, there was nothing funny about it, right?
Having a sense of humor is always a good thing. It certainly makes things easier and our world a better place, as everybody can laugh. It also means you can laugh with things and make the process a lot easier than those who are always so serious and stiff. However, having a sense of humor and telling jokes are two completely different stories in any given cross-cultural settings.
Having a sense of humor is always a positive quality no matter what.
Telling jokes can be fatal or can kill your deal if mishandled.
Here are the least of reasons why.
- Jokes “almost never” translate word for word and culture to culture.
- Depending on a culture, there are certain jokes that can only be made by social status, gender, or cultural background.
- Jokes carry and reflect cultural nuance and social background.
What Man-deuk’s thief said was to shut up and not to move. And Man-deuk did all these crazy stuff. In Korean, if you play with the punctuation of the wording, it can literally mean that the thief said “go and hit the chickens to death and put the rice bag over your head.” But there is no way that it can be hilarious to any English audience when it is translated into English.
When jokes get interpreted, they get completely lost in translation. You are a lot better off just to be humorous but not telling jokes. On top of that, one should have a good understanding of the cultural background or even trendy pop culture to appreciate jokes. Your Korean business partners will very likely not have that understanding unless they speak fluent English as a result of living in America for a long period of time and know the cultural background where that joke comes from. And in some countries or even in Korea, there are certain jokes that “women” are not supposed to say in public or that were not supposed to be told in front of women.
See the huge difference?
You may feel like you spent enough time in Korea and know these people, or that you have been dealing with your Korean business partners for long enough that you know the culture. However it is very easy for you to miss that important step of what is going on recently and what their thoughts are. You feel good, everybody feels good at the very closing of the deal, so you decide to make a joke. And out of all, you choose a big no-no subject not knowing that is a big no-no. Imagine that embarrassment and waste of time and effort. And sure enough, Koreans will make sure that their pride is kept intact even if it means not dealing with you.
Remember this rule: “Humor yes…jokes no.”
Heejeong Haas
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