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 Korea, I secretly had concern about this person.  I thought that he probably couldn’t handle the personal aspect of Korean business culture.  Nonetheless, he was a great asset to the company.  He had MBA in International Business, incredibly intelligent, ran his own business for a while before he came on board, and was almost a wizard at numbers and figures—I often refer these types as “excel spread sheet type” as it seems like they view the whole world through a spread sheet.

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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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

What to do if Koreans “Fall Asleep” During Your Presentation
Establish a Personal Relationship with Your Korean Business Partner
How Choosing the Wrong Visual Aid Can Ruin Your Presentation to Koreans
The Importance of Knowing Basic Korean Phrases When Dealing With Korean Business Partners
Major Korean Holiday Alert: Chuseok

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.

One may argue that Korean culture now has changed. Sure, it has. Written contracts are being used widely and in fact, it is a norm in the Korean business world as it is in the American business world. But you know what the scary thing of all this is? Just because they are signing the contract with their smiley face doesn’t mean that they honor the contract. No, I am not saying that Korean businessmen are dishonest. To them, without that personal trust and bond, this piece of paper doesn’t mean anything. The degree of their taking the contract into their business practice is a lot less serious. And if you do not invest your time and effort to reshape and reinforce that personal relationship with them, the contract won’t mean a thing.

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.

And this is exactly why it is very crucial for American companies send or assign a person who can be at ease with building a personal relationship and being “personally” involved in establishing an operation in Korea. However, such a businessman going to Korea often needs aid for their communication effort and understanding of all the different business aspects in Korea. Many companies may hesitate to spend money on this effort to have someone to aid the company’s Korean operations part not knowing that eventually this will be the short cut and budget saving move. A few years down the road when they repeatedly fail to even have a simple communication, then they finally realized that they should have not only hired somebody to guide them through for dealing with Korean business partner, but also they are at the point where they cannot lose any more money. So, think wise. A help from Korean business experts is not a waste of money, it will be your money savor. In my next post, I will tell you one of the lessons I learned the hard way a few years ago on this very subject.

Best,

Heejeong Haas

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The Importance of Knowing Basic Korean Phrases When Dealing With Korean Business Partners

I often locate and contact Korean businesses for my American clients. No matter what the goal of the initial contact is, there is a common thing I experience with the majority of Korean businesses at the onset of the communication process. That is, you have to spend a fair amount of time to establish good rapport in order to make matters progress smoothly and gain their cooperation. This process may seem very personal and not so professional to many American businessmen.

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.

Korean business partners want to first get to know you before they get into any kind of business dealings. It is very important for them to know you as a person and have a good impression of you. It doesn’t matter how good of a deal you are offering them, this “establishing a personal bond or relationship” with them should be the first code of conduct you have to remember when you deal with your Korean business partners. Once you establish solid and good rapport with them, the benefit you get out of this is priceless. I often am even asked questions such as what I majored in college, if I am married, how many kids I have, why I am in Austin, what my husband does for a living, etc. Sure, these personal matters are none of their business and don’t have anything to do with the actual business relationship. However, exchanging such information with each other is a very crucial process of “getting to know each other” phase. Especially when I represent a company here, they will look at the company through the lens of their own view about me.

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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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

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

Why You Should Never Write Names in Red When Dealing with Koreans Part 1
The Korean Business Blog is Ready for Posting
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
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What to do if Koreans “Fall Asleep” During Your Presentation

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 Korea, Japanese adapted a system called the “family census register” which still is in effect in Korea, but computerized nowadays.  Before it was computerized, they used to cross out the names of a dead person in red.  Also, during the Japanese colonization period, they used to cross out the names of those independence fighters, therefore people still mistakenly believe that if a perosn goes to prison, then his name is crossed out in red on the family census registration record.   

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

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

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Why You Should Never Write Names in Red When Dealing with Koreans Part 2
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
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What to do if Koreans “Fall Asleep” During Your Presentation

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

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 1
The Importance of Knowing Basic Korean Phrases When Dealing With Korean Business Partners
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Practical Advice for Doing Business with Korea
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Today, I would like to talk about one common mistake being made in cross-cultural settings which I also witnessed at the conference and have witnessed numerous times in business meetings with American and Korean businessmen.

The key authority of the organization was about to give a speech to about 70 people mainly consisting of different nationalities. He started his speech with an Irish joke as many American speakers would typically do. At this, all the interpreters in the room gasped. I could see that some interpreters handled it well, and some newly-experienced ones had a face of “there we go again”. I knew exactly why those interpreters gasped. I also knew exactly why only a few attendees laughed. I turned around to the Korean official’s interpreter who was dumbfounded and told her not to say anything, instead I told the Korean official as follows:
“He told a joke. We will tell you later what the joke is about.”
Then both the Korean official and interpreter laughed.

So, was his joke rude? No, certainly not. It was funny to me, and funny to other interpreters. Did he say it in a plain, not-so-funny way? Oh no, he was a top notch speaker all right. Then why would I say such a thing to the offical?

I will talk about this in my next blog entry, but in the meantime, I want you to think about it why. And no, it is not because Koreans or other nationalities do not have sense of humor.

And before you go, please read the following joke that was once popular in Korea.

There was a dumb farm boy named Man-deuk. In the middle of a night, a thief broke in and said to Man-deuk, “Shut up and don’t move.” At the thief’s threat, Man-deuk sprung up and ran to the chicken coop and hit all the chickens to death and ran to the kitchen and took the rice bag and ran back to the room then put the rice bag over his head.

Isn’t it just hilarious? Yes, you are thinking “What?”

That was exactly the reaction other nationalities showed to his Irish joke.

See you in my next blog post.

Heejeong Haas

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
The Importance of Knowing Basic Korean Phrases When Dealing With Korean Business Partners
About Heejeong
Practical Advice for Doing Business with Korea
Major Korean Holiday Alert: Chuseok

Every single official no matter what the nationality could speak at least one phrase or two in many different languages to simply say, “hello”, “thank you” and “nice to meet you”.  Not a big deal?  One could say that.  But now imagine you remember these phrases in about 10 to 15 different languages and especially in one of those very exotic African or Asian languages.  Yes, that takes a certain amount of effort and determination that you would like to get across other person to communicate.  Every time they exchanged a little phrase in each other’s native tongue, they had a smile and automatically built that warm and mutual understanding of why they were there. 

In business meetings, we tend to think that everybody understands and knows how to say “thank you” and “hello” and “nice to meet you” in English as English has become a universal business language.  I have seen only a few executive members making the effort to learn how to say those phrases in Korean for their Korean business partners. Speaking these little phrases in Korean for your Korean business partners can boost your image and earn ultimate respect.  It shows them how much you care and respect them and their culture.  You will also see this pleasantly surprised smile on their face as Koreans generally are under the impression that the Korean language is way too difficult for any foreigners to learn (there is a good reason why they think this way, but I will go on about this one later).  

Business negotiations often get rough and hostile; if you can add something to make the situation a little smoother as simple as this, why not try?  It certainly doesn’t cost you money, but the result is priceless.

So, try practicing these phrases:

• Hello or Hi: “An-nyoung-ha-se-yo.”

• Thank you: “Gam-sa-ham-ni-da.” Or “Go-mab-seum-ni-da”

• Nice to meet you: “Man-na-su-ban-gab-seum-ni-da.” Or simply “Ban-gab-seum-ni-da.”

• You are welcome: “Chun-ma-ne-yo.”

Next time when you talk to your Korean business partner, say these in Korean and see if they are pleasantly surprised or not.
Good luck!

Heejeong Haas

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

Establish a Personal Relationship with Your Korean Business Partner
The Importance of Choosing the Right Executives to Send to Korea
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 1
Practical Advice for Doing Business with Korea