The Death of Trust...

will most probably mean the death of a company.

In all societies these days, trusting everyone around you is probably one of the most difficult to achieve if one was to make an organization that is coherent and set for success. In the last five and a half years, we have seen managers and executives come and go. I have personally seen managers become as close to the Gods and then later lose all graces, recover the trust and then later quit. Relationships have been strained, tempers agitated and lives screwed over... for what??!

The Korean management style is peculiar to those who are unfamiliar to the culture. That is why, a lot of difficulties will have to be overcome at initial stages in building an organization in a country like the Philippines with Korean Investments and therefore, most probably Korean management.

But all these I feel, is just another fork in the road that ultimately means that one has to make a choice and later decide what to do or how to act upon an issue. It doesn't even mean that this blog will rant about being Filipino or Korean in the name of trust. It is what it is... TRUST. When lost, might become very hard to recover.

I wanted almost my entire career with the company the opportunity to be given the chance to manage at a much larger scale, But I suppose that the management style in itself is already of a dispute because of the differences in culture. Here is a simplified list of how it is like to be part of a Korean company.

Korean Management System (features)

Top-down Decision-making
Paternalistic Leadership
Lifetime Employment
Loyalty and Compensation based on Seniority and Merit Rating

Korean Management System
Adapted from The Rise of the Economy by Byung-Nak Song

Company as a family-type community
Sharp distinctions between owners, managers and workers
Weakly held lifetime employment ideal
Very strong emphasis on general hierarchical ranks
Emphasis on loyalty and cooperation
Age and service length recognized as important criteria
Specific authority and diffuse responsibility
Managerial authority limited largely by owner's policy and interests
Enterprise unions predominate
Extensive on-the-job and related training for a variety of jobs
Considerable job rotation and boundary flexibility
Company recruits on the basis of age, experience and education

The list above I think fairly exemplifies the difficulties a western oriented and educated manager will suffer from under Korean management. However, I do feel that a fair amount of mixture between what we know and what they think, goes a long way in achieving better results. But after, five and a half years in this company, telltale signs of uncertainty is in the offing given that the structure of the organization constantly changes without the expressed opinion or even consent by the remaining senior officers. Of course, it is Korean management so who the hell am I to be asked an opinion?..