이제 2주후면 2017년의 크리스마스가 됩니다. 시간이 빠른 것은 둘째치고,

어떻게 살아왔는지에 대해서 다시 반추해 보는 시간이기도 합니다. 조직 개발 컨설턴트로 일하며 올해도 많은 기업들을 방문하고, 함께 이야기하고, 함께 고민하였습니다.

그 속에서, 특히 대한민국 기업들의 조직문화의 현주소에 대해서 느끼고 생각한 바를 정리하여 Korea Times에 기고하였습니다. 부족하지만 살펴 봐 주시고, 모두들 즐거운 크리스마스 되세요!

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2017/12/162_240939.html 

Corporate culture in 2017

Since I’m working as an organizational development consultant, I meet employees and executives almost every day. I talk, listen, and ask questions about what they think, how they view their organizations, and how their corporate cultures should be changed. Since this is the end of the year, I would like to think about trends in corporate culture that I have observed this year.

One of the most recent and most notable cultural changes in Korean corporations is that millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—have begun expressing what kind of corporate culture they would like to have. Before a recent workshop with a client company, I sent the training manager a pre-survey to get a grasp of what the anxieties of the participants were. All of the participants were employees who had recently returned from working in foreign countries for three to ten years. Many of them said that they were at a loss as to how to deal with their millennial colleagues, who did not seem to do what they were told to do unless they were given a detailed description of why and how. Respondents unanimously said that the corporate culture they experienced and the one that they think the millennials want issignificantly different. Thus, how to overcome this generational gap is becoming a pressing problem—not just for this corporation, but for many corporations, as a lack of generational integration leaves a company less powerful. A strong foundation for performance is only possible when companiesare united internally.

Another commonality this year is that many corporations have begun showing interest inhow to change their corporate cultures to be more digitally agile. Since most Korean corporations have performance- and hierarchy-centered corporate cultures,they already know that in order for them to be more adaptable and flexible in the upcoming fourth industrial revolution, changing this corporate culture will be crucial. However, these corporations’ attempts to change their culture—quicklye ducating employees about what the fourth industrial revolution is and what technical changes will come—is not enough. Any change in culture must have people as its focus, not technology. If employees are required to perform without thinking and blindly follow their managers, there will be no room for them to be truly free and creative, and they will be unable to summon the adaptability and flexibility they will need for the fourth industrial revolution. Employees and managers in Korean corporations still tell me how tired they are, as they arrive in the office by 7 am, and usually finish at 10 or 11 pm. I am only not talking about the importance of work-life balance, which is also important, but about how it is impossible to be creative when one feels tired all the time. Changing this may be difficult, however, as working late may simply be part of the corporate culture; this is because an existing culture can be an obstacle to changing aculture. Corporate culture is not just a tool that you artificially create to help you get to a goal. Rather, it is a result that arises organically out of corporations’ behavior toward their people. A culture that does not respect people tends to malfunction and bring adverse effects to corporations, since people, after all, are the owners of a company, both right now and when the fourth industrial revolution begins.

One of the most unfortunate things I’ve seen this year is when corporations try to fix aproblem without addressing the root cause. Some corporations think that the problem is with their corporate culture: they will blame their low growth on their managers’ behaving too aggressively, or inconsistent inter-departmental work processes, or lack of employee participation, or lack of innovation. However, when I asked employees in this same company what the real issue was, they said that even though all of these problems did exist and did have to befixed, the root cause was the CEO’s behavior, which was the source of all of the other toxic behavior. Thus, attacking anything else was dealing with symptoms and not causes. It is useless to try to change other factors such as employees, managers and executives, departments, and communication. Unless we get at the root, the branches will continue to grow. Culture is influential sinceit penetrates to everywhere in an organization, and the CEO creates the artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions that comprise the three pillars of corporate culture. Thus, if a CEO is located in the center of the problem, changing the corporate culture is a big challenge. We watched how serious this problem was on TV this year several times.

Additionally, in dealing with Korean corporations this year, I have found that their attempts to change their corporate culture were limited due to a few reasons. First, a free and pleasant corporate culture is not achieved only by making policies. If the leaders do not live by and model these policies, then they are empty propaganda.Second, it is impossible to create a desirable corporate culture if this culture does not have people as its primary concern. Creating a certain corporate culture in order to immediately earn higher profits tends to backfire. People should be foregrounded since a healthy and strong corporate culture comes before performance and lasts longer. Third, imitating industry trends in culture does not help that much, since each corporate culture is a mirror of its organization. Not every hairstyle fits every person’s face. That is why corporations should be looking at themselves to create a unique culture that reflects their corporate identity, goals, and challenges.

The Walt DisneyCompany, Zappos and Southwest are famous for being transparent about their corporate strategies. The reason why they feel so comfortable revealing these strategiesis because they know that their most powerful secret weapon is their culture,which cannot be copied. As an organizational development consultant, I sometimes feel distressed seeing many Korean corporations not working on their culture in deep ways and instead making superficial changes. I hope Korean corporations become smarter next year and understand quickly that their corporate culture is crucial to adjusting to new generations, to the digital era, and to any challenge in the outside world. I hope they look at themselves and find their own strong corporate culture in 2018.