Chan Mool Eu Do We Ahrye Ka Itda
There is up and down in a cup of cold water
When I first heard this Korean proverb, I was very puzzled. What on earth could it possibly mean? Is it like “the glass is half full or half empty”? No. Is it to do with good times and bad times? No. A complete puzzle. Then I began to think about proverbs in general. What are they? They are, of course, expressions of some truth accepted by most members of a particular culture, in this case Korean. We have to accept that any culture makes very good sense to itself; it is our job to work out how and why. Curiosity is the key.
So how can we begin to summarise the key messages in how to do business with Korean companies? Let’s divide the job into three parts, each based around a Korean proverb.

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In my work as a consultant and trainer in intercultural management, I have had considerable recent experience of rolling out conflict management programs to groups of managers and directors from Asia (Japan, Korea, China, India and Singapore),  Europe (Switzerland, France, Germany and the UK) and the USA. This short article lays out a number of observations and conclusions on the cultural dimension to the subject of handling conflict situations.

Imagine you are a middle manager in an American multinational enterprise. You are Japanese, based in Singapore, working for a German boss. It is 5.15pm on Friday. For the fourth time this quarter, your boss has called you in and requested you to work most of the weekend to complete a sales proposal to a major client which has a Monday morning deadline. You had planned and booked tickets for a family weekend break on Pulau Tioman (one of the reasons for joining this world-class company was to avoid the karoshi [1] syndrome!). Your boss cannot do this work herself as she is flying off to Bangalore on business in two hours. What do you do? How do you handle this?

If we define conflict as “tension, hidden or revealed, relating to incompatible or competing needs, attitudes and values”, we see that cultural preferences can significantly impact the way an individual chooses to handle situations like the above. Attitudes to one’s superior, a predilection for harmony in the workplace, views on work/life balance will all play a part in determining the forces at play. These are essentially social and cultural factors, labeled by academics in the field as Power Distance and Individualism/Collectivism (Hofstede, Triandis et al).

Most of the research in the field of conflict management derives from work done in the USA and it is not therefore surprising that the categorization of conflict-handling strategies is essentially based on culturally American premises. For instance, a Competing strategy (assertion of one’s own needs without regard for the needs of others) is set diametrically against Accommodating (letting others’ needs predominate over one’s own) and Avoiding (refusal to address anyone’s needs). The other categories are Collaborating (dedication to meeting everyone’s needs even if it takes a long time) and Compromising (preparedness to give and take to reach a solution speedily). With Northern European and American audiences, common associations with the non-assertive strategies are fear, weakness and time-wasting – i.e. people who Avoid the conflict situation “haven’t got the guts to deal with it” or “don’t focus enough on getting the job done”. Asians however understandably tend not to see these strategies as necessarily negative. Indeed, maintenance of in-group harmony is very definitely a good thing. Also, the preparedness to take a longer view (by avoiding/accommodating now, I can maybe gain advantage later) is associated more strongly with wisdom and a broader view. There are of course echoes of Sun Tzu and Confucius and martial arts philosophies in all this. As will by now be clear, intercultural conflict is therefore infused with misperceptions and misinterpretations which often lead to mistrust or lack of mutual respect. What is missing in these cases is a wider and better informed perspective on cultural differences and associations. Culture, as well as Conflict, becomes a “problem”.

In fact, one of the major challenges in handling conflict effectively is to reset often deep-seated attitudes to the whole subject. Getting business directors and managers to free-associate around the word “conflict”, as I do frequently ,  produces a long list of negative and destructive ideas: words used include difficult, hard work, stress, anxiety, discomfort, anger, frustration, mistrust, different (alien) styles etc. Through focused discussion and practice of appropriate techniques, however, it is possible to get people to see that we can transform this negative mindset into something altogether more positive, creative and opportunistic (as opposed to threatening). Conflict well understood and well handled can free us from inertia, can generate energy and ideas, and even build cohesion in working teams. Result: a positive outcome and an opportunity seized to convert short-term irritation into a long-term beneficial shift in boss-subordinate relations. The Japanese manager in our earlier scenario requests and succeeds in getting a rigorous and comprehensive re-assessment of reasonable operating procedures as a quid pro quo for yet again sacrificing his family weekend.

The business case for training interventions that combine cultural awareness with conflict-management techniques is therefore clear. Retention of good staff can be substantially improved by enabling managers to transform potentially damaging situations into growth possibilities for all concerned. Whilst it cannot be denied that changing mindsets is hard work, payback can be substantial.

Bill Reed
Managing Consultant, East Asia Business
www.east-asia-business.com

[1] Karoshi is translated as “death through overwork” – a recent Japanese phenomenon, now widely accepted as regrettably excessive dedication to the company