The other half of Mr. BMW story

By Oh Young-jin

Kim Hyo-joon, BMW Korea CEO, represents the story of a truly self-made man.

The 59-year-old has overcome his humble beginnings to lead the most successful import car business for the longest period, serving as the source of inspiration and providing young people with an enviable role model.

He is the first Asian to join the German car-making group’s group of 47 top leaders. BMW is set to see 3 trillion won in sales this year, making the brand one of the easily encountered with in Seoul streets, Korean-made Hyundai and Kia cars included.

What has he done for the past 21 years to steer his operations away from business risks that have made rivals Mercedes and Audi stumble, and stay at top?

Can his being Korean explain his success over BMW’s rivals, led by foreigners? If so, that is only half of Kim’s story.

Kim is always mild-mannered and polite, and has a habit of not leaving his remarks in mid-sentence.

Rarely will he reveal a hint that underneath his “Mr. Right” attitudes, he hides a steely discipline, do-or-die determination and a lot of patience.

A recent lunch with him proved to be one such a moment. With an awkward smile on his face, he said that he had to visit an emergency room. When our party protested for his not asking us to delay the get-together, he said, “I wouldn’t miss our customers for the world.” Instead of taking a rest, he took an intravenous drip to meet with us.

Looking out the window that takes in Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall, we pointed out with a little exaggeration that the street was “teeming” with BMWs. “Not enough,” he replied with a playful grin on his face.

Then, our occupational instinct came alive and we started what we were good at _ asking questions in an effort to find out what makes him different from other CEOs.

How would Kim discipline an underperformer or one who was not a team player?

He recalled one case he had when he was vice president. “My boss demanded a certain manager immediately be fired,” he said. He calmed the angry CEO by explaining that a worker had his rights and couldn’t be dismissed without due process.

Kim called in the worker and questioned him about his job performance. Surprisingly, the worker thought he was a top performer. “There can often be disconnect between employer and employee that should be connected to make A Team,” he said.

Then, another case offers a lesson on communicating with his boss.

“When one executive, who should be in constant contact with Kim, weekends as well as weekdays, was transferred, the executive told him how he felt light-hearted. “I felt a little surprised, wondering whether I stressed him out,” he observed, stressing the delicacy of inter-person relationship. “That feeling comes back sometimes.”

One of his former employees couldn’t grow to cope with a bigger responsibility. “He had overcome his limitations to become an executive,” he said. One day after a human resources meeting, he was confronted by a staff member who demanded an explanation for his being passed up for a promotion.

“The executive was let go out because he violated protocols and divulged what was said in the meeting to the staffer,” he said. “That was incompetence.”

Threading these anecdotes together is “people,” the core competency of BMW he has worked with for 21 years. “The business of business is to create value,” he said. “The foundation of the 100-year-old BMW’s value-chain is employees and employers.”

Buttressing this foundation are transparency and fairness that Kim has also contributed to.

“Munich (the BMW headquarters) was a bit surprised when I explained that we were planning to set out a rule for my successor to be selected,” he said. After all, he still has four more years to go before retirement.

Already, a team has been organized to select a field of 10 candidates, which will be whittled down to three before the final one is selected. The “chosen one” will be appointed to be chief operating officer to work with Kim in his final year. “The whole idea is to select the best candidate and make things predictable so as to prevent transitional chaos,” he said.

What he is doing is an attempt to transplant the mature European-style corporate succession culture that offers an alternative to the family feud for management control in Korea’s big businesses. A sibling fight in Lotte is the latest example.

Finally, we asked him how he has managed not to be tainted by corruption through BMW’s rapid growth, his answer was simple. “I do a lot of delegating. I don’t know any of our vendors for instance. There are people in our company who are responsible for them. My job is to make systematic crosschecking possible.”

The lunch ended as before ― like a lecture but we managed to remain attentive throughout. After all, everybody is a human resources manager of one type or another.

Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times’ chief editorial writer. Contact him at foolsdie5@gmail.com.