Fixing Korea (2)

By Akli Hadid

Three additional problems need to be fixed in South Korea: debt and excessive optimism, lack of rigorous R&D and always wanting to be on top.

Around the turn of the millennium, Korean universities and businesses were so optimistic that they borrowed and blew away trillions of won in debt. Universities and conglomerates spent trillions on flamboyant statues of their founders, flamboyant skyscrapers, flamboyant new technology and computers, flamboyant research centers, flamboyant residences and dormitories and flamboyant roads and passages to connect them all.

The problem is that such debt and spending can be seen as “marketing expenditures” rather than “production expenditures.” So when such debt was fresh and optimists thought it would pay off, companies and universities hired basically anyone who applied, young and old, professors, dancers, cheerleaders, models who would bow to you at the entrance and security staff, and each team was basically overstaffed.

But now that sales have been lagging, companies and universities are starting to look like ghost towns. Every excuse found to fire someone has been used, laws prevented additional hires, spyware is being used to find faults in workers so they can be fired. Research centers and campuses have become ghost towns. CEOs and presidents are putting huge pressure on workers to repay company debts, and are coming up with unreasonable demands from profits. Such unreasonable demands also lead companies and universities to refuse to pay for outsourced services to avoid having to raise costs or tuition fees, and sometimes go as far as refusing to turn on the heater in the winter or air conditioner in the summer.

Such high debt can be fixed by selling off some debt which is not bringing a profit and which does not look profitable in the long run. Universities can go back to the basics and put several majors in one building while selling other buildings to SMEs or other businesses, and the same goes for major companies. All the “marketing” luxury items such as luxury cars could be sold or auctioned back to investors who actually have a vision.

The other problem is the lack of research and development. Researchers in Korea need to learn that methodological rigor and clearly stated results are a must when doing research and that research is not done for vanity purposes. Korean researchers also need to learn that there is a margin of error in any research done or product developed, and need to be clear while testing the products about what that margin of error is. Billions have been blown out in research that did not have any methodological rigor, that was conducted purely for vanity purposes, and that was often paraphrased from the Internet rather than conducted in the field or a laboratory. Only with such rigorous research can products be discovered that will appeal to consumers.

Finally, Koreans always wanting to be on top rather than cooperate led to many companies and universities getting rid of their best elements and keeping their mediocre elements so the people in charge can feel that they are on top. Any worker can be trained to improve, but the culture lately has been one in which the people on top want to prevent workers at the bottom from catching up at all costs. This leads to the people on top not teaching them how to do their work, and if a worker is bright the workers on top will try to give him or her ambiguous instructions and constant criticisms. This can be fixed by shining the light on younger but bright people instructing and teaching very high-ranked or powerful people how to do their jobs, and by the media telling how low-ranked but bright staff helped their higher-ranked staff like any filial son would have, rather than promoting the current despotic tyrant-slave relationship that currently exists in most companies.

Akli Hadid works for the British Council. He can be reached at hadid.akli@gmail.com.