[Bread-Baking Typewriter] If You Are a Leader in a Corporate Crisis... Change Time, Space, and People

by Lee Hyeonjoo

Published 11 Sep.2020 14:38(KST)

Kwon Oh-hyun Presents Samsung's 'Super-Gap' Know-How

▲Kwon Oh-hyun, Senior Advisor at Samsung Electronics. (Provided by Samsung Electronics)

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] Oh-Hyun Kwon, Senior Advisor at Samsung Electronics, has returned after two years with a follow-up to his book "Ultra Gap" titled "Ultra Gap: Questions of a Leader." While the 2018 publication "Ultra Gap" discussed the 33 years of management know-how accumulated at Samsung Electronics, "Ultra Gap: Questions of a Leader" offers more concrete methodologies.

Advisor Kwon met with leaders of small and medium-sized enterprises such as startup founders, family business successors, and professional managers, providing practical answers to questions they pondered together. He categorizes 32 questions likely to arise in actual management settings into three chapters: "Leader," "Innovation," and "Culture," and answers them accordingly.

In the first chapter, "Leader," Advisor Kwon points out the anachronistic behaviors of leaders trapped in the framework of maximizing efficiency and management. The "fast follower"?a successful model experienced during the industrial era, referring to a strategy or company that quickly follows new products and technologies?no longer has references or materials to rely on.

According to Advisor Kwon, managers are not "frogs in a well" who only manage to avoid mistakes. They must boldly delegate authority, focus a significant portion of their work time on future matters, and prepare for the future by listening to diverse opinions. Instead of issuing unilateral orders, they should ask many questions that encourage employees to think independently.

Advisor Kwon criticizes managers who habitually say, whenever performance is poor or shows no signs of improvement, "It's a crisis, but the lax work discipline is why things are like this." Creating a sense of crisis or mentioning work discipline in such remarks is essentially shifting blame onto employees.

The author also emphasizes, "Organizations do not fail because members are lazy. If management keeps saying it is a crisis because management is difficult, members become desensitized and accept it indifferently. When a real crisis comes, they will not believe it."

When a crisis or a change in atmosphere is needed, Advisor Kwon believes that at least one of the "three spaces"?time, space, or people?must be changed. A good example is Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee's New Management 7·4 system (starting work at 7 a.m. and leaving at 4 p.m.), initiated in 1993 with the phrase "Change everything except your wife and children."

Advisor Kwon divides a company's growth stages into startup, growth, expansion, and ultra gap, and suggests strategies that companies should pursue at each stage. Most Korean companies remain in the growth stage, fail to expand, and enter a decline phase. No company has yet reached the ultra gap stage. Therefore, Advisor Kwon advises pushing further with good ideas and technologies.

Leaders must possess not only the will to innovate but also insight, decisiveness, and execution ability. However, innovation cannot be carried out alone. Systems and skilled personnel to support innovation are necessary.

The author stresses that a good organizational culture is the foundation for long-term survival and that leaders must be the agents who create corporate culture. The three elements he proposes for cultivating a good corporate culture are challenge, creation, and cooperation. Companies should regard themselves as living organisms and integrate this with the evolutionary process of Homo sapiens (modern humans).

"Humans became the masters of all things through challenge, creation, and cooperation, reaching a stage of ultra gap that no other life form has achieved. The reason why archaic humans like Neanderthals, who were not much different from Homo sapiens, became extinct may be because they were more vulnerable than Homo sapiens in terms of challenge, creation, and cooperation."

If companies create a culture of challenge, creation, and cooperation within their organizations, they will reach the ultra gap. "Ultra Gap: Questions of a Leader" is worth reading for anyone involved in an organization, not just professional managers. You might even meet a virtual role model in the book...