Korean management innovates

Second part of our portrait of the Korean company. After a general overview of Korean management and corporate culture, let's get off the beaten track with KIM Hyung-seok, the explosive director of Bookpal.

Innovative Korean managers

Since 2008, the endless crisis affecting South Korea has given rise to a new breed of managers with innovative practices. Bookpal, a simple app for mobile phones and tablets, is revolutionizing the publishing market in South Korea. Its leader, a true iconoclast, KIM Hyung-seok, also shakes up the traditional Confucian approach to business and management.

The 2008 crisis left South Korea in a rut from which it cannot escape. Growth is weak, the economy is in the doldrums. While households and businesses go into debt, unemployment among young graduates continues to increase, while the standard of living of those over sixty is too low to allow them to retire.

Although the government has invested heavily in the green energy sector, its efforts, which have boosted the sector with ambitious objectives, have not yet had the desired effect on the economy as a whole. Unemployed graduates therefore do not hesitate to take advantage of the internet to launch themselves into free enterprise, this is the case of KIM Hyung-seok, the director of Bookpal.

Bookpal: a new concept

Bookpal is a paid publishing service for tablets and smartphones. Specializing in station novels, published in serial form, a true popular literature, the company has enjoyed success after success with more than 3 million downloads of the application and star authors having accumulated, for some, up to 100,000 USD in revenue. income. The team, made up of sixty people, one hundred at the end of 2015, manages a catalog of 3000 authors allowing the publication of 500 new episodes per week. The novels, sold in serial form, are the perfect format for quick reading on public transport and the public is willing to pay to get the scoop on new episodes.

However, nothing predestined KIM Hyung-seok to become the manager of a start-up. He graduated in electronic engineering from one of the best universities in Korea, Sogang University, founded by Jesuits in the 1960s, from which the current President also comes. His destiny was to end up as a simple executive at Hyundai, which he joined at the start of his career. But very quickly, he found himself cramped for a position not designed for him. He resigned and joined an advertising agency. After 10 years, he achieved what he wanted. He threw in the towel and created Bookpal in 2011 with one of his friends. The company searched for itself, tested different business models and in 2013 found the winning ticket with the remuneration of serials published every week. It’s a real plebiscite by the public. Authors who were rather cautious at first subsequently joined society in large numbers. Faced with this success, new projects are emerging and investors do not hesitate to finance the development of the company.

From traditional networks to social networks

In Korea, a businessman must always make sure to maintain a network, but Hyung-seok does not come from the publishing industry. "I could have built a network by drinking alcohol or playing golf, but I much prefer writing on Facebook. My Facebook posts are a way to gain visibility and thus create events." It was during the first year of his university studies that Hyung-seok developed a taste for writing. In addition to traditional subjects, students must read two books every ten days and report on them. The demon of writing will never leave him.

When he worked in an advertising agency, in the evening he became an editorial writer for a center-left political website, and has been writing ever since. Sometimes to the great dismay of his public relations department because the stakes are now financial, he publishes numerous texts: his travels in China, the specificities of the publishing market, the birth of Bookpal, his thoughts on current affairs, etc. . Everything goes there. He does not want his services to reread his writings, because he thinks, sincerity is the heart of communication on Facebook. “If we are not sincere with a speech that is too corporate, the public will not buy in. Facebook has never served me well,” he explains. The company is young, the market is not mature and it is aimed at a new generation keen on the Internet and far from the classic culture of businessmen. To have time to write, he travels by public transport. With a three-hour daily commute, it gives him time to think and write. But the downside of this mode of travel is that people now recognize it; sometimes in unexpected places like the toilet. Hyung-seok mischievously points out that “the downside of notoriety is that you no longer have the right to make mistakes.”

With such a leader, the management of the company is inevitably impacted. For him, the mistake is to believe that the company is an established thing when it is still expanding. You must always innovate in your organization without ever copying what is done elsewhere. So he gropes, he thinks and tries.

Confucian heritage?

Initially, he wanted to reject the Confucian heritage but he quickly reached the limit of this principle. As he emphasizes: " We must never deny the socio-cultural heritage. At the beginning I wanted to create a company with more autonomous employees. But when I delegated, the employees couldn't do it. They didn't know how to do it because since childhood taught them a single model linked to respect for authority. They must accept their heritage even if it is not effective. It is a question of balance. We must decide on a case by case basis knowing that I also have to evolve as a business leader.”

To break the hierarchical logic and the system of honorary titles, each employee receives a pseudonym. The rule is simple: a consonant coupled with a repeating vowel (see photo opposite). The idea emerged one day when employees jokingly nicknamed him Toutou. Calling for equality, he decided that each employee would henceforth be called by a pseudonym. Overnight, offices were dotted with signs to indicate everyone's nicknames and thus ignore honorific titles, names linked to age like big brother, little sister omnipresent in the Korean language.

Still in an attempt to free itself from a pyramidal logic where the leader is omniscient and omnipotent, the non-hierarchical organization is a project center. Five department directors including him lead a team where everyone works by project without notion of hierarchy. To go further, he delegated recruitment, which is now done by co-optation. If positions are created, it is the employee with whom the recruit will work who is responsible for finding their future work colleague. Responsibility then falls on the person who recruited. If he was wrong, it impacts his career development.

Working time in Korea

Working late is a constant in South Korea, Bookpal is no exception. Hyung-seok hated seeing people wolf down a piece at a desk corner for lunch. So he sent them all outside even if it took longer. But the employees opposed it; in fact, having a quick lunch is a way to save time and get home earlier in the evening. For him this example is symptomatic: " We have to find a balance. If I am incapable, because the company is too small, of creating an in-house restaurant with a chef, in other words if I am incapable of proposing a solution, he will not We must neither judge nor criticize their attitude."

Bookpal is one example among many. Many solid companies are experimenting with management. Often of medium size and present in a specific market, they do not need to develop strongly. These managers often have innovative ideas and invest in their employees: building a swimming pool, a hammam or the possibility of taking as many vacations as you want, etc. Jennifer Soft has thus become a case of school, all profits generated by the company are reinvested in the well-being of employees.

And if SMEs serve as laboratories for new approaches, big players are starting to rethink their organization and the management of their human resources. Managerial practices that are the opposite of a stereotypical image of the Korean company.