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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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 Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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| KimchiNinja wrote: |
| Chaparrastique wrote: |
| dhan89 wrote: |
| I'm sure in the UK and US, being outspoken is valued. This is Korea where hierarchy is a reality and listening and obeying to elders in GENERAL is valued. They'll appreciate that and it will help you tremendously. |
Why should anyone obey elders if they are crooked, unfair and racist? |
Who wants a bunch of young idiots mouthing off to you, thinking they know better? That leads to chaos, Korea maintains order. |
Why would you think people would mouth off? Also why do you call people in their mid-20s youths?
The ability to be able to communicate ideas or problems to your higher up allows for them to understand what is and isn't working. This helps efficiency and allows the business to perform better.
Koreans knows this and are working hard to emulate these business practices. The problem is when mom and pop hagwons try and run their academy like a restaurant and not a place of education. |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 5:48 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
The ability to be able to communicate ideas or problems to your higher up allows for them to understand what is and isn't working. This helps efficiency and allows the business to perform better. |
Exactly.
Too often in the Korean workplace there is no way to correct bad situations because channels of communication are either absent or only in one direction.
This leads tpo frustration and conflict because many Korean bosses view feedback as a challenge to their authority.
Without western concepts of management every workplace and South korea as a whole would simply revert back to something akin to the Kim dictatorship north of the border. |
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Cave Dweller
Joined: 17 Aug 2014
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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Koreans would be walking around naked if some other country had not invented clothing.
| trueblue wrote: |
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| this society could not even invent a wheel in over 4000 years. |
..much less figure out how to use a chair. |
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sundizz
Joined: 17 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| Cave Dweller wrote: |
Koreans would be walking around naked if some other country had not invented clothing.
| trueblue wrote: |
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| this society could not even invent a wheel in over 4000 years. |
..much less figure out how to use a chair. |
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Lol funny you say that. I decided to do the asian squat for 30 minutes (my aim) a day for the next 30 days. Going to try and fix the Western back problems I have. It's amazing that 70 year+ old men and women here are so limber. |
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Voyeur
Joined: 19 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:22 am Post subject: |
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Most systems trade off large-scale efficiencies for inevitable inefficiencies (even ridiculous ones) at the local scale. The trade off is almost always worth it. Different systems have different problems.
Koreans (and Asians in general) are far from stupid. While any one manager may be inept in any country, by and large Asian managers are not as stupid as posters would think. I have learned the hard way that given the circumstances, their decisions often make sense. And it isn't just a case of short-sighted pursuit of immediate profit over long-term success. The thing is that as foreigners (or even as native low-level employees) we don't have access to all the information. And given the structure of their culture, even if the boss felt inclined to sharing all the relevant information with us, doing so would cause more problems than it would solve: some of the factors in their decisions are best left unarticulated or vocalized for many reasons.
If you are given some kind of project like remaking classes or creating new ones, it is best to try to get some feedback at many stages: make sure you are not going off the rails and save everyone wasted time and effort. Any kind of expense is a big deal, and so book selection is always important. The school may have a special deal with certain sellers, etc. Make sure the books you want to choose are okay before you invest a lot of time in plans based on that selection.
Ultimately, as one manager once told me, you get to vote with your feet--stay or leave. You usually won't change things, and as I said, things often are how they are for good reasons. It is okay to make brief suggestions here and there, but never push it. If they take you up on it, great. If not, no sweat. |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:35 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
| KimchiNinja wrote: |
| Chaparrastique wrote: |
| dhan89 wrote: |
| I'm sure in the UK and US, being outspoken is valued. This is Korea where hierarchy is a reality and listening and obeying to elders in GENERAL is valued. They'll appreciate that and it will help you tremendously. |
Why should anyone obey elders if they are crooked, unfair and racist? |
Who wants a bunch of young idiots mouthing off to you, thinking they know better? That leads to chaos, Korea maintains order. |
Why would you think people would mouth off? Also why do you call people in their mid-20s youths?
The ability to be able to communicate ideas or problems to your higher up allows for them to understand what is and isn't working. This helps efficiency and allows the business to perform better. |
Because people in their 20s are youths and don't know anything, but don't yet know that they don't know anything. 
Flooding mgmt with a bunch of ideas doesn't necessarily help. I've been at many companies in the West that are completely dysfunctional because all the low-level people feel it is their right to share their naive ideas, instead of doing their job. I've also been at a Korean company who adopted this Western way of doing things -- total disfunction was the result.
Anyway, this is Korea and order prevails.  |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Voyeur wrote: |
Koreans (and Asians in general) are far from stupid. While any one manager may be inept in any country, by and large Asian managers are not as stupid as posters would think. |
Stupid and inept are not synonymous. I don't think anyone was saying they are stupid, but by and large they ARE inept at running educational businesses, hence the reason so many fail. |
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Voyeur
Joined: 19 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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| I would agree that the nature of the ESL/EFL industry in Asia probably leads to a greater degree of ineptness among managers than in many other industries. Still, opening and running a successful small business is difficult in most countries and most industries. And ESL seems particularly competitive. What is the small business failure rate in the West? |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Voyeur wrote: |
Most systems trade off large-scale efficiencies for inevitable inefficiencies (even ridiculous ones) at the local scale. The trade off is almost always worth it. Different systems have different problems.
Koreans (and Asians in general) are far from stupid. While any one manager may be inept in any country, by and large Asian managers are not as stupid as posters would think. I have learned the hard way that given the circumstances, their decisions often make sense. And it isn't just a case of short-sighted pursuit of immediate profit over long-term success. The thing is that as foreigners (or even as native low-level employees) we don't have access to all the information. And given the structure of their culture, even if the boss felt inclined to sharing all the relevant information with us, doing so would cause more problems than it would solve: some of the factors in their decisions are best left unarticulated or vocalized for many reasons.
If you are given some kind of project like remaking classes or creating new ones, it is best to try to get some feedback at many stages: make sure you are not going off the rails and save everyone wasted time and effort. Any kind of expense is a big deal, and so book selection is always important. The school may have a special deal with certain sellers, etc. Make sure the books you want to choose are okay before you invest a lot of time in plans based on that selection.
Ultimately, as one manager once told me, you get to vote with your feet--stay or leave. You usually won't change things, and as I said, things often are how they are for good reasons. It is okay to make brief suggestions here and there, but never push it. If they take you up on it, great. If not, no sweat. |
As far as employees go, you sound like a complete doormat.
If you have a teaching qualification and ten years experience in the classroom teaching a second language, you will know what works and what doesn't far more than some korean "manager" who has never taught a class in his life or lived in a nother culture (and who was only picked for the job because he was mates with the owner). |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Voyeur wrote: |
| Ultimately, as one manager once told me, you get to vote with your feet--stay or leave. |
Yup. Koreans have a saying "if the monk doesn't like the way the temple does things, the monk should leave". |
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Voyeur
Joined: 19 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| Chaparrastique wrote: |
As far as employees go, you sound like a complete doormat.
If you have a teaching qualification and ten years experience in the classroom teaching a second language, you will know what works and what doesn't far more than some korean "manager" who has never taught a class in his life or lived in a nother culture (and who was only picked for the job because he was mates with the owner). |
It's all about how you make suggestions, and how you deal with resistance. You can't be too pushy, and sometimes you have to make a suggestion, have it rejected, and wait for the manager's different idea to fall flat on its face. Then you can sometimes make your suggestion again--though never in a "I told you so" way. At this point they might take you up on it. Or maybe not. If no, you just do it their way. It's their school.
And as for knowing what works in a classroom, sometimes the whole point is that what works best in the classroom is not the main priority. And this may be in no way the fault of the manager, who may even wish he could do what is best. But there are often other, overriding considerations that they can't tell you. If they tell you them directly, now they are putting themselves at risk. Some things need to be left unsaid, but still understood. |
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candy bar
Joined: 03 Dec 2012
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 4:17 am Post subject: |
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| dhan89 wrote: |
OP,
you wrote this thread in hysterics... you asked for advice, and then you end up bashing some people giving you some harsh advice. I've read every single post here and no one is purposefully trying to bring you down...
You wrote this post. No one put a gun to your head to write it to reveal your cards..
Just some advice for you:
- You have a JOB. And like every job, you don't call the shots. The day you can market and establish a hagwon and try to retain 300 parents coming to your hagwon year after year... then you probably will be able to make an efficient schedule as you see fit.
- Get rid of your American holier-than-thou opinionated attitude. I'm saying this in a nice manner. I'm sure in the UK and US, being outspoken is valued. This is Korea where hierarchy is a reality and listening and obeying to elders in GENERAL is valued. They'll appreciate that and it will help you tremendously.
- Don't ever break down in public. Korea is a shame-based culture vs. Western's guilt-based culture. Meaning, Koreans can hold something against you for a long time for public mishaps a.k.a shit show. The best way to remedy that is to be aware that you totally lost it for a bit and work harder to eradicate that from their memory.
- As the previous comment reads, it's all a beautiful act. Remember that hagwon is a real business. No student = no money = no job = no us teachers. Make people happy. parents, students, etc.
These are general tips that I received from gyopo teachers here. I wish you the best of luck. |
good advice |
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