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Dieter Geppert: Global Innovation - Bridging Cultural Differences
Summary from The Front End of Innovation Conference-Europe 2008
Dieter Geppert is director of LG’s Technology Center Europe which has the mission to source technology partner. LG is Korea’s second largest company and one of the “Chaebols” dominating the economy. The Technology Center also channels technology proposals from European suppliers to LG.
To get Open Innovation working, it is essential to establish a trustful relationship between the partners. This means to understand the cultural differences, to feel and to show respect to the partner and to accept the partner as is.
Sharing his long-time experience, Mr. Geppert provided hands-on advice what to do and what not to do when hosting guests from Korea or when traveling there. He also provided historical and cultural background information. Many of his insights are applicable to other countries as well, especially Japan and China.
In the context of the conference theme, he elaborated on the different ways of Germans and Koreans - how they define and achieve goals. Germans hesitate to commit to more than they are sure to achieve. Thus, as an example they tend to negotiate a targeted performance improvement to be say 4%, not 5%. Executing the project, Germans would go straight ahead, achieving 5%.
Koreans like stretch goals, so they could ask for a 30% improvement, which looks impossible for the Germans. Going forward, the Koreans’ progress might look chaotic from a German point of view, even giving the impression to deviate from the target and to lose track. But in the end they would hit the target, probably achieving not 30% improvement but surely more than 5%.
In their daily business life, Korean’s hate waiting, everything is requested ASAP. Very important in decision making are the personal network and a good emotional atmosphere.
He elaborated on some other differences in business culture, which European partners need to understand and to accept. One is the well known fact that in Korea, like Japan, it is regarded as rude to say “No”. Instead there are sophisticated ways to say “Yes” to express various shades of “No”. When dealing with teams from Korea one needs also to understand that the hierarchy is totally vertical. There are no team members of equal status. Nevertheless the decision making often is difficult to understand.
An additional piece of advice from Mr. Geppert: Learn some lyrics and participate in a karaoke evening. A business dinner typically progresses in three stages: the restaurant, the bar and the karaoke bar. You never know. Such dinners may have more impact on business decisions than the negotiations during the day.
Chas Martin
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