No three words make me angrier and more prone to stereotype Korean management negatively than those three: "you never asked." At least today, they weren't directed at me. I have yet to have a long-term interaction with a Korean manager (or even aspiring manager) who hasn't at some point used those words with me or with some other underling. It comes in response to statements such as "I didn't know..." or "no one told me..."
Frankly, in my opinion, those words, "you never asked," are always and inevitably a complete cop-out on the part of a presumed manager of people. I liken it to teaching: do you wait for children to "ask" to be helped? to be corrected? to have some error pointed out to them? no... you must be proactive, when teaching. And managers must be teachers.
I know many will say, but... what about cultural differences? What about Korea's pervasive hierarchicalism and Confucian values? Is it possible such things interfere with being a proactive, teaching manager? On the contrary! Unless I have radically misunderstood the core confucian value system, part of the tradeoff for all that filial respect (etc., etc.) is that the elders are supposed to "mentor" the juniors. That is, they are supposed to be caring, even nurturing, teachers. So when Korean manager types fall back on the "you never asked" excuse, they are not only being bad managers in the western way of things, but they're being damn bad confucians, as well. Or have I really misunderstood things that badly?
Don't wait for the people you manage to fall on their faces, don't wait for them to make mistakes, and then, when they fail, shoot a scathing "you never asked" at them. This doesn't help. It damages them, and it damages your enterprise, too. Identify possible points of failure, just like with the children you're supposed to be teaching, and proactively show them how to solve the problem. Uh, well... many Koreans don't really manage their classrooms that way, either. They don't explain how to do things... they expect the kids to figure it out, and then flunk, berate, and punish the kids for failing to do so.
Does this maybe teach a degree of emotional self-sufficiency? Is there a positive side to it all? I can't imagine there is, but perhaps I am wrong. And it is entirely possible that there IS something confucian in saying to the failing student: "you never asked." Something I just don't quite GET.
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