topics: |  self-help | management | korea

Excerpts

Wherever I go, I immediately see where money is to be made. I once joked
that every street is paved with gold -- so I just rake it in. Of course,
there are plenty of places in the world where the streets are not paved
with money, and making money is not the easiest thing to do. It requires
a lot of work and plenty of hardship. Nevertheless I made this joke to
show where my real interests are.

An artist who goes to the countryside to paint scenery looks only for
good scenery. Someone who goes fishing always remembers the best places
to fish. In the same way, an entrepreneur looks for ways to create new
business wherever he goes.

History belongs to dreamers, p.32

We lived in the Changchung-dong section of Seoul then, and I had to walk
two hours to Yonsei University, which was more than six miles away. I
did not have a single coin in my pocket, but I had dreams. I still
cannot forget the feeling that would come over me when I stepped out of
the library late at night, or when I looked up at the sky on the long
trudge home. It seemed like the world was mine, that I could just wrap
the universe up in my arms. Nothing seemed impossible to me. The
vitality of youth was in me, and it filled my heart with dreams. There
was nothing that could stop me.

Of all the things that youth brings with it, dreams are the most
important. People with dreams know no poverty, for a person is as rich
as his or her dreams. Youth is the time of life when, even if you do not
own a thing, you have nothing to envy if you have dreams.

History belongs to dreamers. Dreams are the power for changing the
world. I will bet that all the people who are shaping world history
today had big dreams when they were young.

But nowadays I often hear that young people no longer have dreams about
the future. Or that the dreams they do have are fixed only on the
present. If that is true, then nothing could be sadder for the
individuals, and even more so for the nation.

Now I have other dreams ... making a product that is the finest of its
type in the world. I treasure this dream, no matter what the product may
be. It could be anything, so long as it becomes renowned as the finest
of its kind in the world -- like a Parker pen or a Nikon camera. It does
not matter so long as they say that it was made by Kim Woo-Chong and
that it is the best of its kind.

No one eats rice off the floor, p.87

Everything should be in its place, when it is not, there is trouble.
Problems arise when you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing.
Students should be students, parents should be parents, workers should
be workers, and entrepreneurs should be entrepreneurs; social problems
arise when they are not. ... Our personnel policy is based on putting
the right person in the right place, because that is essential to making
the company run smoothly.

[Contrast with concept of {\em Karma} from the Gita, for example.
"swadharme nidhanaM SreyaH, paradharmo bhayAvahaH". This principle is
like a razor's edge; a bit misinterpreted it can lead to serious
stagnation as with the Indian caste system, yet not achieving it is a
sure recipe of inefficiency. In the sense it is said here, it is
certainly classist and is sure to be opposed by thinkers from the left:
Who decides on the "right place" for a person? - AM]

Think as if you own the Company, p.107

The farmer will tell the farmhand to go out and weed the paddies, and
the farmhand will go out and work all day. But the next day the farmer
will still find weeds. He can send the farmhand again and again, but
still there will be weeds until the farmer goes out and pulls them out
himself. Why? Because the farmer, as owner of the paddies, takes great
interest in his land. But the farmhand has no such concern because it is
not his land. [The farmer] knows what he has to do without anyone
telling him. The farmhand, however, does not look for work to do, and
asks why he has to do something when others do not have to do it. If he
is not told what to do, he does nothing. ... If we look closely at the
decline of socialist economies today, we can see that it has a lot to do
with the mentalities I am talking about: almost everyone is a farmhand.

You should always work and lie with the mentality of an owner. Someone
with such a mentality is not bothered by circumstances. He or she is
creative, challenges things, and overflows with determination. Employees
who work with the ownership mentality make companies successful. People
who have the farmhand mentality find it sufficient to earn a monhth's
pay by doing only what they are told by their superiors. And maybe they
work hard at it. But the company will never be successful.

One of the worst things in the world is to stand on the sidelines. If
you become filled with excuses and lack a sense of ownership, then you
easily fall into mediocrity and the indifference of a mere observer, a
mere bystander.

[Having employees who are owners is a policy that must go with a greater
latitude for errors, as in the next quote.]

p.96 What to do with an employee who gambles away the company's money

I always give someone who makes a mistake another chance. That person is
greater because he or she has gained experience. One of my employees
based overseas went to a casino and lost $10,000 of the company's money
-- which would certainly get him fired by a normal manager. I didn't
fire him, but paid the money back to the company and gave him a second
chance ... That man, in fact, has gone on to do very well.
I don't want to lose people like that because of a momentary lapse. ...
You can develop great talent by giving people a chance to learn from
their mistakes.

Small innovations are important. Large innovations are the result of
accumulating many small innovations.

Think about others p.160

Work for others, not just for yourself. This is a kind of insurance. If
you work for a hundred others, my experience is that it is returned
manyfold. The hundred things you do to help someone else eventually
becomes a thousand things done for you. If you share the benefits of any
transaction you will get more business over the long run. Since my
youth, I always have worked for others. My three brothers studied in the
United States, but I stayed home to look after our mother.

Avoid worrying too much about your personal net worth. I have never
counted how much money I have. That is because I am confident of being
able to make money anytime. The secret is hard work. ... If you are an
entrepreneur, whenever you concentrate on counting your net worth, you
have reached your limit. It means you have less confidence in the
future.

Everything is possible if you have confidence. Whatever trouble arises,
there is always a way to correct it. Most people think they are riseing
to every challenge, but are not. The average person uses only about 10
percent of his or her capabilities.

The one thing you cannot afford to lose, p.229

There are a number of things a person should not lose. The most
important is reputation. If losing your life is personal death, then
losing your reputation is social death. ... Conduct yourself according
to what you are called. If you are called a teacher, you lose your
reputation by not acting like a teacher. ... Today there are a lot of
instructors but few real teachers. That means that teachers have lost
their sense of social mission. The same applies to doctors who start to
tell a patient about fees before they begin treatment. ... Even if I
wanted to stop working and take it easy for a while, I could not. This
is because ... Kim Woo-Chong is a name that has become associated with
work.

Advice to young people, p.252

Have Dreams

History belongs to dreamers. Only nations that have people with dreams,
people who try to make dreams come true, and people who share dreams can
be leaders of world history.

Your dreams have to be as pure and as clear as spring water. And such
dreams have to be big dreams. You have to carry the universe with you
in your heart, and your dreams have to be as big as the universe
itself. A philosopher once said that youth without dreams is the same
as psychological suicide. So dream dreams that are pure and bright and
big.

Think Creatively

History is led by creative thinkers and creative people. A society that
appreciates creativity and productivity will never fail. You possess
the power of positive thinking, so you should always begin things
affirmatively, positively. ... A person who begins things with fear has
already lost his or her youth. You should burn with the fire of
accomplishment.

You cannot profit at the expense of others

People cannot live alone. Each person is a part of society, and people
need one another. The American sociologists Peter and Brigette Berger,
in their book Sociology: A biographical approach, wrote about ... how
the biography of each individual is really the story of his or her
relationships with other people. ... The meaning of life is found in
altruism, not in egotism or selfishness. ... The principle of mutual
respect, fairness, and reciprocity is essential to all human relations,
not just business. People have to work for one another's benefit as well
as for their own. - p.248-9