AIESEC에서의 활동에 대하여 잠깐...
LC로 네덜란드로 시작
NC로 활동하면서 사람들의 경영에 대하여 익히게 되었고
AIESEC International로 가고 글로벌 스케일의 사람들의 경영에 대하여 익히게 되었다
당시에 Global President로 활동하면서 대한민국 대통령을 18분간 알선하였었다.
Q1) What is the major difference between Korean people and the other countries?
A) It's a very broad question. Let me just talk about things that immediately comes to my mind. It is quite unbelievable and extraordinary how quickly this market has developed to the level that it has. I mean \$10,000(US) per caput, GDP is quite an enormous achievement in that short period of time. Still a long way to go.
It still a third off of that of the European and Western countries. So, how is that gonna happen? Here, the president of Korea talks about achieving \$18,000 at 2010. In the next number of years, they will try to get to \$18,000 and you wonder how that's going to happen. What has happened over the last decade or two, is probably not very sustainable.
It is probably not the way to achieve the next big leap. Because if you think about it, I think the courage and duration you guys and younger have a very different work ethic to what your parents used to have. It's quite normal and same with me. Your work ethic is no longer all that different these days from other countries around the world. Whereas your parents had a work ethic which is quite different. Your parents worked day and night. They would do anything, anything to advance themselves and their children. You guys and like me, I mean we spoiled him. Let's face it. I mean, we got it all, we live in nice house, we wear nice clothes, we are getting good education, and we have to do that freaking military service(laugh), and all sorts of hassle that we have to endure. But apart from that, life is pretty good. And we are prepared to work hard but I mean there is a limit, whereas your parents had no limits from what I gathered. They went, zoom, that way.
So, one is about drive energy and enthusiasm that your parents used to have which this generation probably does not have to the same degree. The other thing is, because Korea had no where to go other than advance, your parents and the rest of the population was very united in choose of 'that is what we want to achieve' and all of everyone went in that direction. Whereas today it's a little bit more difficult, because people are better off, different interests, different opinions, different agendas, and all kinds of things. So people are not as united as it used to be 10, 20 years ago.
Apart from the whole cheabol concept which is not gonna work anymore. Now the majority of the top 10 cheabol companies are more than 50% foreign owned. Because they are all enlisted(?) as public companies. So this sort of things are still hapenning now days with SK Global, and even SamSung which is laying out its credit card unit. That must be the last time they can actually do that, because the next time, the investors are gonna punish them. They are gonna say "Right, if you do that, I do not want to hold any shares of SamSung." And they are gonna sell it at all costs, and share price will significantly hurt from that. So, it is gonna be the last time that SamSung can do that kind of trick and SK can do that. So, that was the model that was build before that. People that were incredibly motivated. Everyone needed the same sort of direction, cheabols which is very very powerful and it could manuever a cash around to fund what was acquired and not necessarily you have to look at the profitability every single unit on its own.
Thirdly, you had a government which was not a democracy, let's put it that way, and therefore it could suppress where necessary, any sort of public unrest or unsatisfaction. So it could ensure that it was their direction.
Those are the four key ingredients that made Korea move as fast as it did. None of those, none of those will be able to replicate that next ten years. So, what I'm puzzled about having arrived here relatively shortly is how is this country going to do that? And it doesn't seem to be a very clear agenda other than a lot of ambition. Korea has a lot of ambition. It wants to be the largest hightech country in the world, Pusan wants to be the largest hub, Asian harbor in Asia, Inchon wants to be the biggest North-Asian hub for air transportation. And it is a big ambition, right? Seoul is looking to become a major, if not the biggest, financial center in Asia. Singapore and Hong Kong are streets ahead, but Seoul, it got it in its mind that it should be realistic. I mean, no one lacks ambition here, but I am concerned that it might be based on what you guys had done before. I am not sure whether it is based on a realistic understanding of what it is that is gonna deliver that, is gonna achieve. That is my macro observation.
Q2> Which parts should be improved and revised in the prospective leaders of Korea. An advice for us.
A> I found so far, relatively limited conceptual and strategic thinking capability, in my business. And I find that everyone in my organization well educated, seriously, very well educated. A lot of people have been abroad, like you. Mostly in the US, a little shown in Europe. Well educated, there's no shortage of that. But the biggest gap I find is the ability to conceptualize, the ability to strategize, as opposed to 'just do', and do things with incredible ambitions and run. That's not a wrong thing, nor a bad thing. But it seems to all be based on 'let's make stuff happen today', 'and if we do lots of stuff, something will work'. As opposed to being a little bit more smart about it. What do we want to do in 5 years term, what do we want to do in 3 years term. What are the steps we need to put in place to get there. So, that conceptualization and strategizing is not really there. That's the key part.
People work very hard still, even in my office now, there are still people here. And I ask them "Why are you doing?" "Why are you in the office at 9 o'clock in the night?", maybe you guys, gamers do that, because you guys are sort of like creative bunch, right? You have to work at night, but normal people, which not gamers necessarily always, you shouldn't be here at 9 o'clock, you should be with your friends, with your family, with your kids, whatever else, right? People want to work, they are still quite ambitious, which is a good thing as long as you can channel it appropriately.
Q3> How are you helping your co-workers develop themselves in your organization?
A> By putting in a couple of disciplines, things that weren't around here. We do the usual in terms of every year, we set objectives and we do performance management appraisals in the end of the year, and we write development plans even. But development and learning is not once of the year type of activity, it's an everyday activity, right? So what we are moving toward is a process that happens throught out the year. Where by a couple of things, you set your objectives, if you do that, align with the business plan, you do that to be smart in terms of simple, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bounded. They have to be smart. Then what we do is, on the basis of the performance appraisals, we create a development plan. The development plan has a couple of different elements. It has got elements of self-reading, or self-learning if you'd like, it's got elements of coaching from other people, it's got elements of feedback from a broader group of people, and it's got elements of 'maybe' formal training.
I am not a great believer of a formal training. I don't believe that you can one day work in an office, work with people, work on whatever you do. And then you go to a training course for three days, and you come back and do personals. And all of a sudden you are gonna do all that. I don't believe in trainings, I don't think it works.
I think what happens what happens when you go to a training course, you say to your husband or boyfriend or whatever else, and you say "I'm going on a course". And on Monday, "I got three days, really nice." You walk up there, you talk to all the people there. He listens, very interesting, very cool. You have nice lunch, you have nice evening, you have some drinks with everyone, you stay over or you go back to your house. And you got three fantastic days outside the office. No stress, no obligations, no accountabilities, and it's really interesting. And none more than that. So you come back to into the office, "God, I gotta do all this and all that" And starts up, "Training? What was that about? Uh.. Whatever, I'm busy now" See, you got everything that you have 'supposedly learned'. So, I'm not a great believer in trainings and so which is why I put a lot of effort into creating development plans which are about coaching and providing feedback to people. Because I do believe that training, learning is what you do on the job. And it is about getting the people to help you, to support you, to provide you with the tools to do what you need to do. And that's called coaching.
So, we are putting in place, something that you guys are(n't?) doing, used as a same word, a 'mentoring system', for a slightly different purpose. We haven't done this yet, but we are looking to do this in April or something. To provide, to make sure that everyone has got a mentor within division, which is not their boss. And they meet, go for lunch, or go for dinner, or whatever. Meet in the office in the meeting room, every week. To review what they are doing, and how they are getting over that. So, we are looking to provide coaching and feedback sessions to people where by we train. Maybe there's gonna be one outside trainer who's gonna be here. And we are just gonna do what's called 'ball-place(?)'. You and I are going to sit down, and I am going to provide you with feedback. And you are going to experience how it is to receive feedback. And you are going to provide feedback to me and I'm going to experience how it is to do that. And we are going to learn to do different views, different tools to provide feedback to each other. It becomes very constructive as opposed to challenging. Because if you provide feedback today, then I start to feel a bit defensive. But if you start to come from the same perspective, in terms of what you both have gone through. A number of role plays will buy you understand(?) what this is all about, then feedback becomes very nice, very good. Because we all like good and bad. We all like to learn. We all like (?) ourselves. And feedback is an absolute key to everyday to be able to do that. It's very difficult in a Korean environment. Because Korean environment is so cofucianist based. I mean you talk about being a senior to... (laugh) That we don't do that here. We try to limit that, reduce that. There's nothing wrong with it. It just doesn't work in a sort of an envrionment that an American company like ours is trying to be, also in Korea. So it doesn't work.
I've just promoted someone who, is now become my technical director. He's by far the best guy in that team. His main concern was that he would have two people reporting into him who are his seniors from studying. The guy is, he's 46 himself, and those two other people are 53. I've just arrived in the country, I didn't know. What's the big deal? What is this all about? You are clearly, and they would even admit to, that this guy is a lot more capable than they are. That sort of thinking cannot work in an American company, cannot work in the sort of environment that we want to create. Because it's not about how senior you are, how many years you've got. It's about what worth you can do. It's about how good you are in terms of achieving and in terms of how you achieve with people. I'm 36, and in the Korean business I could never do what I do, ever. 36? Everybody would resign! Yet I can do what I do here. I can be very effective to Coca Cola company. Things I'm doing quite a nice job and I will hopefully be able to do that for the next 3 years. So it's not about age, it's about ability. So, that what we are looking to break through, with coaching and feedback sessions where by we start to have actually honest coversation.
* Light went out *
Q4> Are there many Korean women working here in Coca Cola?
A> At least 50 50 in the office. The marketing cells. Cells in distribution and delivery are men. The majority of our manufacturing are men. Blue collar is very much men. The marketing office is pretty much 50 50.
Personally, I prefer working with women. (Sorry guys ;)) I found that conceptualization and strategizing skills, women are far better. From the personal observation and I truly believe that.
I came from Holland and Holland is very liberal. The economical system works nicely.
Q5> Tell us about yourself.
A> I was born in Holland. In a small town. My father worked at Philips. Every two or three years, we moved to different cities. Then we moved to Sweden. Then my parents moved to Mexico. And we joined them for a while. ... Continued my studies in Holland. Bachelors degree and Masters degree in Holland. In between worked for AIESEC and NC. Cameback and finished my studies. Hated studying. (laugh) I did Aero Space Engineering. Mathematics and Physics all day long. And I found it very very boring. Did bachelors also in business administration and masters as well. I started working for P&G. I wanted to work and study at night. Work as a normal 'brand assistant' at marketing department at P&G. Finished MBA not before a year. Because I had done AIESEC at a high level, all these companies used to know me. So, I played them. They wanted to interview me. I am not really into interviews, you know me already. You've worked with me quite a bit. If you've got something to say, just tell me. So, UNILEVER said "Okay then, we'll offer you a job without an interview." I was already working for P&G. UNILEVER was quite interesting with few other options. I joined UNILEVER. P&G is the arch-rival of UNILEVER. I was in the detergent business at P&G and I was moved to detergent business of UNILEVER. They sent me to Spain to change my mind and I came back and said "I still want to go to UNILEVER". I had to leave on that day.
UNILEVER provide non-structured path compared to P&G. In P&G, year one, you are a brand assistant, in year two, you can possibly be promoted to a marketing assistant, then you become a brand manager, then a marketing associate, but by the time you become a marketing assosicate, you will have worked here at least for a six or seven years. UNILEVER is about ability. If you can take the responsibility, we'll give it to you. We'll give you more as much as you can take, we'll develop you. I joined them as a brand assistant, on dish wash liquid. Dubro, I worked on that brand for a year. I was very busy with dish wash liquid. I had a whole portfolio for a dish wash liquid and a machine wash. I had three brands. I had a team of people on year two when I was there and I started to take on more responsibility. I ended up after three years, running all of the house holds cleaning products. The whole division of UNILEVER. I didn't like UNILEVER that much. Not fast enough, not entrepreneurial enough. So, I wanted a bit of a challenge. My previous boss at UNILEVER had moved to Coke, and he told me that "In two years time, I'm going to give you a call, and we are going to have to talk, about you coming to join Coke". And he did. He called me and said "let's have lunch and let's talk". He had become the marketing director on Coca Cola on Holland. And he told me about coming to join them. He did put me in the official interview process through head hunter and I had to meet with people in London and fly down to Atlanta to have the interviews. I was convinced and these guys were going to pay a bunch money and I was going to do a nice job. I said "Why not?"
I worked in Holland as an assistant - we call it 'the bag man' - you carry the bag of the boss. He was the division president for Northwest Europe. So he was the boss and I carried his bag. I travelled around, you sit in every meeting, you get to know everyone there is to know in our business. It was a fantastic opportunity and I did that for 9 months, as the 'bag man'. Then they sent me to Indonesia, so I worked for the marketing director of Indonesia for three years.
My wife was working for ABN AMRO as an investment banker. I was 28 years old. No children. We arrived there(Indonesia) on December 1996. The economy was going up. We were having discussion about 'why we are growing only 40%?' 60%? 100%? What are the barriers? Can we overcome those barriers? A very good question.
However the Asian currency crisis hit. In Korea, in Thailand, in Indonesia in that order. In 1997, we went on Christmas leave to Holland. Then, 2,400 Rupiah was 1 dollar. We came back on January 10th, 15,000 Rupiah was 1 dollar. 6 times devaluated. We had a business plan before we left. We tossed it out the window. We had to start over. Prices were going sky high and the inflation was enormous. So I had to completely redevelop a business plan. P&G closed and UNILEVER lost about 50% of the business and we lost about 10 ~ 15% of the business. Learned incredible amount from that business. Did that for three years then moved to New Zealand as a country manager.
It was my first general management experience. We start working with the local team from NZ since it hasn't grown for a while. We started putting in some strategies and some people to it and extended the region to include all the Pacific island as well. And ended up being the managing director for the Oceania. Wonderful places like Tahiti, Figi, etc.. :)
And this is my next step as a general manager. Now the challenge is to prove that I can do that on a bigger business. A far more complex market. The economy is against us. Number of health concerns. We made number of not-so-smart decisions over the last couple of years. It's quite a challenge. So, that's me.
I got three children. We had first one in Indonesia and she was born in Singapore. Five years old now. Two boys in New Zealand. They are three and one. All blonde.
Q6> How do you manage your time?
A> Set priorities. Work and family, and most of things are not. Which means that I am prepared to sacrifice TV - I never watch TV, ever, other then the commercials that we need to see -, I don't spend enough time with friends. You make choices, it's tough. For me, those choices are pretty clear. I'm quite happy with those choices. And you have to be very discipline. I wake up at around 5 ~ 5:30 in the morning. I start to read. I read business stuff. Magazines and newspapers. I don't read many books. At 6:15, if we're lucky, our children wake up. The day starts and we'll get on a shower and everything else and we have breakfast. At 7:30 I drop my child off at the bus and I go to work. I'm here at 7:45. I start to work at 7:45 ~ 7:50.
During the day, the emails are phenominal, particularly here in Korea. I get like 150 emails a day or something. I can't figure out a way for my secretary to do some of them, so I'm still doing all of them myself. So, I start the day by having my agendas cleared and priorities cleared for the day. Then I do my emails, that's like 8:30 or so. Make sure my preparation is done for the day. My day is pretty full with meetings. I always try to have like half an hour or an hour in between meetings. So I can do phone calls, so I can do emails, or I can do further preparation for any of the meetings. So my day is meetings. I talk all day. Everyday. I don't do much other than talk.
I make sure that I do all the meetings and all the smaller things that I need to do. I actually have an hour or two to actually think about some of the bigger things that I need to be working on or thinking about or initiate. Korea is pretty easy, because everybody goes for lunch. 12 o'clock everyone goes, 1 o'clock everyone comes back. So that works pretty nice for me, because I don't go for lunch. I'll use half an hour before, and an hour, and half an hour afterwards. So, it's a good two-hour block to think. So I have my lunch, I have a coffee, there's no one around, very quiet, nobody bothers me. Nobody comes in or wants to talk or whatever else. So, it's time to think. And then the service starts again, the meetings, phone calls, emails, and people coming and etc. There's always in a day, I would spend about 75% on all the small things and 25% on some of the bigger things, but I try to maintain that space.
I go home at 6:15 everyday, because I want to see my children. I'm at home around 6:30 ~ 6:45. I put my children to bath, take them out, dress them up, read them story, put them in the bed, and do most often, have some dinner with my wife. Then open a laptop and work or read things. Or come back to office like tonight. I forge(?) to live relatively close by so that I can do that which is a choice you make, again. I don't want to live far away in beautiful Kangnam. Because if you do that, you can't do this. So, you make choices.
On the weekend I don't work. Weekend is my family time. There will be rare occasions that I do have to work, some months of during the year. But when I do work on weekends, always limit that to one day, so I'll have the other day with my family.
You have to focus. I'm pretty intense on what I do. When you work, you work. When you are home with your family, you are with your family. So I'm not gonna even think about work when I'm with my family. Because there's no point. The worst thing you can do, I think, is to become really feel guilty when you are at work about not having seen your family, and start thinking about work when you are with your family. You gotta choose, you have to give up things. All of us have to give up things. I would like to probably spend a lot more on sports. And I try to, and I do pretty much every Sunday. I'd go to gym or go cycling on river sides. And cycling I can do now with the kids as well, so you can combine things. So, board the bike with a trailer, and the children can sit on the trailer behind the bike. Now, Korea, there's not a people doing this, so I have a lot of people looking at me when I do this. And you can go for about 30 or 40 k on the river side which gives me a good exercise, a good work out. And my children love it, because it's my dad, it's special.
Q7> What motivates you most? Money? Fame?
A> Money is important. Let's not deny it. I want to live in a nice house. I want to be able to have a good car. I want to be able to not have to think about whether I can afford to do somethings. And that's the sort of the things that we all want to. I don't necessarily need to be rich. When you get rich, which I'm not, you start to worry about all these things, when you have two or three houses, you got to maintain them. You worry about your house and whatever, your car.. becomes more of a hassle. So I don't need to be rich. But money is important.
What's also important is growth, in terms of money. More so even than the money, I just to see the money to become more. Because when the money becomes more, it means that I'm being valued and I'm being rewarded for what I do. I couldn't tell you how much I make now. I don't actually know. I have to look it up. So it's not that important. What is important though, every year I see that "right, I get so much more, fine" "I'm on the right track still" "I'm still being pussy valuable" so, that's important to me. Then I don't look at it for a whole year until next year (pretends to look at the contract) "ah, okay. We're still in business, right?" Money is important.
What's pretty more motivating to me is, we do a test every year. I'd just done it again. We are gonna see the results in two weeks time in a meeting in Sydney. We look a circumplex of personal styles, behaviour styles. Circle which talks to 3 different basic behavioural styles. Red styles - Aggressive styles, Green - Dependent styles, Blue - Desirable: Encouraging styles, self-actualization type of styles. This is based on a theory by a company called Human-Synergistics, and they've done this in 25,000 companies. Within these basics styles, they got a number of different, specific attributes styles that they can identify. My profile is very red. Very aggresive, highly competitive, very perfectionistic, very much power, all that sort of bad things. I'm no green, none. I'm not dependent, I'm not waiting for others to make decision, I'm not asking for recognition, I'm not asking for any of these things. I'm not green. I'm some blue, some not. Some very high on achievement, also very high on self-actualization. I'm not so high on encouragements and affiliative styles. I need to work on some of these styles.
What motivates me is achievement and self-actualization. I do like bit of recognition for that as well. I actually like the challenges that I'm doing at the moment. Both from business perspective as well as from a cultural perspective. How awesome is it to be working when you are a Dutchman to be working in Korea. It's fantastic. I don't think I would like to continue to live in this country, in this place. Three years, four years will be enough, I would like to move on by that time. It's not my country. But three or four years would be awesome. I get to know... you guys, and I'm going to a language course. I'm going to do a crash course in Korean for two weeks, full time. Very intensively. So I'll be able to speak Korean in a couple of weeks time. I'm not a reader. So I'll get to learn a little language. You get to eat different food. You get to work in a completely different sort of culture. I really like the cultural perspective as well as, I would really like to put this company back on track. In three years time, we will be the largest beverage company in Korea. I have no doubt about it. Call me arrogant. I probably am a bit. But we will be the largest beverage company in Korea. And that's exciting, really exciting. That's actualization, that's about achievement.
I have some ideas on how we are gonna do this. I won't be able to do it on my own. It's a matter of doing this with a group of people. So, that's very exciting I find.
With NCsoft, we are putting together a program which will be launching in March. Where by people can get online music and online gaming experience through Coca Cola. It has never been done in the world. And Korea is the market to do it because everybody got high-tech phones and 70% are on broad-band internet. So this is the place to do it. So this is the place we are jumping on.
Coca Cola is a huge brand. Coca Cola became big through marketing, throughout the decades. Marketing went from bill-board advertising in the US in the 1920s and the 30s. The company had in the US, 600,000 bill-boards in the US. Can you imagine that? That was the medium to be communicating on. Bill-board advertising was developed by Coke.
Then the radio came. Radio advertisement was pioneered by Coke. Then black and white TV, 1950s, Coke pioneered TV commercials as we have them today. 30 seconds or 45 seconds, and Koreans happen to be 15? Then the color-TV came and brought a whole new spectrum to that.
We think, I like to think, that the gaming will become the next medium for Coke for expanding its marketing. I'm very very excited about that. That's a bit of a theory on myself which I'm getting a lot of people from my business to get excited about. And that's why we want to do with you guys what we are doing. That's behind that. That's fantastic. How often do you get a chance to be pioneering something like that.
So, a brand that is 120 years old, we're breaking new frontiers into how we are marketing that product.
So, what motivates me is achievement. I really like to achieve.
Q8> What is your career objectives? Long term.
A> I actually don't know. I had a plan to do what I'm doing at the moment at the age of 35. And I did at the age of 33. I want to run a business in a country on my own. So I also need to be couple of hours flight away. I did that for the first time in New Zealand when I was 33. I don't want to become the next CEO of the Coca Cola company. That's not necessarily ambition of mine. Because you are going to have to give up more than I already do. I'm already not seeing enough of my friends. In order to do that, I'm afraid that I'll have to give up a lot more than what I'm currently prepared to give up. I want to have a relatively balanced life. I just saw our CEO worldwide and the man is completely absorbed by Coca Cola 24 hours a day. So, I don't know.
I quite like to think and a lot of my friends will know is that at the age of 45, I'm gonna stop it all. I'm going to retire somewhere and do something. Well, no I could probably never retire, there's too much risks for that. So I'll go dear farm or buy an olive farm in Canada and live with my family. I'll do something very different. None of the office, none of the business, not with 12 million people around me in a city like Seoul.
Q9> Can you recommend any of your favorite readings?
A> I guess the best one that I read, there's actually two. One is Harvard Business Review, I really like that on a monthly basis. On weekly base, I read the Economist. It's real news. Those are the two that I think are the best quality. But I also like a bit of sensation. So I also read New Week, The Business Week, Forture, Asian Economic(?) Review as magazines. That's a bit more sensational, more photographic, big, big sensational stories.
[American Election 에 대한 생각]
Newspapers, I read Korean Herald, Asian WallStreet Journal.
Q9> Are there any mentors?
A> There's two people. One is a woman boss that I had in UNILEVER. She was my boss for about an year and a half or two. She became really good friends with me. She inspired me in a sense that, she tried to have me slow down. When I left UNILEVER, she gave me a print out which was framed. It was about 'What's important is not how much you achieve for yourself, but how much you achieve for the others.' And it made me think for the first time about what is really valuable. What is really achievement all about. So, she made me think about more than just my own personal need to do things and to get things done. So, I really like that. I still have that frame in my house. I still look at it every now and then.
We talk about every month or so. On the mobile phone, wherever she's in the world, wherever I'm in the world. We'll just talk and go through business. My wife hates it. But it's really cool and she's the only person that I can do that with.
The other person is she's still very much a mentor. Whenever I got a thing I want to think about or get someone to give me some feedback on, because I haven't worked it out as it should be. Another person is my boss in Indonesia, he is now the CFO in Japan. But he was the managing director in Indonesia. John Murphy, he is an Irish man. He has had a lot of belief in me and I couldn't figure out how he'd dare to do that. I was 28 when I arrived in Indonesia. And he had a lot of belief in me and promoted me throughtout my course in Indonesia. And then they got me to go to New Zealand as a managing director there. I still remember what he said to me when I went to New Zealand. He said to me "One of the things that you'll have to do very quickly when you arrive in New Zealand is to get yourself an arthur". Which is my name. And what he meant was is to surround yourself with some strong people who will challenge you, a strong people who will do initiate things, a strong management group of people. Instead of what happens to people who go for the first time the general management role is they point weak people. Because they are bit concerned about having to be the general manager for the first time.
He's still a coach and I talk to him about every two to three months. Live in Tokyo. I have to go to Tokoy quite a bit. And because he's there. He's a good mentor.
Q10> What did you want to learn from them?
A> John Murphy is more of a business coach to me. Whereas Karen is more of a friend. She's got this amazing one thing. When I was in Indonesia and had no kids. We used to call each other out at around 7 or 7:30 or so. How are you doing, what's up, ... And usually we would see each other at 8:30 ~ 9 in a particular restaurant, we'll have dinner and go home. Until we had kids. .... She now has four children, she has a full-time job, she is a sales director of UNILEVER in Holland, she's got a big job.
She tought me how to balance things between family life and work. She's probably responsible for the fact that I'm at home everynight at 6:30 ~ 6:45.
Q11> How do you learn languages?
A> Different things work for different people. What doesn't work for me is to sit in a room with a teacher an hour a day for two hours a week to do that for ... that doesn't work for me. I tried it when I arrived at Indonesia. I did that in the morning. That didn't work. Then I tried lunch. Didn't work either.
I tried to have the teacher come in the car with me. The driver will drive and I can talk to the ... that didn't work either.
So I tried the crash course which I'm going to do here as well. Intensive, immersion in a language is the only thing that works for me. I learned Swedish by doing that. Because we moved to Sweden. I went to Swedish school, I was 14 years old. Got to Swedish class, everybody speaks Swedish, and the teacher speaks Swedish, and I was sitting there. You have to learn, and you do, and you can. Because you are immersing yourself. Indonesia same thing. And hopefully be the same thing here. For the first time, I'm learning a none-latin based language. Except for Greek. I had Greek in school. Greek you don't speak, you only read and write. So, it would be the first time that I am going to have to converse what is truly Marsian to me at the moment. It's like a language from Mars.
Yesterday, I did a video for our sales force. We have this thing on Friday for 1,500 people for all of our sales force. I did this video, it starts as "Coca Cola agent 여러분", then I had my speech in English. And at the end I had 5 sentences in Korean. I can remember one. Which I had this dark-glasses on. Hands on table and say "건투를 빕니다". (laugh)
Total Immersion. You have to learn a language by focusing on it. I'm doing this two weeks, 8 hours a day, starts at 7:00 in the morning. It's three teachers on me. Three people on one. I have breakfasts with them. I have lunch with them. They will not speak a word of English. So for two weeks, 8 hours a day, I will have only Korean. All of it is conversation. And apparently, you come out, even with Korean, you come out being able to have a basic conversation. And there you can then learn, then move on. My aspiration is not to be able to jab(?) this sort of conversation in Korean. I will never be able to do that. I'm too busy for that. I don't need to do that. So, that's not gonna happen. What I do want to do is to be able to have a conversation in street, have a conversation in a restaurant, have a basic conversation with my sales force, be able to do a video in Korean. I want to be able to just do that without having to be a major ordeal. It was five sentences yesterday, I do practice for 15 minutes.
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