Real Man

A moment later, Yoo-hyun faced Jo Chan-young, the executive in charge of sales and marketing, in his office.

Unlike a few minutes ago when he was furious, he looked relaxed.

To be precise, he pretended to be relaxed as he crossed his short legs and rested his arms on the sofa.

“Seeing you like this, I remember what you said.”

“What did I say?”

“You used the casebook of new employees as an example. You pointed out why PDA was impossible with that. Do you remember?”

He was talking about the time when he stepped up to correct Park Seung Woo’s wrong project.

Yoo-hyun nodded his head as he recalled the scene.

“Yes, I remember.”

“You had quite an insight for a first-year employee. Come to think of it, Park Seung Woo, who did the color phone, or Kim Young-gil, who did the apple phone, were the same. And I don’t need to mention Choi Min-hee, the team leader.”

“It was thanks to being in a good part.”

“Yeah, that good part was completely gone. Our core personnel disappeared in an instant.”

At that time, the product planning team 3 was made up of people who were not recognized at all.

Why did they suddenly become core personnel?

He understood the sense of loss, but he needed to correct the facts.

“Weren’t there many better people left?”

“Are you kidding me? There’s not a single one of them who has a clear mind. I wonder if it’s right for me to keep dragging them along.”

“…”

Yoo-hyun lost his words for a moment at the absurd reaction.

He didn’t care about Yoo-hyun’s stiff expression and continued his nonsense.

“I’m saying this as a director, but honestly, it’s exhausting to lead people who have no ability. No matter how passionate the leader is, it’s not easy if they don’t support him from below.”

“Isn’t that the leader’s role to lead them?”

“That’s theoretically true. But more important than that is employee happiness. Look at Kim Hyun-min, that guy.”

“Kim Hyun-min, the executive?”

“Yeah. He was just a slacker, but he’s doing great with the core personnel supporting him.”

Kim Hyun-min was a slacker, but that wasn’t all.

The Kim Hyun-min that Yoo-hyun experienced was more of a leader than anyone else.

“He didn’t have a chance before. He was a competent person.”

“No, he had no expertise at all. He didn’t even have any experience of doing the job properly. And then what? He dared to ask me to take the ultra-high-resolution panel?” 𝘙â𐌽ố𝐁Ёș

The truth that came out of nowhere made Yoo-hyun’s eyes narrow.

“So you didn’t take it?”

“That was my idea in the first place. But he took it and packaged it as if he did it all by himself. How can I take it? I have pride too.”

“…”

How could he throw away the performance of his department just because of his pride?

The employees had to bear the consequences.

And the idea of the ultra-high-resolution panel was discovered by Kim Young-gil.

Jo Chan-young was delusional and stubborn.

But he still acted as if he was great, lifting his chin and boasting.

“I have a lot of items that will break his nose. It’s just that the guys below don’t follow me well.”

They didn’t follow you well, so it didn’t work?

-I was going to help you with the contest. I wanted to see how far you could go by yourself. You’re a guy who works hard as much as you’re greedy.

At least Kim Hyun-min didn’t blame his employees.

He watched his employees from behind and tried to fill in the gaps.

But Jo Chan-young didn’t do anything for his employees.

Yoo-hyun had a lot of things he wanted to say to Jo Chan-young.

But as soon as he said it, the conversation would end, so he asked what he wanted to confirm first.

“Isn’t there a problem with the direction if you think the employees don’t follow you well?”

“Direction? Of course, our department is harder than other organizations. But there’s nothing we can’t do if we push it to the end.”

“LCD has its technical limitations. Just lowering the price won’t…”

What Jo Chan-young was obsessed with was reducing the cost of LCD panels.

He brought in impossible technologies and tried to achieve extreme results, and the employees below suffered.

Yoo-hyun tried to point out this part, but Jo Chan-young changed the subject.

“A director, you’re a leader now, right?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then you have to think well. The moment the leader sets the limit, the organization is over.”

“Then what?”

“The leader breaks the limit. That’s what I’m asking of our employees. If each one becomes the best in the world, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

Why did the employees have to become the best in the world when the leader broke the limit?

The logic was inconsistent, and it contained the reason why he blamed everything on his employees.

If the leader had this mindset, the employees had no choice but to be pushed to the edge of the cliff.

“It’s hard for the employees if you push them like that.”

“Are you tired of this? This is nothing. When I was…”

Jo Chan-young threw the invincible logic of “when I was”.

This meant that he had gone as far as he could.

His mind was stuck in the past, and the brilliant side he showed occasionally was nowhere to be seen.

Why did he become so ruined?

No, was he not fit from the beginning?

Maybe he stayed too long and caused this mess.

Yoo-hyun opened his mouth with a hardened expression.

“Executive, times have changed a lot.”

“They change, but the essence is the same. You have to know that you can do anything with perseverance.”

You can’t do anything with perseverance alone. You’re the one who can’t do anything and blame your employees!

This word came up to his throat, but Yoo-hyun held it back.

There was no point in saying it, because it would only lead to a fight.

Instead, Yoo-hyun squeezed out his last kindness and advised him.

“You can’t do everything with perseverance alone. If you think the employees don’t follow you well, you need to check if the direction is wrong.”

“Are you saying I did something wrong?”

“No, I think you’re pushing yourself too hard. You should check it at this point…”

Yoo-hyun thought there was a possibility that the organization could revive if he changed the direction.

It wasn’t just because it was the organization where his old colleagues stayed.

It was a conviction based on the plans they submitted and rejected.

But Jo Chan-young, who had already twisted his mind, didn’t listen.

“Oh, you’re already a director, huh? And I’m still the same?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what? Did you just come here to act smart because you’re bored? Do you think I’m funny?”

He snapped at Yoo-hyun instead.

Yoo-hyun answered him calmly at his childish and unfunny attitude.

“No, I just wanted to say something for the sake of the personnel, not the executive.”

“Why do you care?”

“I have a duty to do so.”

The main reason why Jo Chan-young, the executive director, had kept his position until now was because of Yoo-hyun.

He had driven away Lee Kyung-hoon, the director who had checked on Jo Chan-young, and continued to produce good results for his department.

Jo Chan-young, who had no idea about this fact, snorted and waved his hand.

“Really, you’re so stubborn. I have nothing more to say to you, so just go.”

“Yes, I will. But I have one thing to say.”

“What is it?”

“Director Kim Hyun-min’s success is not because of his luck with the employees. It’s because he won their hearts.”

It was not a word to clear up the misunderstanding.

It was just something he wanted to say.

“I couldn’t win the hearts of the employees?”

Even to Jo Chan-young’s question, Yoo-hyun spat out what he wanted to say.

“Yes. At least that’s how it looks to me. You should know that without the employees, there would be no you as you are now.”

“What did you say?”

Since he had given up on the expectation that he would understand, he had nothing more to say.

Yoo-hyun, who got up from his seat, bowed.

“I’ll be going now.”

It was his last greeting to his former boss.

He came out and looked around the office.

He saw the employees working silently.

What did they do wrong?

He couldn’t think of anything other than that they had met the wrong leader.

And that was an undeniable fact.

“…”

Yoo-hyun had nothing to say about it.

But he decided to erase the meaningless assumptions now.

Yoo-hyun was not a god.

He could make mistakes like this at any time, and realize it too late like now.

Rather than reflecting on it every time, it was better to set up a system that would prevent this from happening in the first place.

How to do it?

Not by giving the executives a break, but by cutting them off more boldly if they act out of line.

In other words, make them fear the employees.

That way, the leaders can lead the organization with responsibility.

When the leaders stand upright, the big ship called Hansung can move forward.

This was something that Yoo-hyun believed without a doubt.

And that work was in progress now.

A few days later.

The financial, human resources, and technical managers of the three companies, Electronics, Display, and Technique, gathered in one place.

“Today…”

Shin Kyung-wook, the vice president who stood in front of them, mentioned the internal innovation plan himself.

It was unexpected and radical, wasn’t it?

The storm had already hit the financial sector, and a big shock had been delivered to the human resources sector.

The human resources manager of Hansung Technique, who was surprised, asked.

“You’re going to change the executive evaluation system drastically?”

“Yes. I’m going to reflect the upward feedback scores of the employees on the entire executive evaluation. And I’m going to make a clear difference in performance based on the overall evaluation.”

In other words, he was saying that he would get rid of the executives who were not recognized by the employees.

The foreign executive who heard the explanation through the interpreter challenged him in English.

“The intention is good, but there could be discrimination issues.”

“What kind of discrimination are you talking about?”

“Specific executives, especially the owner’s family, will be excluded from the evaluation, won’t they?”

“No, of course I will be evaluated as well. And I called you here to ask you to create a system that can handle me boldly if I fail.”

“Really…”

He said he would put his own rice bowl on the line, so what could the foreign executive say?

Shin Kyung-wook’s momentum continued.

The atmosphere was swaying.

In the midst of it, Oh Joo-hwan, the executive director in charge of management innovation, recalled what Yoo-hyun had said to him a while ago.

-The success of the internal innovation plan depends on the support of our display department. You have to make the decision, Director.

He thought it was absurd, but it was unfolding before his eyes.

It was time to decide whether to support it or not.

Oh Joo-hwan’s dilemma deepened.

“It’s time to move.”

On the other hand, Yoo-hyun, who was sitting in his office, imagined Oh Joo-hwan’s moves.

He was in charge of management innovation, and he managed the financial, human resources, and general affairs departments.

There were separate heads for each department, but he was the only one who had won them all over in the company.

He was the only one who could touch the company system as a whole.

That’s why Yoo-hyun had gone to Oh Joo-hwan himself and offered him a favor, and now it was time for the results to come out.

Would he trust Shin Kyung-wook and take the lead?

Or would he just pretend to follow the group’s mood?

It was hard to choose easily, but it wasn’t 50 to 50.

There was clearly a side that had more benefits than risks.

Yoo-hyun believed that Oh Joo-hwan would surely choose that side.

And now.

Ring.

His phone rang and a message came in that matched his faith.

-Yoo-hyun, Director Oh Joo-hwan called me as you said. He said to present the human resources innovation plan. Do I need to prepare anything?

It was a text from Seo Chang-woo, his colleague in the human resources team.

Yoo-hyun smiled as he checked the content.

‘He’s more bold than I thought.’

He called the practitioners as well, which meant that Oh Joo-hwan was not just choosing the electronics, but trying to be more proactive.

If he made such a clear decision, the responsibility that came back would be greater.

This would also be a great opportunity for the practitioners who had prepared under the water.

Yoo-hyun sent a reply as he imagined the future situation.

-No. Just do as you always do.

Starting with Seo Chang-woo, he also received contacts from his colleagues in other departments.

Their plans would now be analyzed and reviewed in detail by Oh Joo-hwan.

When would it be over?

It wouldn’t take long.

There would be a meeting of the presidents soon.