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Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

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51–60 of 72 posts

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#51

I hate Koreans for doing this to other Koreans. I will never ever get over how koreans basically turned the whole country into hell joseon and there is no escape. Korea would be a much better place if they allowed themselves some slack.

Aren't Japan and China very similar? They are all societies where the group is valued as more important than the individual.

To a westerner, all east Asian people look alike. To an east Asian person, all white westerners look alike.

I would estimate that Japanese differ from Chinese to a similar degree that Russians differ from Spaniards.

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#52
post #32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small country that effectively operates as an island with angry nuclear-armed neighbors and no natural resources has figured out how to survive in the world through the skills nurtured within its own people. South Korea doesn't have the privileges that Canada and Finland both have of friendly adjacent neighbors and natural resources, which provide opportunities when Nortel and Nokia respectively stopped succeeding…

Finland has friendly neighbors? There is a good reason why they have a draft. A simple check of who is on the other side of their largest border combined with any history book from the last 400 years would suggest the reason.

Well swedes would love nothing more than some "empire strikes back" :D

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#53
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small country that effectively operates as an island with angry nuclear-armed neighbors and no natural resources has figured out how to survive in the world through the skills nurtured within its own people. South Korea doesn't have the privileges that Canada and Finland both have of friendly adjacent neighbors and natural resources, which provide opportunities when Nortel and Nokia respectively stopped succeeding…

Koreans believe they can brute force their way to success but during the last 10year these policies have been failing them. It does not help that they are naturally fatalists so its always all or nothing scenario.

being life-or-death micromanaged by imperial Japanese tends to leave some marks

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#54
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small country that effectively operates as an island with angry nuclear-armed neighbors and no natural resources has figured out how to survive in the world through the skills nurtured within its own people. South Korea doesn't have the privileges that Canada and Finland both have of friendly adjacent neighbors and natural resources, which provide opportunities when Nortel and Nokia respectively stopped succeeding…

Finland has very few natural resources, mainly just forests. And the forestry industry experienced a major decline around the same time as Nokia did. And there is a long border with Russia, one of the worst neighbours any country could have.

Finland had 1 thing: nokia, and microsoft destroyed it.

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#55
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shit trickles down. I foresee Saturday morning meetings for their direct reports, etc until everyone works 6 days, or signal themselves as disloyal non team players.

It's a pity managers see themselves as "up". They should see themselves as below the engineers and accountants and whatever. Managing is a supporting role if done properly. The boss mentality is corrosive.

Why do you see support being down? You can support from above

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#56
post #31

How does working harder solve "rising borrowing costs and oil prices and a rapid depreciation of Korean currency"? Those are all exogenous factors.

Working harder at something will create better outcomes. There is a lot to think about, mitigate, deal with. The more time you put on something, the better the results. For example, your crops are getting attacked by insects. It's exogenous yet if you wake up in the night to come out and kill them, you'll save more crops.

> The more time you put on something, the better the results.

So if I manually do a task rather an automate it, my results will be better?

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#57
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small country that effectively operates as an island with angry nuclear-armed neighbors and no natural resources has figured out how to survive in the world through the skills nurtured within its own people. South Korea doesn't have the privileges that Canada and Finland both have of friendly adjacent neighbors and natural resources, which provide opportunities when Nortel and Nokia respectively stopped succeeding…

>friendly adjacent neighbors As a Finn I laughed out loud.

Not a Finn, but I found it quite funny too. There were so many other example countries, but they choose to pick to one with a neighbor that is constantly in an active war and has a huge nuclear arsenal.

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#58

I've been reading Cal Newport's stuff on Deep Work and Digital Minimalism and have some of his other books on my to read list. Considering the stuff he talks about and his new book on slow productivity, this move seems like a really bad idea. I'm curious to see the outcome of this. I've adopted a more deliberate, focused work day and already seeing some improvements in my work quality, energy, and creativity.

Cal Newport has his theories, Samsung executives have theirs. Samsung executives' theories about how to run Samsung are more valuable than Cal Newport's because they know Samsung better than he does.

Cal Newport is very much into doing mentally demanding work, which arguably cannot be sustained for a huge amount of time.

Managers... well... sitting and talking in meetings, that you can do call day. So yeah, plan some extra meetings in the weekend, no problem.

If that will help things will be another question.

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#59
post #45

Why the heck would anyone want to “inject the sense of crisis” into their company? That invariably leads to short term thinking and epic fails. Inject calm confidence instead.

Yes, this also sounds crazy to me: "Manage more and faster!".

If my company would be in crisis, I would take the upper management into a quiet retreat, and then have a few meetings where we think creatively how we're going to deal with the situation.

This is really about making the right decisions, not "Manage more and faster or we're all going to die!".

Re: Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to 'inject a sense of crisis'

#60
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland has very few natural resources, mainly just forests. And the forestry industry experienced a major decline around the same time as Nokia did. And there is a long border with Russia, one of the worst neighbours any country could have.

Finland had 1 thing: nokia, and microsoft destroyed it.

Looking at most relevant data it is hard to make an argument the Nokia is doing worse today that it was just before Microsoft bought it. Nokia's market cap is currently close to double what it was compared to the year before Microsoft 'destroyed' it.
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