Reading this chapter
was a painful wake-up call. When Gladwell first mentioned the failures of
Korean Airlines, my patriotic sentiments were ready to be offended and to rebut
to whatever he had to mock about my country. However, as I read through his
detailed, step-by-step analysis of attributing plane crashes to the cultural
aspects of the Korean people, I had to recognize what Gladwell had brought up
was, largely, true. We Koreans are educated and trained from birth to be
respectful to authority. The acceptance of hierarchy is embedded throughout our
entire nation, and those who are at the lower level of the pyramid are expected
and demanded to be subservient to their superiors; whether it’s children to
their parents, employees to their employers, or just the young people to their
elders. And this tendency doesn’t exist only in Korea, but in the Oriental
World as a whole. Many countries that belong to the Eastern Cultural Region
rank at the top of Power Distance Index scale, which means that people from this
region generally don’t challenge the ones in power.
Sometimes, this sort of
paying-deference-to-authority identity, or the deep-rooted culture that formed
the identity, can be viewed as “beautiful.” That’s the expression Gladwell uses
to describe the excerpt of a typical Korean dialogue between individuals in
different power ranks; he says that the subtlety
is courteous and beautiful. However, I agree with Gladwell that in certain
circumstances, such subtlety is unnecessary or even dangerous. The kind of conversation that Mr. Kim and his 과장 had after work shouldn’t take
place in a cockpit of a plane that is facing bad weather conditions, technical
malfunctions, and especially severe lack of fuel. If the person in charge, the
captain in the cockpit, is fatigued and unable to make reasonable decisions,
whoever can take over should take over, particularly since hundreds of lives are
at stake. But maneuvering airplanes isn’t the only task that involves human
lives or other valuable resources; driving buses or subways, rescuing people
from emergencies or disasters, investigating and tracking down criminals,
importing merchandise, exporting merchandise, or any other possible job you can
imagine of is responsible for perhaps the countless livelihoods, or actual
lives, of people. Therefore, given the detrimental consequences of failures of
each and every one of these tasks, the agents of these tasks should primarily
focus on maximizing efficiency and minimizing the risk of failure. Ironclad
hierarchies are hardly an effective method to achieve that goal.
And that’s why I believe
traditions and customs that demand “respect” to subordinates do more harm than
good, almost in every case. Although I understand such cultures have their own
merit, in a rapidly globalizing world like ours, respect is considered to be
something that should be “earned;” not “demanded.” Free exchange of ideas, open
minded discussions, diversity, and horizontal bureaucracies are what define and
innovate today’s world, and customs that hinder these ideals could be evaluated
as “obsolete.” Especially if someone is in a situation in which he or she is
responsible for other’s lives, cultural legacies cannot be an excuse for a
mistake. Whether you are a Colombian, South Korean, or a member of any other
ethnicity, you cannot be absolved for crashing a plane. Maybe this is why we
Koreans should also start to liberate ourselves from the tradition that values unconditional
obedience. That’s what I firmly believe in, at least.
However, I also understand
that changing is difficult. Until I read this chapter, I thought I was
irrelevant with the Korean norms of submitting to authority. However, when I
read the excerpt of Mr. Kim and his 과장-
I imagined myself being put in a similar situation and contemplated how I would
have reacted in such circumstances. The answer was painfully clear: I would
have behaved the same way Mr. Kim or his 과장
did, and never even think once I was epitomizing our subtle culture. Moreover,
all the customs that Gladwell discussed-standing up when a senior enters a
room, using deferential language to superiors, or waiting until the oldest
person lifts his or her spoon at the dinner table-were natural courtesies that I
followed in my everyday lives! I was shocked. Not because I thought our
traditions were some useless crap, but because I recognized how deeply
permeated our culture was within our thoughts, habits, actions, and lives. How
could I request other people to change, when I myself was being heavily
influenced by culture?
Nevertheless, despite the
difficulties, I believe changing is possible. The example of Korean Airline
demonstrates how change of cultural viewpoint was tricky but possible, and also
worthy. Worthy enough to transform an airline that had 17 times more accidents
than American airlines to one of the safest and renowned airlines in the world,
and worthy enough to earn the firm a Phoenix Award in 2006 and make its record
spotless since 1999. I won’t say that change is always better, but definitely
in some places, change is needed. And
the cockpit of a plane is just one example; who knows in this vast new world how
many more places require openness, flexibility, and horizontal relationships
instead of hierarchies. As it is becoming more important in various occasions
for every single member of a group to speak up, the need for Korea to adapt to
different cultural values is increasing. So let’s change; if Korean Airlines
can do it, so can we.
