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"What management really is, is saying clearly what is good and what is not." At first, Kim Beom-seok of Coupang's line sounded simple to me, but later I began to understand how much it implies.
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To do that, you first need standards. "If the goal was 3x growth, then 2x is disappointing and 4x is good." But what if the standard doesn't exist, is vague, or keeps changing? The team becomes confused and stops knowing what it should optimize for.
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Honesty matters too. Without honesty, people distort the situation. You need to be able to say, "This went badly," exactly as it is, so that the direction of improvement can be found quickly.
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Having role models is powerful. Coupang hired leaders from global companies who demonstrated through action that "we are not a commerce company, we are a tech company."
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If you consistently repeat the process of praising what went well and acknowledging what did not, the organization grows almost like reinforcement learning.
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What about your team? Do you have clarity on what you do well and poorly, and the standards, honesty, and role models needed to make that visible?
