Late Samsung chairman Lee's New Management back in spotlight

As the leader of Samsung Group for three decades, the late group Chairman Lee Kun-hee brought fundamental changes to the conglomerate under his “New Management” initiative.

His iconic quote “Change everything except your wife and children,” delivered 30 years ago in Frankfurt, Germany, epitomized Samsung’s all-out push in the following decades to ascend to the top spot in the memory chip and smartphone markets from its place as a fast follower.

On June 7, 1993, Lee convened a meeting in Frankfurt with senior Samsung executives and heads of its overseas branches and urged them to change their practices, mindset and systems from quantity-oriented to quality-centered.

Then he inspected the company's overseas operations during a 68-day business trip in eight cities in five countries.

“If you do not change in the era of internationalization, you will forever be a second-rate or 2.5-rate player,” he noted at the gathering, considered as the milestone moment in the conglomerate's momentum.

The so-called Frankfurt Declaration was the beginning of Samsung’s New Management. Lee, the youngest son of the group founder and former Chairman Lee Byung-chul, led the country’s largest business group from 1987 to 2008 and again from 2010 until his death in 2020.

On Wednesday, his New Management initiative came into the spotlight during an international symposium hosted by Samsung Group in commemoration of the third year of his death and the 30th year of the Frankfurt Declaration.

Renowned business professors from around the world discussed Lee’s leadership and Samsung’s achievements and management philosophy from various angles, which were summed up in the words “challenge,” “creation” and “innovation.”

They dealt with topics in six areas: technology and strategy; talent; coexistence; new generation; and emerging countries.

The academic conference also underlined Samsung’s efforts to take another leap forward based on the late leader’s management initiative, at a time when its mainstay products – semiconductor chips and smartphones – are struggling with lackluster demand in economic downturns.

Roger Martin, a professor emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, gave the keynote presentation under the topic of "What is the essence of management?" He described Lee as a strategist and thinker.

He quoted Lee’s remarks: “Soft quality is becoming as important as physical quality” and “Superior design will lead to competitiveness,” saying the late chairman was a great strategy theorist and an integrative thinker with imagination and insight into the future.

In 2019, Martin himself was named the world’s No. 2 management thinker by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business thinkers.

Rita McGrath, a professor of Columbia Business School, talked about Samsung’s growth strategies in the era of business transformation.

She said Samsung's new management initiative, created 30 years ago, was established in a way that is fully consistent with the success strategies of late such as permanent crisis spirit; investment with destiny; and rapid and fearless experimentation.

Bhutan Tuan, a professor at Fulbright University Vietnam, discussed the implications of Samsung's globalization for emerging countries.

He said Samsung's new management principles such as entrepreneurship, innovation and globalization can be good standards during these countries' economic development.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com
 
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.