The way that you think decides who you will be

SungKyunKwan University(성균관대학교) was founded at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty in 1398 as the highest national educational institute in the early years of the Josen Dynasty in Korea. As the oldest university in East Asia, it has fostered leaders of Korean society for over 600 years.

‘SKKU’s main ideology,  수기치인(修己治人)pronounced ‘Su-Gi-Chi-In’, teaches that SKKU students strive to perfect themselves as leaders and contribute to our society.

Especially in 21^st century, in order to let the students get adapt to the high speed changing society, SKKU offers them great opportunities to hear from the successful people. In this way, students can learn not only what is written in the textbook, but also what is happening right now outside the window. At April, 2017. EXEM CEO, Mr. Cho Jongam gave a lecture to students from Business Management major and Computer majors(in totall 80 students joined this lecture).

Mr. Cho Jongam talked about his personal experience about start his own company EXEM and how EXEM developed in a very high speed. Through the whole talk, he has been emphasizing one thing: ‘To think and behave in probability’.

At the very beginning of the lecture, he raised a question: What is your way of thinking? Result-oriented thinking(결과지향적 사고방식) or Process-oriented thinking(과정지향적 사고방식)?

"It was the best lecture that I've had in this semester. I learned a lot! " one student said.

"What is the difference between these two ways of thinking? "

To make it easy to understand, Mr. Cho gave us some examples. For those who has a result-oriented thinking will always focus on the planned result but ignore the changing environment. They do not take time to observe what is changing at the time, the only thing they focus on is how to accomplish their planned result.

However, for those who have process-oriented thinking, they will observe the environment all the time and change their strategy or ways to accomplish their plan all the time. In other words, they work or study in a changeable way. Through their trying, they always think “is there a better way to solve this problem?” or “What is connected to this problem that may have a confluence on what I am doing right now?”

So when they are doing A, they may consider what if B could influence A and whether C is also connected with A or B. In other words, they have an open mind to consider more possibilities and what they keep doing is only to rise the possibilities of success.

Let’s go back to the story of Mr. Cho who started EXEM 16 years ago. Students from SKKU were so curious about how Mr. Cho ran his own company from a new start-up to a KOSDAQ(Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotation) listed company in Korea and has been a leading firm in domestic market.

Mr. Cho was sharing his stories and his views of thinking

After the lecture, several students had a chance to 'ask CEO' face-to-face

Mr. Cho told all the students that he is a typical Process-oriented person who had never planned to run a company like today’s EXEM. What he had in mind is just “How about developing a new software that helps consultant analyzing Oracle?” (Because before he ran EXEM, he was one of the experienced Oracle consultants who needs to manage database for all the time.)

Then, he started to develop the software that seemed to be popular in the market but he was not 100% sure at that time. He just tried and succeeded. And then he thought “why not expand our product lines to Application Performance Management Tool?” Yeah, why not?! He tried and succeeded again…

That is the secret of how Mr. Cho keeps trying and making new decisions. But still one thing you need to know is that: He reads a lot! ( ‘A lot’ is definitely more than what you think ‘a lot’ means)

Through the books, he has a better understanding of the world that before he was born and the world that has not come yet. That also helps him to make more smart decisions~

Face-to-face conversation with EXEM CEO after the lecture

"EXEM is not only a leading firm in Korea, we are always ready to help young people make their future brighter."