0902-How to Disarm a Nasty Co-Worker: Use a Smile

Workers have new tasks on their to-do list: Say hello to colleagues. Don't forget to smile.

Rachel Feintzeig joins the News Hub and explains the impact of hostile behavior in the workplace on employees and productivity. Photo: AJ Mast for The Wall Street Journal.

Companies may be reluctant to admit their offices are anything less than pleasant, but incivility—think belittling barbs or gruff responses—can lead to lost productivity, creativity and talent. As employees who are forced to do more work with fewer resources become more stressed, the rudeness is ramping up. So firms are urging staffers to play nice.

Uncivil behavior can "spread like a virus across teams," says Elizabeth Holloway, a professor of psychology at Antioch University and civility consultant.

Some 96% of workers say they have experienced uncivil behavior and 98% have witnessed it, according to a continuing study by Georgetown University and Thunderbird School of Global Management of nearly 3,000 participants.

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Some organizations are setting rules to foster friendliness.

Meanwhile, 25% of workers surveyed in a 1998 study said that they were treated rudely at least once a week, but a separate 2011 study showed that 50% of workers felt they were treated rudely at least once a week.

Keeping the Peace

Tips for making your office environment more civil:

Address performance or other issues in private.

Don't criticize people behind their backs. Never say or write anything you wouldn't be proud to sign.

In the presence of co-workers practice the 10/5 rule: Within 10 feet, acknowledge the person, and within five feet say hello.

Don't take an employee's contributions for granted; make it a point to thank them.

Be careful taking too much credit for collaborative work; share recognition for work well done.

Never cut off or finish someone's sentences (even to make a point or decision); instead be patient and listen fully before jumping in.

Instead of pointing the finger when you've contributed to a mistake, take responsibility-especially if you're the leader.

When dealing with conflict, performance issues, or other emotionally-laden matters, use face-to-face communication in lieu of email.

When someone is talking to you, pay attention and listen fully; don't half tune in or fidget with your gadget.

Resist the temptation to send unprofessional emails. If it isn't work-appropriate, don't say it or send it all.

--Christine Porath, an associate professor at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, studies the impact of incivility.

At the National Security Agency, an intelligence analyst invited workers to adorn a desktop metal tree—the "civilitree"—with the names of kind co-workers as part of a yearlong agency effort to bring more warmth to the U.S. government workplace. Meanwhile, managers encouraged workers to pay someone a compliment or show up early for a meeting, by sprinkling "challenge cards" across the cafeteria and in the restrooms. Employees who did good deeds were honored as "civility stars," rewarded with plaques and, in one instance, extra time off—all in the name of increased cordiality among colleagues, according to the NSA's director of equal employment opportunity and diversity.

Even Dish Network Corp.,DISH +1.35% which topped financial-news website 24/7 Wall St.'s list of "the worst companies to work for" based on employee feedback, is trying to take a kinder, gentler approach.

Chief Executive Joseph Clayton, who took the helm of the satellite-television company in 2011, says he has been pushing to lighten the mood at the firm's Denver offices.

That has meant summertime concerts for employees and their families and a softened stance toward the company's attendance policy. The company no longer requires workers to scan in by fingerprint and gives managers more discretion to allow a parent to leave to take a child to preschool, for example.

"I wanted it to be a more fun place to work," Mr. Clayton says. "I think people have a responsibility to treat everybody else the way they want to be treated."

He is quick to note that the new policies don't change Dish's core priorities, which include "winning" and "being incredibly driven."

But the changes are a long way from the warm-and-fuzzy corporate culture ofSouthwest Airlines Co., LUV +0.16% where an entire department is devoted to sending employees supportive notes when a family member is ill or congratulations when they have a baby. "We have people here who remember our birthdays when our family members don't," says Ellen Torbert, the company's vice president of diversity and inclusion.

And if workplaces become sullen and demoralizing? Workers in toxic environments have difficulty concentrating and processing information, says Christine Porath, who studies incivility at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business.

Victims of incivility dial back their work effort and are more likely to lash out, Ms. Porath says. And the costs can be steep: Networking-equipment company Cisco Systems Inc. in 2007 estimated the cost of incivility in its organization topped $8.3 million annually, Ms. Porath says. That figure takes into account turnover, employees' weakened commitment to the company and work time that was lost to worrying about future bad behavior.

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John S. Dykes

Employees who have been on the receiving end of workplace incivility say it was a major factor in their decision to seek work elsewhere.

Some organizations are setting rules to foster friendliness. At Louisiana's Ochsner Health System, employees are required to follow the "10/5 rule," making eye contact with anyone within 10 feet and greeting anyone within five feet.

There is also a "no venting" rule; a nurse upset about a missing chart or a doctor having difficulty with the computer system has to retreat to a "safe zone"—such as a private nursing-manager's office—to express frustration, says Kara Greer, the health system's vice president of talent management. Employee evaluations take into consideration whether workers follow the procedure.

"It's not necessarily costing us a ton of money," Ms. Greer said of the rules, which all new hires are trained in. "There is not a lot of complexity around what we're looking for."

Employees who have been on the receiving end of workplace incivility say it was a major factor in their decision to seek work elsewhere. A July survey of 1,000 people from public-relations firm Weber Shandwick found that 26% of respondents had quit a job because of an uncivil workplace.

Not all managers believe capitalism and kindness go together. Ray Dalio, the founder of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, implores his staff to swiftly fire people if they aren't a good fit for the firm and extols "accurate criticisms" as more valuable than compliments, according to a document which outlines his life and management principles, available on the Bridgewater website. The firm didn't respond to requests for comment.

"It is your job as a manager to get at truth and excellence," Mr. Dalio writes, "not to make people happy."

Write to Rachel Feintzeig at rachel.feintzeig@wsj.com

0830-Bosses Say 'Pick Up the Phone'

By 
• ANITA HOFSCHNEIDER

Dean Casavechia for The Wall Str for The Wall Street Journal

At Metro Guide Publishing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, publisher Patty Baxter, center, is encouraging her young sales staff to use the phone more for business deals. Right, Will Diamond, a project manager.

Patty Baxter realized there was a problem. In her 20 years at Metro Guide Publishing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the office usually hummed with sales calls. Now, it was quiet.

Advertising sales were down and Ms. Baxter identified a reason: Her sales staff, all under age 35, were emailing clients with their pitches, not calling them on the phone.

Younger workers may have mastered technologies that some of their older colleagues have barely heard of, such as photo and video sharing apps Instagram and Vine, but some bosses wish they'd learn a more traditional skill: picking up the phone.

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Dean Casavechia for The Wall Street Journal

At Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Metro Guide Publishing, phone-use consultant Mary Jane Copps, left, meets with Kerra Aucoin, a project manager.

While Millennials—usually defined as people born between 1981 and the early 2000s—are rarely far from their smartphones, they grew up with a wider array of communication tools, such as texting and online chatting, and have different expectations for how and when they'd like to be reached. In the workplace, some managers say avoiding the phone in favor of email can hurt business, hinder creativity and delay projects.

Stephanie Shih, 27, says phone calls are an interruption. The brand marketing manager at Paperless Post, a New York-based company that designs online and paper stationery, doesn't have a work phone. Nor do the majority of her co-workers. The company says that not having individual phone lines in open-plan areas protects people from unwanted calls, which can interrupt conversations.

Besides, says Ms. Shih, phones seem "outdated." She takes scheduled work calls once or twice a week. "Even my dentist's office texts me because they know phone calls can be burdensome," she wrote in an email.

Kevin Castle, a 32-year-old chief technology officer at Technossus, an Irvine, Calif.-based business software company, says unplanned calls are such an annoyance that he usually unplugs his desk phone and stashes it in a cabinet. Calling someone without emailing first can make it seem as though you're prioritizing your needs over theirs, Mr. Castle says. Technossus's staff relies mainly on email to communicate, which helps bridge the time difference between the company's offices in the U.S. and India, he says. He uses Microsoft Lync for instant messaging and video conferencing. Phone calls are his last resort.

But email won't cut it in professions like sales, where personal rapport matters, says Ms. Baxter, age 49. "You're not selling if you're just asking a question and getting an answer back," she says.

Earlier this month, a member of her sales team misunderstood an email from a client and anticipated a sale that didn't happen—a mistake Mr. Baxter says could have been avoided had the employee called the client to begin with.

Since May, she's had Mary Jane Copps, a phone-use consultant in Halifax, Nova Scotia, spend two days a week at the office helping nudge her staff onto the phone. Now, employees keep track of how they contact clients and follow a script when leaving voice mail.

Ms. Copps's training includes role playing that simulates sales calls to help with what she calls "phone phobia." "For many people, it's a lack of confidence that they'll be able to say the right words in the right order in the right amount of time," she says.

Ms. Copps, 55, whose website is thephonelady.com, charges $1,800 for a full-day workshop. She began working as a phone consultant in 2003 at the encouragement of a friend. She was skeptical at first as she thought phone skills were just common sense.

Jason Nazar, a 34-year-old Santa Monica, Calif.-based technology entrepreneur, says his company has missed out on potential hires because his 20-something employees schedule interviews by email, rather than phoning applicants, which can take longer. "If you can do something more quickly and more efficiently by using older technology, then do it," said Mr. Nazar, who is chief executive of Docstoc, a service that helps small businesses manage documents online.

While data traffic on mobile phones nearly doubled, to 1.468 trillion megabytes, between December 2011 and December 2012, the number of minutes spent talking during that period increased by less than 1%, from 2.296 trillion to 2.30 trillion, according to CTIA, a wireless communications trade group.

Businesses aren't giving up on the phone yet. The number of desktop phones shipped to businesses grew by 4.5 % between 2011 and 2012, according to Richard Costello, an analyst at the market research firm International Data Corp. Many new phones allow workers to receive calls, texts, instant messages, transcribed voice mails and more all in one system and access the phone system through their work computers.

Dana Brownlee, a corporate trainer based in Atlanta, says the issue of phone aversion frequently comes up in her project management training sessions. One of her clients, a manager at a large utility company, recently had to teach his young employee what a dial tone was and explain that desktop phones don't require you to press "Send."

Write to Anita Hofschneider at Anita.Hofschneider@wsj.com

0829-Startups Struggle With Focus on Quick Returns

By Kanga Kong

South Korea’s obsession with quick results helped it become Asia’s fourth-largest economy, but that impatience and an aversion to taking risks are now proving to be stumbling blocks for creating startups.

Bloomberg News

South Korean national flags fly outside the government complex in Sejong, South Korea, on July 16, 2013.

The country is looking at startups to provide new growth engines, as it seeks to reduce its reliance on the manufacturing industry.

With that in mind, the government is making a push to encourage more young people to create their own businessesinstead of looking for traditionally safe jobs at large corporations or in the public sector.

The government has pledged $2.9 billionin funding for venture companies, particularly in the technology sector. Total resources committed to venture investments in the first half of this year totaled 10.4 trillion won ($93.1 billion), compared with 10.5 trillion won for the whole of 2012, data from the Korean Venture Capital Association shows.

But the nation still has a long way to go before it sees own version of Silicon Valley. South Koreans are not hampered by the lack of capital when it comes to developing startups further, but rather by a culture that emphasizes a quick return on investments.

“Ventures needs patient and courageous capital,” Greg Moon, chief executive and president of SoftBank Venture Korea, said at a recent seminar in Seoul, referring to Koreans’ tendency for seeking quick returns.

Venture capitalists and bankers who were at the seminar on startups also said insufficient space for entrepreneurs to network with each other and with venture capitalists, and an inability to attract the smartest brains to startups were big problems.

“In Silicon Valley, channels linking venture capitalists and starting entrepreneurs are well developed,” Go Young-ha, president of Korea business angels association, said.

The cost of failure is also high in South Korea as entrepreneurs get labeled as credit defaulters if their startups fail.

“I find hope (in the outlook for Korea’s start-ups) here, but see there are also plenty of difficulties to realize that hope,” Shin Je-yoon, chairman of South Korea’s financial regulator, said.

0828-A Stroll Through the Many, Many, Many Investments of Jeff Bezos

By Brian R. Fitzgerald

Bezos Expeditions, home to the expansive world of Bezos investments.

 

Bezos Expeditions

“Old-media printed daily newspaper” might register as the most stuffy business taking up residence in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos‘s home of high-tech, high-concept investments.

The Journal’s Stu Woo in June 2012 cleverly took stock of Bezos as the latest businessman — in the company of Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and Oracle founder Larry Ellison — to use his wealth to fund ambitious ideas. Some of these ideas are real businesses (Twitter) and some are the stuff of science fiction (Blue Origin).

It’s been more than a year since that trip through Bezos’s portfolio. So why not take another look? No better place to start than Bezos Expeditions.

The website is a trove. For starters, it’s named Bezos Expeditions, which literally tells you that you are embarking on a journey of many paths. (The backsplash for the home page is … a river of many paths.) It is a who’s who of Bezos’s investments, with many of the links carting readers off to those companies’ websites.

The first item in the navigation is Long Now Foundation’s 10,000 year clock, whose “vision was, and still is, to build a Clock that will keep time for the next 10,000 years.” A 200-foot clock carved into a mountain that keeps time for a small slice of eternity is flat-out tough to beat in terms of ambition. Sliding down the navigation to something more pedestrian, there is the project to scan the ocean floor and recover the F-1 engine that carried the Apollo 11 capsule to outer space.

Another of Bezos’s headline-making investments is his space-travel startup Blue Origin,  a SpaceX competitor that is working on a vehicle that will transport astronauts to the international space station.

Alongside the fantastical, there are some well-known tech startups. There’s Twitter, the aforementioned microblogging service, as well as Airbnb, the online accommodations-rental website. Bezos also invests in Uber, the app that connects people with transportation, and that human-resources-in-the-cloud company Workday.

The Washington Post isn’t even Bezos’s first investment in the media business. Earlier this year he led a $5 million investment in Henry Blodget’s Business Insider website.

Bezos loves platforms that connect people. There are platforms for education (TeachStreet,which was eventually acquired by Amazon), platforms for the medical field (ZocDoc), for neighborhoods (Nextdoor) and for paperless billing (Doxo).

(Doxo is not to be confused with Domo, a business platform for executive management.)

Some of Bezos’s investments make something out of nothing. There is Linden Lab, the maker of the Second Life virtual world, and Makerbot, the maker of desktop 3-D printers. But it’s not all tech: Bezos has also invested in a company called Glassybaby, which blows handmade glass cups to hold votive candles, and Sapphire Energy, which aims to replace petroleum with a renewable “green crude” fuel made out of algae.

Sometimes Bezos just gives his money away to a charitable investment (no, we are notsuggesting the Post). In 2011, he donated $15 million to his alma mater Princeton University (where he got a computer science degree) to create a neuroscience institute. (He gave the Princeton commencement in 2010.) He also gave $10 million to the Museum of History & Industry in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle in 2011.

Today, the Washington Post announced that it joins this diverse ecosystem. For Bezos, that’s only the edge of the rainforest.

0827-Korea braces for ‘jeonse’ crunch Paradigm shift to monthly rent imminent but painful for middle class

Seoul office worker Jasmine HS Kim and her husband are contemplating what to do when their apartment lease expires at the end of this year.

Their owner has already notified them through a real estate agent that she is considering shifting to billing monthly rents, and would no longer accept large-sum deposits, or “jeonse.”

This has prompted them to start looking for available and affordable jeonse apartments in Seoul, but Kim said there are not many choices in the market. Apartment prices are too high, as are jeonse prices, and they are unwilling to pay monthly rent as that would further eat into their income, leaving them less to save.

They are also reluctant to take out another loan just to finance their living expenses as that would increase their financial burden, even though an increased loan extension seems to be the only government policy that can directly benefit them for now.

As they run out of options amid the emerging jeonse crunch, Kim said the current circumstances are compelling them to “reach out to their parents for a little help.”

The ongoing paradigm shift in the housing market, where the number of jeonse apartments is decreasing and that of monthly rental homes increasing rapidly, is making the young generation and the middle class, including Kim, uneasy.

Jeonse, a unique system that offers a “win-win” opportunity to both the owners and tenants, is losing its luster in this age of low interest rates and a rapidly aging society.

Owners were able to use the jeonse funds to further leverage for the purchase of another apartment, or deposit them at banks that offered stable, double-digit returns in years past.

Tenants, on the other hand, were able to buy time by saving some of their wages while living in jeonse apartments, in the hopes of buying a house in the future with their savings, recoverable jeonse deposit and very few loans.

However, this win-win system is losing appeal with domestic economic research centers such as Woori Finance Research Institute projecting that Korea’s jeonse will gradually be phased out and replaced with monthly rents.

Transactions of monthly rental apartments reached a record high, accounting for nearly 40 percent of total jeonse and monthly rents in the first seven months of this year, compared with 34 percent a year ago, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Korea’s rapidly aging society and global financial uncertainty are making owners shift to the monthly rent payments to provide them with a stable income, especially as their reliance on post-retirement state pension declines.

With apartment prices already high, fueled by speculation and leverage over the past years, the young generation cannot afford to buy apartments but seek jeonse amid tightened spending and slow wage growth, leading to an increase in the prices of jeonse homes.

Simply put, too many people are chasing after too few jeonse homes.

These socioeconomic factors are attributable to the weakening purchasing transactions, which have not fully recovered even after the government introduced its housing stimulus measures last April, analysts said.

Transactions in the Seoul metropolitan area improved in May and June after the April announcement, but dropped in June and July, data by the Land Ministry further showed.

This indicates that the effects of the stimulus policy introduced in April that included tax cuts on capital gains and property acquisitions were short-lived, prompting political circles and the government to devise follow-up measures.

However, it remains to be seen whether such policies could boost demand for apartments, given that social issues and the problem of the looming apartment price bubble still persist in the market.

The dilemma is that no country can afford to see that bubble burst as such an event would devastate mortgage borrowers, create a chain of negative reactions and adversely affect the real economy, experts opined.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)

0826-Disputed Islets Draw Thousands of Koreans

By In-Soo Nam

South Korean visits to disputed islets controlled by Seoul but also claimed by Tokyo have jumped, a reflection of Koreans’ increased interest in heading to the rocky outcrops as the standoff with Japan has escalated.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

South Korean tourists arrive on the Korean-controlled islands last week.

The journey from Seoul to the islets, called Dokdo by Korea and Takeshima in Japan, is a march of hardship. Getting there in a day involves a night bus ride, followed by two bumpy boat journeys of more than two hours each. That’s for a 20-minute stay on the islets, known internationally as the Liancourt Rocks.

And if the weather is bad, travelers aren’t allowed to land on the islets once they arrive.

Despite the tough travel, however, the number of tourists, almost all Koreans, keeps rising.

The islets drew almost 3,000 visitors a day last week, during which Korea celebrated the anniversary of its 1945 liberation from Japanese colonial rule. In the past few years, tourist visits in the Liberation Day week were between 1,000 and 1,500, according to the local authorities.

For other months of year, visitors usually average 500 to 1,000 a day.

“Dokdo is difficult to access by every measure. Nevertheless, (Korean) people keep coming to show their affection. And the number is rising,” said Koh Tae-kwon, a local tour guide.

On a visit last week, an old lady shouted “Hurrah Dokdo!” as she touched the ground after landing on the islets. Her friends were busy taking pictures of themselves waving national flags and showing off a banner that read “Beautiful Land of Ours, Dokdo.”

There were also groups of high school students wearing shirts with an inscription of “Love Dokdo” on their back.

Since the islets opened to the public in 2005, they have become a favorite location not just for tourists but also for activists and politicians on days reminiscent of Japan’s 35-year colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The dispute between Tokyo and Seoul flared up in August last year, when then-South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited them, becoming the first president to do so. Tokyo strongly protested the trip as being deliberately provocative.

This year, Rep. Kim Han-gil, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party and a slew of party leaders visited the islets last week to commemorate the Liberation Day.

With armed guards stationed on the island since the 1950s, Kim Sung-do, an old fisherman, and his wife are the only permanent residents there.

The number of tourist visits to the islets surged to 205,778 last year from 41,134 in 2005.

0823-Making an issue out of racism

The only famous American women I knew about before I went to study in the United States were Helen Keller and Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Then, I learned about Rosa Parks. An African American, she refused to obey a bus driver’s order to give up her seat to a white passenger, and her arrest helped propel the civil rights movement and resistance to racial segregation.

While I knew little about Rosa Parks, a middle school student passionately explained her life and the significance of her action to me. He described Parks as a symbolic figure who changed America’s modern history. I realized that even middle school students consider racial discrimination a heinous crime in the United States.

That’s why I paid special attention to a racial discrimination suit that a fired white employee filed against a Hyundai Heavy Industries subsidiary in Atlanta, Georgia. While the court didn’t accept the plaintiff’s charges, we need to take note of his claims.

The head of the subsidiary made racial jokes, and Korean employees had a cliquish culture that excluded locally hired employees. If the suit were filed by a non-white American, would the company have been able to avoid the charge? Hyundai may have benefitted from the preconception held by many in America that Caucasians are traditionally the inflictors of racial discrimination.

Koreans have only a vague sense of racism, largely because the country has long believed itself to be made up of a single ethnic group. Koreans are not generous about accepting foreigners and are insensitive to their claims of discrimination. Last year, a broadcasting station aired a segment about the dangers of Korean women dating foreign men. While foreign media called video segment discriminatory and resident foreigners protested, not many Koreans or domestic media outlets took the claims seriously. The lawsuit in Atlanta was similarly overlooked.

If Korea could remain a homogenous country forever, there would be no problem. But those days are over. Korean companies are going global, and we cannot survive without living alongside foreigners. Multicultural families are already becoming a part of our communities. Since they are Korean citizens, policies are being made to ensure their well-being.

As yet, those policies are limited to education and human rights protection. So far, we don’t have any programs aimed at teaching Koreans how to live harmoniously alongside people with different backgrounds, worldwide efforts to eradicate discrimination and why racism is a crime.

At this rate, Koreans who make racial jokes without realizing how offensive they’re being could end up in trouble in countries where even middle school students are aware of the sensitivity of the issue. Korea is already a global economic power. We need to begin educating our citizens how to become global citizens, before it’s too late.

* The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

by YANG SUNNY

0822-Minds of Snowpiercer see ‘miracle’ on film

reference URL
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/



French authors of graphic novel talk about participating in Bong Joon-ho’s film adaptation and late creator Jacques Lob

By Claire Lee

BUCHEON, Gyeonggi Province -- What is it like to see one’s graphic novel being turned into a movie nearly 30 years after it was published?

According to French comic book creators Jean-Marc Rochette and Benjamin Legrand, whose 1984 work “Le Transperceneige”(Snowpiercer) was recently released as a film, it is “very much like a miracle.”

Following the enormous box office success of the star-studded “Snowpiercer,” the story’s original authors visited Korea to watch the movie for the first time at the Bucheon International Comics Festival. The two also participated in the production, Legrand in a cameo and Rochette by creating all the drawings that appear in the film.

The dystopian sci-fi, which features an international cast including Tilda Swinton, Song Kang-ho and Ed Harris, sold seven million tickets as of Wednesday, just 15 days after its release, a first in Korean box office history.

“We are grateful for this miracle,” said Rochette, through an interpreter, during a press conference held in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, on Thursday. “It is such a joy to watch our work being reinterpreted and recreated by someone else, and the whole experience has been very inspiring.”

The graphic novel, which was initially penned by late French author Jacques Lob (1932-1990), tells the story of a post-apocalyptic future in which the remnants of humanity live on a train divided by social class after the arrival of a new ice age.

Lob and artist Rochette together completed and published the first volume of the graphic novel in 1984. Lob died six years later. Rochette, who had always wanted to create sequels to the book, teamed up with author Legrand and published the second and third volumes in 1999. Director Bong Joon-ho first discovered the book series at a comic book shop in Hongdae in 2004. The graphic novel, however, is much darker than the film adaption, according to the Frenchmen.

“Lob was the ultimate pessimist, not me,” Legrand joked, when asked why the original was darker.

“I think Lob came up with this train idea because it keeps running; it is not stuck at one place. The train works as a metaphor; it’s a metaphor for a system that keeps running, although it is flawed. So yes, the first volume was very dark; everyone on the train, regardless of their class, is miserable in it. Writing the sequels to Lob’s work was challenging, and I think volume 4 and 5, if I ever got to work on them, would’ve been relatively more hopeful and positive.”

Rochette and Legrand said three French filmmakers wanted to make a film adaptation of the graphic novel throughout the 1980s.

“The first two offers were not so serious, whereas the third filmmaker was very serious about it,” said Rochette. “But Lob rejected it. I think it all turned out for the better because I don’t think the movie industry in the 1980s had the right technology to recreate the sci-fi themed book on the screen.”

The two also participated in making Bong’s “Snowpiercer.” The filmmaker asked Rochette to create drawings -- mostly portraits of the destitute living on the very last railcar -- that appear in the film. An actor played the role of the artist, though the pictures’ hand is Rochette’s.

“I stayed in a hotel near the studio,” said Rochette, who added that drawing at a film set in front of the film crew and as the camera was rolling was quite an experience.

“And I would wander around near the hotel, looking for dirty pieces of paper on the street. I picked up the dirty scrap papers and drew on them, as the characters in the back cabin live in harrowing living conditions. Director Bong let me do whatever I wanted to do with the drawings so there were no limitations.”

The news conference was held before the special screening of the film provided for Rochette and Legrand. The two, who consider Bong as their “friend,” said they were satisfied with the filmmaker’s script.

“The script was already at the level of a masterpiece,” Legrand said. “I didn’t disagree with anything, and I trusted the director. And it was obvious that the script had an outlook that is relatively more positive than the original.”

“Snowpiercer” opens in theaters in France in October.

0821-In Asia, Locals Rise Only So Far at Western Firms

By 
• MARIKO SANCHANTA
 and 
• RIVA GOLD

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James Yang

HONG KONG—As Western multinationals ratchet up their operations in Asia, there is one glaring omission from the upper ranks of management: Asians.

Asians are employed by multinationals in greater numbers than ever before at lower levels, but when it comes to the top roles, companies from food to finance tend to pick Westerners.

When Western companies first started expanding to Asia, headquarters sent an executive to Asia to show employees how the business should run. Decades later, not much has changed. In part, that's because leaders tend to promote people in their own image and culture, perpetuating a cycle of white, male bosses, according to consulting and executive-search firms.

Many executive-search firms say their clients would leap at the chance to hire locally, but few firms are taking steps to develop and groom talent.

"[Multinationals] in Asia often fall into the trap of overrelying on expatriates and headhunters as 'easy' ways to quickly fill vacancies," notes a 2011 study by the Corporate Executive Board, a global business advisory. "But time to productivity is slow for outsiders who lack company or market knowledge."

Having less diversity at the top can be bad for business. Expat executives may lack some of the skills needed on the ground, says Nicklas Jonow, a partner at Pacific Consulting Group, a consulting firm.

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Bloomberg News

According to Spencer Stuart, the recruiting firm, 40% more Westerners are placed in CEO-type roles in Asia compared with other roles.

"For example, understanding consumer needs, trends, purchasing power, brand positioning—not just for luxury brands, and not just in Tier 1 cities—is becoming increasingly important," he said in an email. "To fill those needs, multinationals have to shift their hiring practices to [local] talent who really understand these markets."

Still, 40% more Westerners are placed in CEO-type roles in the region compared with other roles, according to Spencer Stuart, the recruiting firm. At the top 10 banks globally, only three out of 10 have Asian-Pacific CEOs who are Asian or of Asian descent (and two are co-CEOs); meanwhile, at the top 20 asset-management firms globally, only two CEOs are of Asian descent in the Asian-Pacific region, according to recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles.

A Question of Culture

Companies tend to opt for leaders from places with which they are familiar and with which they have cultural affinity. "But we don't see the benefits that other candidates might bring," says Katharine Nisbet, head of diversity and inclusion at Hong Kong-based Community Business, which works with companies to promote corporate social responsibility.

Cultural differences in communication and leadership between Asians and their Western peers is another factor. For example, Asian culture stresses respect toward elders, age-based hierarchy and the importance of consensus, traits rarely seen in Western management styles.

Brad Adams, the CEB's human resources research director, recently sat in on a meeting at a Singapore-based company, where a local rising star sat quietly and didn't speak throughout the whole meeting.

"Afterwards, we talked to him [about] why he was so quiet. He said it is his job to sit on the sideline for 10-20 years listening, nodding and agreeing with the leadership until it's his turn to lead," says Mr. Adams.

A Talent Shortage?

Because Asia is still a relatively young market, many firms claim the talent has yet to mature.

Compared with the global average, Asian senior managers are younger (38 years old versus 43), have less work experience (16 years versus 22) and have less tenure with their current employer (eight years versus 10), according to nonprofit Community Business.

As the job of a leader changes, companies say that extra experience matters. In the finance industry, for example, those in charge of regional operations aren't just charged with boosting sales but are expected to turn Asian-Pacific operations into multibillion-dollar businesses and deal with complex regulatory issues, says Steven McCrindle, partner at Heidrick & Struggles.

But many companies haven't taken the time to groom local talent, either. Mr. McCrindle says it can be a challenge to have some Asians move around the world in global postings.

"Hong Kong citizens may study abroad, but they'll come back to Hong Kong and do not want to leave. They don't get exposed to different regions," he says.

Many multinationals in the region are finally realizing that they have to aggressively work on cultivating local talent—especially given the demand for it.

But that requires a break from a traditional mind-set. "Traditionally, locals are hired for execution: delivering a growth plan, tactics, sales. Not many [firms] send executives to M.B.A. programs," says Louisa Wong, founder of Bó Lè Associates, an executive-search firm in Asia.

Ms. Wong says there is also a desire to save the coveted Asian-Pacific slots for ambitious executives from elsewhere in the company as "experience in these markets is crucial preparation for future top leadership."

A Turning Tide?

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it is actively grooming Asian talent. In Asia, the retailer launched its first Global Leadership Institute in June 2011 designed to help Asia-based leaders build the skills necessary to take more senior leadership roles.

At the same time, many companies are carefully reining in their use of expats, in part because they are expensive hires, says Trey Davis from Towers Watson, a recruitment firm. Local and foreign executives in Hong Kong may have the same actual base salary, bonuses and incentives, but expats also command costly housing and educational allowances.

"If I could find a top Chinese or Hong Kong-born or Asian woman executive, my clients would be over the moon," says Nick Marsh of executive-search firm Harvey Nash. The search is on for the "best female and local talent," he says.

Write to Mariko Sanchanta at mariko.sanchanta@wsj.com and Riva Gold atriva.gold@dowjones.com