일반대학원 경영학과가 3월 20일 한국계 독일인인 소재한(Chaehan So) 박사를 초청해 ‘Design Thinking, Product Discovery, and Leadership’을 주제로 특강을 개최했다. 경영관리 전공 석사생을 대상으로 진행된 이 날 특강에는 경영관리 전공 교수진과 석사생 30여명이 참석했다. 
 

이 날 강연에서 소재한 박사는 “Design Thinking이란 최종 소비자의 관점을 염두에 두고 회사 내 여러 부서의 다양한 의견을 고려해 창의적이고 협력적으로 문제를 해결하고, 이를 통해서 회사를 혁신적으로 만드는 것을 의미한다”고 소개했다. 덧붙여 “이 개념은 어떤 제품을 착안하는 순간부터 최종 소비자를 염두에 두고, 다양한 제품을 많이 만들어 최종 소비자의 관점에서 어떤 것이 유용한지를 살펴보는 것”이라며 Design Thinking을 실현하고 있는 기업 사례로 구글(Google)을 꼽았다. 소재한 박사는 “구글은 좋은 제품을 많이 만드는 것보다 다양한 관점을 담은 제품을 최대한 많이 만들어서, 그 제품을 최종 소비자에게 피드백 받은 과정을 중요시한다”며 “바로 이것이 Design Thinking의 철학”이라고 말했다. 
 

소재한 박사는 현재 흠볼트대학에서 심리학 박사를 취득하고 글로벌 컨설턴트로 활동하고 있으며, 지난 1월 ‘Why we are wrong when we think we are right’를 주제로 한 소 박사의 특강은 TED에 소개되기도 했다. 


 

 
Q. What is your impression of current KUBS, compared to KUBS 19 years ago when you were a student?

The school changed a lot. It’s bigger and more modern than before. Also the courses changed a lot. First of all, now English lectures open these days. Back that time, there were only 3 English lectures available. 

 

Q. You have got the Master of Science in Business and Electrical Engineering. After graduate, you achieved Ph.D. in Psychology. You wanted to integrate of academic disciplines. What is the main interrelation among the three study fields?

I worked at Accenture, consulting firm, for 5years and independent consultant for 3 years before Ph. D in Psychology 2007~2009. And then I gave lecture in general psychology for 4 semesters. And went back to consulting. 

‘Engineering and business’ is obvious. There are many companies like Samsung Electronics. They need to build the product with engineers and then there's a lot of business activities to market them, sale them, and keep the interaction with customers. 

But why now psychology. I started social and organizational psychology. So my topic of psychology is team work. So team work is in every company. This is the first connection. And the second connection, in design thinking there are many things which actually bases on some psychological mechanism. But so far in the design thinking schools like Standford University or HPI, they don't have psychology for teach psychology. I'm now trying to bring this into the method. 

So I'm trying to integrate psychology into design thinking. And Design thinking is trying to integrate every discipline. Engineering, business, design, and every kind of discipline together. So my main focus was always in integration.

Q. Do you have any memorable professor that you met when you were an exchange student at KUBS?

Back then I was at the Prof. Kim(김언수 교수)’s office and very curious about his Ph. D in California. I did not have any confidence in myself at  Ph. D. At that moment, he told me about how he had done it and said “Don’t waste your potential. You can do it.” And 8 years later, I was leaving work to get a Ph. D and nobody encouraged me. Suddenly I recalled his word. It was in my memory and just popped up. I really remembered the situation very clearly and that became the only encouragement that I had to start the Ph. D course. “Don’t waste your potential” He was the only one who believed I could do it. After that I was really busy working and studying so I couldn’t keep in touch with prof. Kim. It was just last year I contacted him again. Since last year, I have visited Korea more often. 


Q. Do you have any memorable events at KUBS when you were an exchange student?

I had a Australian friend. I remember him because other exchange students were not very interested in Korea, especially German. Instead, this Australian friend was so positive about Korea. His favorite Korean Food was 된장찌개. We did a lot of works together then. Back then, Australians were positive in Korea so when they encountered some difficulties, they thought it was very interesting. But other exchange student especially from US  always criticized Korea for not being open mind. And I didn’t like that. They didn’t make effort to learn Korean. That’s why I didn’t hang out with them.