Peers, Peers, Peers
Ha Juwon had dreamed of becoming a PM at an IT company ever since she was a freshman.
Everyone found it strange. Why would a developer that talented want to be a PM so badly?
But anyone who got close to Ha Juwon eventually understood why she wanted it so much.
“You really love acting like you know everything, don’t you?”
Wasn’t that one of the comments she heard most often?
PM, short for Product Manager, manages the overall process surrounding a product. You analyze the target market, decide what kind of product to build, and think about how it will survive once it reaches the market. It’s a role that gets involved in as many areas as possible.
So maybe it made sense that Ha Juwon had found her calling there.
“But you keep saying you’re a marketer and trying to come up with the marketing plan all on your own. I’m the PM, and you were making brochures without even discussing it with me.”
The problem was that Ha Juwon’s personality was not exactly a virtue in a field PMs actually worked in.
“Developers are all perfectly fine if you just tell them what to do, so I don’t get why Seonghun-hyung keeps trying to push ideas around.”
The PM Ha Juwon had in her imagination was hard to find in the real world.
She seemed to picture a structure where one person planned everything and everyone else merely implemented it.
That simply wasn’t how things worked.
If she wanted that kind of job, she’d have to run a one-person company and outsource everything else.
“Juwon.”
Ha Juwon, who had been grumbling to herself for quite a while, shut her mouth at my voice.
She looked wary, like she was bracing herself for whatever I was about to say.
One more word from me, and she looked ready to argue with it no matter what.
“I want TA Medical to become a big company.”
That, however, probably wasn’t something she wanted to contradict.
She cared about the company far too much for that.
“I want that too. It’s not like I was trying to ruin the company when I said all that to Seonghun-hyung.”
Ha Juwon looked slightly flustered and studied me with a suspicious expression.
She seemed to think this wasn’t the right time for me to say something like that.
But from my perspective, it was necessary.
“If a company is going to grow, the people working in it have to be able to trust one another.”
“Huh?”
“A company is a group of specialists in different fields, all moving toward a common goal. You can’t personally control the work of over a hundred employees for the rest of your life.”
Maybe my words pricked her pride a little, because Ha Juwon offered a response that wasn’t exactly logical.
“If it’s a company with a hundred people, then what? There’d still only be, like, five under me, and six in marketing.”
I didn’t add anything to that.
What if there were two hundred employees? Five hundred? A thousand?
There was no point saying it. Ha Juwon probably knew herself that she’d just made a childish argument.
“Anyway, a PM is someone who does everything.”
“Someone who manages everything. You can’t try to do everything yourself.”
“That’s because I can do it well.”
“Just like Professor Hwang Junhak doesn’t try to teach mechanical engineering too, having experts in each field makes productivity better. That’s how you bring in strong talent, and that’s how the company grows.”
At the word grows, Ha Juwon finally stopped talking back for a moment.
She was willing to hear me out a little more.
“If the company only has people who do exactly what you say, it’ll have a hard time developing. And bringing in senior-level talent will be even harder.”
She seemed to agree with that much.
But of course, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say so out loud.
Her pride was getting in the way.
“Of course, your sense of responsibility is something I’m grateful for as the CEO.”
So I slipped in a carrot at just the right moment.
“I think it would be best if you handled solid planning and communicated well with the experts in each field.”
Now her expression turned uncertain.
She didn’t know whether to feel pleased that I was praising her or annoyed that I was asking her to help build the company bigger.
“And I’d like you to become even more of an expert in PM work.”
That made her expression sour again.
At this point, she was so expressive that I almost felt relieved. At least her emotions were written plainly all over her face.
“How about studying planning a bit more?”
“Like watching online lectures?”
“No. You could attend networking events, or go to offline lectures. You can do it during work hours too.”
Her face was now full of confusion.
She took self-improvement seriously, so the suggestion seemed good to her, but it also felt like I was pointing out a weakness, and she didn’t know how to react.
“You ended up taking on the planning role by yourself, didn’t you? I thought it might be hard on you.”
“Oh.”
Her expression brightened again.
She seemed pleased that I was acknowledging how hard it was for her and giving her room to grow freely.
“As for the R&R between marketing and development, let’s sort that out officially another time.”
“Development is already implementing things well enough just by doing what I tell them to.”
“We’re setting up the proper structure for the future. If your own workload gets even busier, it’s better to know exactly what the other teams can do.”
Only then did Ha Juwon nod.
She didn’t look thrilled with my suggestion, but that was enough.
Even if Ha Juwon liked acting like she knew things, she was the sort of person who sized up the situation before she did it.
And if she kept going to networking events and related gatherings, she was smart enough to realize her own limits on her own.
Even without me saying anything else, she’d learn plenty in the process.
“Hmm. Then can we talk about something else now?”
And of course, her mood had no choice but to improve.
“We need to set up a meeting date with Director Son Boyoon.”
After all, she was the one going to the place Seonghun-hyung and Jaeyun-nim had wanted to go, all by herself.
As expected, coordinating the R&R between Ha Juwon and Seonghun-hyung was difficult.
Ha Juwon wanted to do everything herself, while Seonghun-hyung wanted to do proper work too.
Fortunately, after taking into account the opinions of the others, including Jaeyun-nim, Ha Juwon’s R&R ended up looking much more like what you’d normally expect from a PM.
“There are going to be new products coming out now. You should focus on that.”
Thanks to that, I think Ha Juwon was finally able to let go of a lot of things.
Instead of me planning things and her only supporting, she seemed to think that with the new product team, she’d have more room to do something herself.
“Then are you doing market research with Seonghun-nim too? Marketing does market research as well, doesn’t it?”
“The PM should take the lead on confirming whether the product should be launched, and then later we need to hear everyone’s opinions.”
Luckily, Ha Juwon was the kind of person who liked the planning stage itself, not just getting involved in everything.
“When you talk to Director Son Boyoon, let her handle as much of the work she wants as possible. She’s busy with her clinic anyway, so she won’t try to take everything from us.”
“Got it~ I’m not the kind of person who goes around stealing other people’s work anyway~”
She said it so confidently that I just smiled without answering.
I’d said it just in case.
“But shouldn’t we bring her something at least?”
“She said she’d hate it if it felt like a bribe, so she told us to come empty-handed. She won’t even accept coffee.”
“Ah. Yeah, I can see that.”
Ha Juwon was nervous on the way to see Director Son Boyoon.
It was her first time meeting a doctor, and she always got tense around adults like professors, so that was part of it too.
“Hello. We’re here to see Director Son Boyoon. Could you please tell her TA Medical is here?”
“Ah, yes, yes. I heard. Please have a seat, and I’ll call you in.”
Seated in the waiting room, Ha Juwon kept straightening her suit, as if it felt strange on her.
Even so, she kept checking the clock and looking at me with a puzzled expression, as if she couldn’t understand why she still hadn’t been called into the exam room.
“We arrived right on time. Why haven’t they taken us in after more than ten minutes?”
“She’s probably busy. There could be an urgent patient.”
“You don’t really take that kind of thing into account, do you?”
Ha Juwon was brutally direct.
At times, it felt like her brakes had broken off completely.
Still, even if her communication could get a little rough with people, she always made sure to express what she actually wanted to say, so no misunderstanding ever really came up.
“You can’t do anything about urgent patients showing up.”
“Hmm. If you want to put it that way, we’re the ones at a disadvantage and the director has the upper hand, right?”
“You don’t need to say it that way for it to be true, and you definitely shouldn’t talk like that in a hospital.”
“Oh, really?”
But imagining her firing off those same unfiltered comments at Director Son Boyoon in person made me a little dizzy.
Maybe the doctor would take into account that we were young, but gambling on that wasn’t exactly wise.
“CEO Kim Siwon, please come in.”
“Yes.”
With a little worry in tow, we stepped into the inner waiting area.
Director Son Boyoon was sitting there, waiting for us after a long time since our last meeting.
She was wearing a broad smile.
“It hasn’t even been three months yet, and you’re here early?”
“Hello, Director. I thought it would be all right to come early, so I came a little ahead of schedule.”
“Ohhh.”
“And this person beside me is our PM, Ha Juwon.”
“Good afternoon, Director. I’m Ha Juwon, the PM at TA Medical.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The small talk went by smoothly enough.
Ha Juwon, unlike when she was with us, had also switched on her social mode properly, laughing happily and easily.
“So, you’ve already raised that much investment?”
“Strictly speaking, we’ve received offers for significantly more than that, and I came today to share that with you.”
“Ohhh.”
I gave the director a rough overview of the companies that had invested in us.
I left out the exact amounts.
I wanted to see which kind of investor would help make the company seem more trustworthy from a doctor’s perspective.
“Hmm. I think it’s probably better that you got investment from global companies, but those companies aren’t in the medical field, right?”
“One of them is in the process of building out a medical lineup. They were mostly focused on manufacturing, but I think they may be setting up a subsidiary.”
Director Son Boyoon carefully thought through my concerns with me.
It felt like she was helping shape the kind of company she herself wanted to join.
“But honestly, at TA Medical’s current stage, I don’t think you need to take investment from too many places. It might be better to raise money from companies that help your branding and focus on preparing for the IPO.”
“Yes, which is why we’re in the fortunate position of being able to choose where to take investment from.”
“Exactly. At this point, I think it’d be right for me to ask for a seat at TA.”
Director Son Boyoon, who had clearly developed a good impression of our company, said the very thing I’d wanted to hear before I even brought it up.
“Then would you be able to come over to TA Medical’s MA team?”
“Though if you call it a team, it’s just going to be me at the moment, isn’t it?”
“That’s correct.”
“If that means you might want to bring in more people, then I suppose you should take the investment. Fine. Did you bring an offer letter?”
“I brought one just in case.”
I showed the printed offer letter I’d prepared in advance, and the director quietly nodded.
“Normally, I’m supposed to pretend to hesitate once and not agree right away.”
“Please feel free to express your thoughts honestly.”
“I’ll think about it and send you an email.”
Surprisingly, the main issue—the offer to join the MA team—passed by rather easily.
From the conversation, it felt like she was much more interested in our company than she had been last time.
Maybe that was why she looked at our potential so highly, paying more attention to stock options than to salary.
“Oh, but if I join the MA team, I’ll end up giving you a lot of comments on the product, won’t I? It is a good product, but there are quite a few things I’d like to see adjusted.”
Then, out of nowhere, Director Son Boyoon turned to Ha Juwon and said what she’d clearly been wanting to say.
I hurriedly looked at Ha Juwon’s expression.
“Of course, Director. We’d appreciate your help.”
To my surprise, Ha Juwon’s social mode was operating at full strength in this situation.