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President Yoon Suk-yeol arrives at a People Power Party luncheon in Seoul on Oct. 19. (Yonhap)

With the Yoon Suk-yeol administration now in its sixth month, there is a widespread consensus that it is doing a poor job.

“Their tactical capabilities are too poor,” said Yoon Tae-gon, director of political analysis at the consultancy The Moa.

“This isn’t a situation where there are major issues with the broader strategic framework in terms of things like labor reforms, pension reforms, education reforms, or changes to global supply chains. But their abilities in terms of creating and implementing plans are so poor that it is bringing down the political base,” he explained.

“This is in stark contrast with the Moon Jae-in administration, which adopted an agenda where opinions were sharply divided on things like converting irregular workers to regular status, but which showed exceptional abilities in its implementation,” he added.

In weekly surveys by the polling company Gallup Korea, the percentage of respondents citing “lack of experience/qualification and incompetence” as a reason for negatively rating the president has been on the rise, climbing from 8.8% in July to 10.4% and 12.6% in September–October (average of weekly results). Over the same period, the proportion citing the administration’s “generally misguided” approach increased from 3.5% to 5.2% to 8.0%.

When companies and public institutions fail to produce results, this typically stems from issues with the organization and its personnel management.

“If the results (items or sales) that a company produces are poor, it tends to be the case that there are organizational issues,” commented one official who has worked for over three decades in personnel management at a global corporation. In other words, the question is not whether the people themselves are smart and capable, but how the organization operates.

To examine this further, I analyzed the makeup of the current presidential office’s senior-level staffing at the secretary level and higher (not including the National Security Office or the Presidential Security Service). When three former officials are included, the number of these secretary-level and higher employees in Yoon’s presidential office stands at 50 in all.

Six of them (12%) are former prosecutors, and 13 (26%) are politicians. While they are not counted among those 13, three more officials could be seen as “politicians” in the broader sense: two with no political background outside of their activities with the New Right Union, and one speech secretary who is a former trader. Only two of the senior-level staffers come from backgrounds in academia and research.

Ahn Sang-hoon, Yoon’s senior presidential secretary for social affairs who formerly served as a professor of social welfare at Seoul National University, shares policy duties with Choi Sang-mok, the senior economic secretary and former first vice minister of economy and finance. Together, they preside over secretaries with backgrounds as division directors in the different agencies.

Sixteen of the 50 — 32% — are currently working government employees. For the 13 whose region of origin could be confirmed, eight of them were found to be from the Yeongnam (Gyeongsang Province) area. It’s difficult to conclude that their placement was based solely on their “abilities.”

The situation showed that the founding members of Yoon’s election camp still wield practical authority in the presidential office. Outside experts are called on to handle necessary roles in terms of political affairs and policies.

About the only one of the political affairs advisors close enough to Yoon to be called a “key official” is Han O-seop, head of the governance situation office.

Economic policies are similarly “outsourced” to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF). In areas of society and national security, the ones in charge are people close to Yoon.

In the case of the Park Geun-hye administration, just nine out of 49 senior officials in the presidential office at the six-month mark were politicians. Park’s secretaries from when she was in the National Assembly took on roles such as “general affairs secretary” and “private secretary,” but they did not hold any official appointment authority.

Groups of outside experts — including senior governance planning secretary You Min-bong, a former Sungkyungkwan University professor — also wielded considerable influence. In terms of former senior officials, representatives hailed not just from the MOEF but also from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The home region distribution of currently serving government employees was relatively thorough.

To apply the company analogy, Yoon Suk-yeol is like the founder of a start-up that experienced overnight growth. Most of the founding members who were there in April to June 2021, just before Yoon threw his hat in the ring — among them personnel secretary Lee Won-mo and legal secretary Ju Jin-woo — still hold positions at Yoon Suk-yeol Co. (a.k.a. the presidential office).

But in the “scaling-up” process as a start-up grows, one of the key tasks involves finding the right personnel management system and organizational structure for its current size. The Yoon administration faces the same tasks of personnel and organization reforms — but this poses greater challenges than it does for a start-up.

A company solves problems by bringing in experts and entrusting them with authority. Not only is it possible to change the workforce in line with the shareholders’ wishes, but investors can also recommend that experts be brought on board. But it’s comparatively difficult for a president to exercise unilateral appointment authority over the internet elite in their “governing alliance.”

Another issue is the lack of diversity among the founding members. In a 2006 paper analyzing 170 Silicon Valley startups, University of Southern California professor Christine Beckman identified a clear trend where companies whose founding members came from different business backgrounds adopted “exploration” strategies involving the creation of new items and business models, whereas those whose founding members came from the same business adopted “exploitation strategy” of trying to effect improvements and boost efficiency for existing items and business models.

This suggests that too much homogeneity can be an obstacle for startups as they attempt to transform and discover new business opportunities. This may explain why the Yoon administration is not only still struggling to expand its support from the time of its election campaign, but also resisting change at a time when even conservative media are advising it to “get past” its prosecutor patterns.

The large-scale reshuffling of presidential office administrative officials that took place after Yoon took office was touched off by a security incident, when it came to light that Lee Won-mo’s wife (identified by her surname Shin) accompanied the president on his trip to the NATO summit.

According to legal world sources, Yoon and Ju Jin-woo played a “bridge” role in the first meeting between Lee and Shin during their time as prosecutors. Shin had also reportedly been close with first lady Kim Keon-hee before that.

Kim Tae-hyo, who plays the role of the administration’s foreign affairs and national security “brain” as first deputy director of the National Security Office, is said to have met periodically with Yoon before his inauguration while living at Acrovista in Seoul’s Seocho neighborhood, where Yoon’s private residence is located.

Quite a few of the people who filled out the presidential office after the reshuffle were attorneys with law firms that hired many people with histories as senior officials with the prosecutors. At a time when large numbers of career government officials were being let go from the presidential office due to a “lack of working capabilities,” all the administrative officers with backgrounds in the MOEF held on to their positions.

When an organization is as cozy as this for “insiders,” can it be expected to function properly? It’s hard not to be skeptical.

By Cho Gwi-dong, author and reporter for Chosun Biz.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]