Term 1 Reflective Journal 2

Reflective Journal 2: Reflect on the working culture and management style in Google and Lenovo.

(You may choose to explore how far their working cultures and management styles reflect their respective societies, share your personal experiences and opinions on your preference of working culture and management style, etc)

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Google made US$ 29.3b in 2010 and its website is one of the most visited worldwide. On the other hand, Lenovo made US$ 21.6b in 2011, and is the world's second largest PC maker. Despite these two multinational companies holding key positions in the IT industry, their working culture and management styles are vastly different, and I believe this to be partially due to the country they operate the company from.

Google gives its employees autonomy, and is concerned with their welfare. It uses extrinsic motivation to hopefully spark off intrinsic motivation within its employees, which the company is heavily dependent on. In my opinion, this management style brings out the best in its employees, as it encourages motivation and freedom of speech and will.

In school, Oral Participation attempts to motivate students to speak up more in class by expressing constructive questions and starting meaningful discussions. An aim of this system is to provide the student with multiple POVs in addressing an issue, while developing his passion in learning. This is similar to Google's approach in embracing candour and dissent, which I feel has played an important role in its success. Its employees are comfortable in sharing ideas and opinions with each other, which allows for them to build upon each others' ideas, and create a product that combines the individual skills of every employee. After all, two brains are better than one. Google employees also feel more motivated to work and pursue their interests in the 20% work time allocated to them.

Lenovo, though, is an organised institution where there is a laoban who gives orders to his employees, and they are expected to follow his orders without raising questions. The disadvantage of this system is that it discourages employees to propose ideas to their superiors, which might stifle their creativity and result in a lack of motivation. However, the advantage is that it is extremely effective, as there is only one person calling the shots. In my opinion, such a company will not be able to sustain good performance in the global market consistently, as creative and innovative products are what sell in the modern day.

In the American society, citizens are more open in voicing their opinions on issues, and are given more freedom in certain areas in comparison to China's society. This freedom covers a wide spectrum of rules and practices, but one simple example would be school uniforms, in which most American schools only have a dress code, while Chinese schools have a fixed set of school uniform. This simple practice might seem insignificant, but this inculcates the value of obedience into students from a young age, which will affect their future work ethos.

Another example would be the freedom of speech in America, where citizens can openly criticise the government and advocate unconventional ideas. China, though, has been recognised as one of the top countries to have the strictest censorship on its people. The government blocks anti-government websites, and prevents its citizens from coming into contact with undesirable ideas which could create anti-government sentiment among its people by banning certain forms of media like Facebook and Youtube. Political activists like Ai Weiwei have also been arrested by the government. The government instils among its citizens a sense of hierarchy, where it encourages its citizens to follow orders and not oppose the government.

One other difference between the two societies is how each culture views values differently. Take respect as an example. In America (based on articles including the two below), there is no strong emphasis on showing respect to a senior because one feels inferior and that it is an expected behaviour. America rather, emphasises more on mutual respect between people, regardless of their social status. However, in China, respect to elders is taught from a very young age, and Confucian teachings strongly emphasise respect towards parents, teachers and seniors. Thus, it is not surprising that the two companies have very different working cultures.

I would prefer Lenovo’s management style, since its culture is closely associated to Singapore’s. As a student, I have been used to following the teachers’ instructions. The school curriculum has stifled creativity in many areas with its over-emphasis on academic grades. However, I would not like to work in a company where employees do not voice their opinions and ideas over issues. I believe that in encouraging dissent and candour, the employees can provide alternative suggestions that can truly benefit the company. This freedom of speech might be seen as an impediment of efficiency in Lenovo, but rather I feel that this instead promotes it, along with the necessary traits a company needs to survive in today’s economy, like innovation.

In conclusion, I prefer the structure and hierarchy of Lenovo, while combined with the openness and forthrightness of Google.

800 words.

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Resources:

Farid, Sana. "Respect." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: July 2005 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/bi-essay/respect/>.

Pant, Rajiv. “Respect and the American Way.“ Web Site of Rajiv Pant. Posted: October 15, 2003 <http://www.rajiv.com/blog/2003/10/15/respect/>.

Term 1 Reflective Journal 1

1. You have attended the first tutorial of Socio-Economic Studies. Reflect on the elective and your expectations.
Hint: You might want to consider the syllabus, the mode of assessment, lessons, (possible apprehension), etc.

For me, I was never particularly interested in politics, economics or social issues outside of Singapore. Our CSC teacher, Mdm Liu, made the point that Singaporeans, in general, are less concerned with issues concerning countries outside Singapore, with the possible exception of Malaysia.

Why is this so?

At the time, I did not think much. However, after pondering, I reflected upon my behaviour and attitude. Are our fellow Singaporeans and I only concerned with issues that directly affect our livelihoods? Well, I’d have to say to a certain extent. It is understandable to be anxious over local affairs, but I am sure that we are aware of external affairs as well. After all, there are programmes and measures put into place to ensure that Singaporeans are kept well informed: education programmes in schools, the media in the form of newspapers (online and paper), and news programmes. I also do not think it is the lack of the ability to comprehend and express an opinion on an issue, but rather it is the absence of motivation to voice an opinion, which brings me to my next point.

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My next point is regarding the syllabus of SES.

For me, the most relevant part of the syllabus is how it can help increase my CQ-Drive, the motivation to learn more about other cultures. I did not rank myself quite high in this area because I am only interested in some cultures, many of which are directly relevant to me in my daily life. I hope that SES will “spark interest” in me.

I was also astonished that one could plan out a whole course just to study the socio-economic differences between China and America for 2 semesters. Later, I noticed that we were studying specific case studies to enhance our understanding of the topic, which makes it more appealing as we would not be overwhelmed with loads of information to remember or understand, but rather pick up skills from examples.

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As for the assessment of SES, I feel that it is definitely challenging. We have to be more confident in speaking up, and do much more research on our own. Despite this, I am willing to learn from this experience as this is a topic which I will gain much useful information and skills from.

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For the first tutorial, we discussed about Cultural Intelligence, and how four different modes of a Cultural Quotient (CQ) can be used to measure one's ability to adapt to different cultures, and work in a multi-cultural society. We learned about CQ from the examples provided by our classmates, and understood a little about how some cultures might be similar or different in some aspects to others.

When I went to China during the holidays for leisure and competition, I visited seven major cities, which had large differences in cuisine, language, attitudes and ways of living. The bus driver specifically told us not to point directly at objects, as it could be disrespectful to the ethnic group living in that particular area. I never knew that this single action could insult a whole group of people. Having experienced this, I would definitely learn more about the culture when I visit a foreign place in the future.

There was another point Mdm Liu mentioned during her sharing: a group of boys visited China and spoke loudly in public in Singlish. When asked by the guide why they were not speaking in Chinese instead, one student replied that he was proud to be a Singaporean and he loved Singlish. This behaviour and attitude is uncalled for, as it reflects how something one should take pride in can become a tool for being arrogant. In addition, during our English lesson the next day, Mrs Ng, in teaching about the history of English, taught us how the language was once used as a means to differentiate socio-economic classes. In the first incident, Singlish was used as an instrument to divide and segregate the Singaporean boys from the Chinese. From these two incidents, I understood the importance of CQ-Action.

There is another example I can provide. During our IH lesson today, Miss Tan gave us a handout about nations without states. One example was the Tibetans, and how China is continuing to destroy its culture. I had visited and stayed in Shangri-La during the trip, and the Tibetans live there. The bus driver, who was a Mainlander, told us that despite being kind-hearted on the outside, the Tibetans hated the Chinese, for atrocities committed against them. I have no idea about the truth of the statement made, but there is one thing I am sure of. The Chinese government had downright destroyed the Tibetan’s culture, and this is an example of cultural insensitivity, which led to the deaths of over a million people.

Word count: 799 words.