Reflective Journal 2

The different management styles of Google and Lenovo do portray the different cultures in America and China. In Google, employees are empowered and are given more freedom in their work to innovate and experiment. The relationship between employees and their superiors are also more informal. This is similar to American culture, which prides itself on being more open and creative, with ideas such as freedom of speech and democracy being strongly emphasised. However, Lenovo has a small group of top executives to make decisions for the company, with few employees voicing their opinions. This reflects on China's culture as well, which places strong emphasis on Chinese value such as respect, and where employees probably think that speaking out is rude. Their superiors probably would not take their views into account as well due to this culture. As such, China is known for being more focused on manufacturing and copying ideas rather than innovating. This has helped China in the beginning, with its large supply of cheap labour, but Chinese companies such as Lenovo now find it difficult to adopt a different management style.

Personally, I would prefer to work in Lenovo compared to Google. Google's management style may seem like it encourages creativity, but the peer review system makes it hard for Google to decide how to fund projects. Therefore, even if you have a good idea, you may not necessarily be supported by Google. If you have a truly good idea which you are passionate about, you might as well set up a company and follow through yourself. In any case, I do not find myself to be neither creative nor passionate. I would probably be happier in Lenovo's structured system where all I have to do is listen to my superior. While it may seem more tedious or boring, I do not find myself passionate about any particular job or subject yet. In other words, as of now, I feel that a job is simply a job. I would only work for practical reasons, namely money. I do not have the intrinsic motivation to work harder than I need to, and therefore feel that whether I work at Google or Lenovo, I would probably still treat it as "work" and not enjoy one over the other. I do not even have the extrinsic motivation of money as I am not really ambitious and would be content without needing an extravagantly large pay check. Lenovo's system allows one to stay in their comfort zone as they never really have to try and be innovative, or make important decisions unless they climb to a top position in the company.

Another reason would be the culture. I find that the culture in Singapore is more similar to China than to America. With a predominantly Chinese population, and having spent a lot of time in schools with a Chinese majority, I find that Chinese values such as respect are also emphasised here in Singapore. While the education system is taking a shift towards a more creative approach to learning, it is still notorious for rote-learning and developing conformity. Though this has been useful in the past to produce reliable managers, it has now been pointed out that Singapore now needs more creative and flexible leaders to remain competitive. It has even been said that Singaporean schools kill curiosity. While I have been lucky enough to have went through programmes that claim to be better at promoting critical thinking, innovation and curiosity in students, I still feel that there may be a culture shock if I work at Google. I would prefer a more similar environment which does not take me out of my comfort zone, even if others perceive it to be a "worse" environment. One has to question, why should the management style of Lenovo be seen as less creative than that of Google anyway?

The Lenovo management style is similar to Apple's management style, with the top executive making the important decisions-in this case, it used to be Steve Job's. Steve Job's prided himself on Apple's management style, which had a clear distinction between employees and their superiors. Yet Apple has come up with many innovative and wildly successful products. Despite the similarity in management style, Chinese companies such as Lenovo have a huge difference in creativity as compared to Apple. Therefore, it makes sense to conclude that creativity is not caused by the management style. The Google management style can only encourage creativity, but it ultimately depends on the innate ability of it's employees to think out of the box. This is partly why it has such a stringent selection process. Apple was successful not because of it's management style, but because of Steve Jobs, who allegedly planned out 4 years of new products for Apple before his death. In other words, if someone who is not creative joined Google, he would still remain as someone who is not creative, which is why I would see no point in joining Google.

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Reflective Journal 1

This reflective journal entry will be about my opinions and expectations on Socio-Economic Studies (SES)

First of all, I will be giving my thoughts about the purpose of SES. Personally, I found SES to be quite different from what I expected. As SES is a new module and has a name which makes one think the subject is quite complex, I was not very sure of what to expect. It turned out to be quite different from what I expected, and was a lot more focused on case studies compared to theories. At the same time, however, the teacher warned that the purpose of SES was not to teach us about the case studies, but the skills needed to analyse those case studies. I feel this is actually very important, as the case studies themselves may not be relevant in the future, but the ability to apply reasoning to analyse an issue will always be relevant. This also prevents mere "mugging" or simply memorising information. Therefore, I would say that SES is an important and interesting subject.

However, while SES makes sense in theory, actually carrying it out may be a problem. Because of the nature of what SES tries to accomplish, it is difficult to test the skill of students with traditional examinations. Thus the mode of assessment focuses on class discussions and reflective journal entries, such as the one I am writing right now. However, this method of teaching and assessing students is highly dependant on the student preparing himself adequately before the lesson. An inherent part of the case method of teaching is that research has to be done beforehand in order for a fruitful discussion. If this does not happen, students cannot learn from one another and understand the different approaches other students have when given the same issue. Even if students do their research, they also may not feel comfortable participating in the discussion either. I do not usually participate actively in discussions myself, which is reflected by my consistently low oral participation points. Other students may also feel the same way and decide not to engage in the discussion. Furthermore, the discussions will be led by students instead of the teacher, which makes it more likely that the discussion will not involve everyone. While teaching SES through case studies makes the subject more interesting and 'real', it also has the downside of needing active participation from students.

However, a large part of the assessment is also based on reflective journals, and the two papers which students are required to complete. Even if students do not research beforehand or do not participate in class discussions, they are still forced to think through the compulsory reflective journals after each lesson. Even if the discussion was not very meaningful, students can still learn from one another--and in fact are forced to do so--by commenting on the reflective journal of other students. The research paper and term paper also help ensure that the student has to do a minimal amount of research and critical thinking. While I feel that this also makes sense in theory, as SES is a new module, unforeseen problems may still arise.

My expectation of SES is quite simple. As long as it can achieve the goal of teaching new skills and knowledge, it has already served it's basic function. If it is possible, I would like SES to help push me out of my own comfort zone as well to participate more actively in class, as I usually choose to remain silent and will probably continue to do so unless something forces me out of my comfort zone.