Reflective Journal 2

Question: 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.

The different working culture and management styles in the 2 companies, Google and Lenovo, reflect their respective societies.

Google, a company in America, is employee-oriented and encourages discussion and collaboration which reflects the emphasis on human rights in America. In America, everyone has a right to speak up, no matter what race, religion. This freedom of speech is like the discussions and collaboration Google encourages its employees to do. Furthermore, employees in Google should be passion-driven, creative and innovative. This is like what the education system in America is, the things that schools teach the students are much more focused on passion and creativity than Asian schools.

On the other hand, Lenovo, a company in China, is based on meritocracy where there is a dominant boss and the employees are to follow orders. This is much like some parts of the Confucian ideology inculcated in many Chinese in China : One is to respect their superiors. Furthermore, the employees must obey their bosses most of the without question. This is somewhat like what the education system is in Asian Schools where students learn things mostly through copying and not questioning why is it like that.

Personally, I feel that Lenovo is very similar Hwa Chong Institution and generally schools in Singapore. The syllabus is very structured and most of the time boring. There is a lack of enrichment activities due to the syllabus being based on the A-level-format. Furthermore, when there is enrichment activities, it is always made compulsory(or so they say "strongly encouraged"). When its made compulsory, it defeats the purpose of being an enrichment. Although attempts have been made to make the syllabus less structured, most of them are not very efficient. For example, ACE which is part of our IS marks are mostly given by the teachers and not student-directed. Furthermore, it counts as marks as a subject so students are kind of forced to do it if they want to get good grades and not explore because they are interested. This kind of structured education system is very similar to Lenovo

I would prefer working in Google to Lenovo. This is because I want to have the freedom of my work life. I do not want to work just to earn money to support my family but rather also because I am interested in that field of area. I do not want to be bossed around by stuck-up bosses who do not listen to other's opinions and always thinking they are right even though they sometimes maybe wrong. Furthermore, I do not want to be pressured by my working environment as it will decrease my work efficiency and also stifles creativity. I do not want to study hard in school just to learn, I want to apply it into my real life and I am afraid that the environment in Lenovo hinders this. Lastly, I also prefer working in Google to Lenovo because of the chance to interact with new people. It is from other people where you learn a lot of new things from their experiences. Google encourages this but Lenovo,however, only lets you interact within your sector most of the time. Teamwork is very important in today's society as an individual cannot survive on his own. Google encourages this teamwork but Lenovo has a lot of competition between individuals as each strive to try to get a better position in the company. Thus, I would prefer working in Google to Lenovo.