Google and Lenovo are both among the most influential companies in the IT field, but being run by people that come from 2 differing cultural backgrounds, the way they operate are very different. Google runs its company on a employee-oriented basis, while Lenovo operates on the traditional way where its' CEO, Liu Chuanzhi has the final say.
Google operates by allowing its engineers to have 20% of their time allocated on their own personal projects. This promotes innovation and creativity as people can let their imagination run free to create a product that will be able to compete with others so that the product can receive funding to be executed. The extent of freedom Google provides its engineers are amazing, because under such unimaginable freedom, they do not feel stressed at all. In addition, the reason why Google daringly allows its engineers such freedom is because of its extremely strict and demanding employment criteria that only allows the best among the best to be selected. Under such conditions, Google can have no worries on its engineers not carrying out their jobs. Google reflects how important freedom is in the American society, as Americans view freedom as one of the most basic necessities. This point is further enforced by the fact that the Obama Administration is greatly similar to the Google way of management. However, I personally think that such freedom should not be allowed, as it is highly possible for individuals to steer off course in companies or societies. An example would be Google itself, producing up to more than 83 products. But out of all these products, only the Google search engine has beaten all of its rivals in its field, and none of the rest have been as successful as the original product of Google-the search engine itself. Most of them end up like Orkut, Google's social networking website, which I have not even heard of. Apparently, Orkut has been a hit only in Brazil and Iran. Orkut may be a good example of how potentially great products of Google has been buried too deep inside its webpage, where people do not even know about it.
Lenovo's management style is based on Confucian values, where "sage leadership" is encouraged. Such a "sage" would be Lenovo's CEO Liu Chuanzhi, who has brought Lenovo into the global market. Liu Chuanzhi shaped Lenovo by himself since its' birth, steering Lenovo out of dangerous obstacles and leading it into success. If there had been dissent from workers in Lenovo, Liu would have probably ignored it. And he was right in doing so. Such a way of management would be great as the "sage leader" will be able to lead the company towards success, but if one day the "sage" left, like Liu Chuanzhi did in 2005, the company might collapse as there might be the possibility that the next CEO might not be able to guide the company to success. Lenovo's management style greatly reflects the Chinese society, where the people are instilled with Confucian values and also listen to the leader. There was once when I went to Suzhou for an immersion programme and we visited a town that created a economic miracle that was similar to Singapore itself. The town secretary emphasised alot on supporting the China Communist Party and its ideal, as the town itself also supported and ran on communism. Suprisingly, the town had been led by a selfless leader by the surname Wu, and it was under his guidance that the town was able to succeed. But whether the town would be able after Wu's departure, no once can be certain.
In my opinion, freedom similar to that of Google's approach should be considered as innovation and creativity are essential for the company's development, but at the same time a general direction should be set down so that the company does not stray too far away from its goals, resulting in a waste of time and resources. The most suitable approach towards a company's management style is not to set creativity free in a ocean of freedom, but down the great river of success so that the creativity is able to be guided in the right direction.
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ReplyDeleteHi Guan Hong,
ReplyDeleteI think that you have done a good job in terms of relating the management styles of both Lenovo and Google to the societies that they are based in. You were also able to come up with a more holistic approach to managing a company after identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the respective ways of management which I think is relevant and will be very applicable in the near future.
However, I hope to highlight the fact that despite putting in so much effort to weigh the pros and cons of both ways of management, you failed to state the company which you prefer to work in in the future and support your stance by quoting appropriate evidence and explaining how you managed to arrive at that conclusion. That is often the hardest and most important part of a reflective journal entry: to state your preference and justify your selection such that your readers will be convinced by your choice, so please try to be more careful next time.
Another thing to take note of is that you should not quote too much factual evidence from articles when substantiating your points. I believe that the examples which you quoted when analysing Lenovo's management style can be found in the notes that Ms Yeo has provided for us and I think it is of paramount importance that you elaborate on your points using your own words based on your understanding instead of paraphrasing information extracted from Internet sources. That will only seek to attenuate the main focus.
I also do not agree with the fact that those who survived Google's stringent interviewing process will definitely do a good job in Google. This is not true because even if one were to be selected as Google's employee and his/her credentials recognised, it is not so easy for him/her to ward off all the distractions in Google, namely the wonderful facilities and the autonomy granted to every Googler. He/she will either be distracted and consequently deviate from what he/she is supposed to do or attempt to resist the temptations around him/her, but if he/she does the latter then it will mean that they are not supposed to be Googlers because they are already swayed and are not capable of staying on-task ALL THE TIME!
To conclude, I have learnt a lot more about the holistic approach that can be adopted by companies in the future, so overall I think it is a good read and I enjoyed it very much.