Reflect on the working culture and management style in Google and Lenovo
The cultures and management styles of Google and Lenovo both have their benefits and risks. Google style of management emphasises on the freedom and comfort of employees while Lenovo management style emphasises on consensus-style where the CEO of the company becomes a dominant figure who manages and control every policies made by the company.
I feel that each way of management is actually affected by the suitability for the employees. Google originated from the America and has thus adopted western ideologies and their own American cultures in its work place. I believed this is probably the most suitable choice for a company founded in America as the employees indeed enjoy the freedom and comfort provided to them. Its 20% rule is an example of a policy that has benefitted the company. Employees develop a sense of loyalty and the sense to serve the company well when they received such comfortable treatment in the workplace. This had helped to enhance efficiency of work in the company as employees are happy working in there and have decided to create ideas that can benefit the company.
However, if we were to adopt such a working culture for Lenovo, it would certainly prove useless as it is unsuitable for the type of employees working in Lenovo. First of all, the education systems vary between the Western and Eastern countries. This could possibly have a impactful effect on the kind of working attitude or the working environment the employees are suited to. In America, students are expected to be creative and to voice out any opinions or questions whenever there is a need to. Liberty and individual rights are also values which are practiced in America. On the other hand, China students usually do not question and think critically when it comes to work. They study diligently and are very exam-orientated like Singapore. There are usually fewer opportunities for them to innovate our practice their creativity. Thus, the American style of management observed in Google is to provide space to encourage creativity and innovations among a large group of employees who dare to question or suggest ideas to their higher-ranking employers. The Google Company believes that providing freedom and a convenient work place for the employees help to facilitate sharing of ideas among employees of different department and facilitate innovation of new ideas as well. On the other hand, the Chinese style of management observed in Lenovo involved only the CEO who becomes the mastermind and controls everything in the company while the employees simply follow his ideas and do not question.
These two different types of management is beneficial to the respective companies in certain ways. For example, the Google style of management which provides freedom actually attracts more employees to provide high-quality suggestions and ideas by offering incentives and facilities. Its 20 percent rule encourage many talented programmers to innovate and share their ideas. The result of gaining recognition through chosen projects urged many of these programmers to become 'discipline' in a way and spent their 20% time fruitfully by creating new ideas. With these common mindset in most of the Google employees, it is enough to create a peer pressure in the work which encourage others to innovate ideas as well. Through these ideas, Google can then extract the best ideas to be implemented and this benefits the company to a large extent as there will be ‘more minds working at once’ to generate these essential ideas that help Google to grow and progress. Some of the new ideas suggested by the Employers are G-mail, Adsense and Google News. These new suggestions benefited Google by bringing in more profits and also attract more users, which in turn bring allow Google to earn more revenue as well.
However, the risks of such management styles may be that the company cannot earn back what they invested on. In other words, the facilities provided for the employees have gone down the drain either because the employees lose discipline or loyalty to the company, or because the ideas produced by the employees are not attractive or good enough to consumers. However, I feel that it is rather unlikely that employees would run out of attractive and creative ideas. Google implemented the 20% rule to almost all its employees. With so many employees in each particular departments, there must be at least someone whose ideas are attractive and worth further developing. The innovation industry has endless boundaries, especially in the IT world. Furthermore, Google has a high entry barrier. Which means before employees are hired, they have to go through a lot of tests or interviews to ensure they are up to standard. Workers who are not presenting well could also be asked to leave the company. I feel that Google is indeed effective in spawning creativity through peer pressure and providing comfort and convenience for its employees. Hence, I believed that the style of management Google adopts to sustain the company is by applying a suitable policy which appeals to the workers who possess Western ideologies and values. I feel that it is also very effective in spawning creativity through peer pressure and providing comfort and convenience for its employees.
On the other hand, the Lenovo way of management and policies is also dependent on the type of employees present in the Lenovo and also the idea of Confucianism where the employees respect the employer’s decision. One main disadvantage of such a working culture is that it only involves one’s suggestions and opinions – those of the CEO. Unlike the Google style of management, this stifled creativity. I believed the key to its success was its capable and well-respected CEO and founder – Liu Chuanzhi who helped to shape Lenovo before and after its goal of becoming a Multinational Corporation. In the past, Lenovo’s working system is through a consensus-style where the employees hardly gave an opinion of their company’s progress. They all listened to their employers, or the CEO, who is believed to be purposeful in all his plans and that he should not be questioned. This is relatively similar to the Confucianism ideology of respecting the authority because what the authority does is usually correct. The problems emerge when the company decided to steer towards the direction of becoming a MNC. Liu made William Amelio, an American executive from Dell, the CEO of Lenovo, hoping that its Western influence can help Lenovo thrive in foreign countries and that he can also encourage creativity among the employees. However, the Chinese employees and the executives were totally not used to creating and suggesting their own ideas and this caused a major cultural friction between the head of company and his employees. It was because Amelio lack understanding of his own Chinese employees and executives, hence resulting in misunderstanding and cultural friction. As mentioned above about Google, Western ideologies emphasise in creativity and voicing out of opinions from lower-ranking employees to their employers. However, it was undoubted that such phenomena cannot be see in Lenovo at that point in time. In just a matter of few months, executives were asked to leave the company and Lenovo suffered heavy loses. This is probably due to the fact that the Chinese employees are not educated in the environment which emphasises on creativity and this caused difficulties for the top computer company to go abroad and invest in other countries. However, I feel that the Lenovo way of management is beneficial in a sense that it does not require time for meetings and sharing of ideas and all plans can be implemented straight away when the CEO orders so. The whole process runs smoothly and quickly just that it stifles creativity reduces the chance for employees to present their opinions. BUT STILL, without the integration of Western ideologies on creativity and the initial Lenovo way of management, it could never have flourished all over the world today.
All in all, I felt that the different ways of managements depended mainly on the culture and attitudes of employees and the employers. Only companies which adopt suitable principles for its employees can gain success much easier due to cooperation of the employees. But I feel that essentially, the Google way of management or the Western ideology is more crucial and popular in global enterprises as it emphasizes on innovation, which means welcoming of new ideas. After all, changing and integrating is an essential step for settling and creating business in other countries.
(1408 words)
Gary Lim (16)
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