Sunday, January 29, 2012

Establishing the Global Context - Week 3 and 4 (Part 1)

From the week 3 and week 4 lectures, I generate some points that I think it’s important and have to be understood.

1.      Always step back, see the whole picture!
2.      Put the debt crisis in a relevant context.
3.      Monetary foundation
4.      It’s all about duality!
5.      Dimensions of truth

First, "Always step back, see the whole picture!" As Paul has mentioned thousand times, we have to always step back and see the whole picture. This is really important for global business people. We can't research and analyze the problem form a narrow point of view.  This narrow referred to two kinds. One is only thinking from one angle, and other ways did not take into account. Another one is the problem has been limited which means it hasn’t been contacted with associated factors. This will result a fail. For example, we have quiz every week for MBA 500.  The first quiz I got 80%, and then the second one I got 64%. The third one was even lower. What happened? Okay, I admit that I misunderstood some questions and was thinking too much, but I know there are some other reasons beyond that. I didn’t step back and see the whole picture- what is this chapter really talking about? I didn’t recognize the connections between each idea. They must be interconnected; otherwise they would not in one chapter.  Next time, when I study a new chapter, I will draw a mind map as I’m reading. From the whole picture, I believe I can understand more!

Secondly,  "Put the debt crisis in a relevant context." When we saw the World Debt Clock, we have different feelings. For Canadian students, they might think what happened to Canada? Why the debt is so high? For students from China, we may be proud of our country. The color is green, yeah! And we lend money to America. How good we are. We are growing so fast! But when we step back, see the whole picture, it is not the truth. Although Canada has so much debt, it also has so much resource, such as, the nature resource, good medical system, good running government, human resource, high happiness index, ect. When we look at China, it is definitely growing very fast and the biggest creditor in the world. What is the problem? We are using too much natural resources and some resources have been wasted. Also, for the upper and middle class, the happiness index is pretty good. But for the lower class, the majority class of China, the happiness index is very low! People from village and rural area want to have a better life, so they went to cities. What is waiting for them? It’s not money, but hopelessness. The 17 suisides were not caused from one reason. It is caused form hunderds of interconnected problems which reflect the whole society.  

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Establishing the Global Context - Week 1 and 2

Because of the MBA Games 2012, I missed the first class of Establishing the Global Context.  After reviewed the presentation for week 1, I had a brief idea for which Paul had talked about. There were two goals have been talked about during the first lecture.

Goal 1: "Learn to question everything you believe and know to be true about the world." Everybody has different truth in their mind. Sometimes what we think or believe is not true. Several pictures were provided in the presentation which were really interesting. The perspective of New Zealand from different country are totally varying. For example, from Americans' point of view, New Zealand is just a country has no advantage. The most famous cities in New Zealand are just similar as some cities in American, and the rest are bugs. On the contrary, Canadians think everywhere in New Zealand is really pretty. Furthermore, Europeans, Indians, Israelis, British, and New Zealanders themselves all have different perspective of this country. It seems like Paul asked all the students did a very fun activity - global perception of the world cause there are group pictures on the moodle site. It let me remember the ads creation we did for Ricola last term. I like these kind of activities which ask applying the knowledge we learned form the lecture and also applying innovation.

Goal 2: "See two sides to how things work in the world." This talks about duality. We should not believe either side of everything. We should know what truth we need to understand and work with in the real business context. This is the goal we need to achieve through this course. Paul applied the Asbestos case in the presentation, but I'm not sure I understand the purpose of doing this. Does that mean the export of asbestos is proud of Canada, but hurt the developing country, therefore to illustrate that everything has two sides? I'm going to send Paul an email to ask this question.

The lecture of Global Context week 2, Paul reviewed these two goals and continued talking about the importance of multiple view mind frame which could make great contribution to our businesses and lives. Also, a new tool has been applied, 1/2 second mental pause. To learn this, several ways would be helpful, such as question everything, pause before reacting, and third person writing.

The scenario of a situation has been discussed during the class. It talked about a group cooperation which presented a situation all the groups of us somewhat have. The solution was putting individual in different positions which would maximize their strengths. We did this while discussing our group project. In our group,  Ryan has the bachelor degree in English, so we decided he review and check all the paper work. Daniel keeps the process and hold the group meeting. Amar comes from India, so he becomes the specialist in India for our project. I'm a Chinese, so I become the specialist in China. But we all agreed that each of us should participate all the processes, draft, and final paper. This is to ensure we all understand the concepts of this course and have the ability to succeed.

Find examples duality in my life? Emmmm, studying in Canada to pursue a MBA degree have two sides. I left my home and family to study abroad and have been suffered from homesick and different diet. But the positive aspect, I have learned a lot beside the knowledge from the course itself. For example, how to work with people from all over the world, how to communicate and write paper in English, and having a unique life experience in Canada. At least, I have about two years away from the extreme traffic in my hometown. The same distance takes 15 minutes driving here in Nanaimo, but takes 1.5-2 hours in Wuhan, China. Also, I used to be a student did really poor job in English course from elementary school to university. To be honest, I hated English and thought I would never use this language in the rest of my life. But when I decided to come here to make a challenge, it changed. I received an award  for ESL Achievement last September and got $1000 scholarship. It did happen.

Are these duality examples? Did I understand the concept?

Final question. In the "Success Orientations", there are three methods that people achieve success in life, relationship, process, and goal. I still can't believe there just are three methods and all the approaches are connecting with these three. It is interesting and good to know that Chinese are putting process at first. When process has problem or fails, they switch to relationship. Emmmm, maybe this could answer why we have lots of briberies because these are the fastest way to make relationships.