Having grown up in a conservative Asian society, the land of freedom smells of newness and bewilderment. We were welcomed by the greenery, soft puffy clouds, clear blue skies, wide spacious roads and numerous short bungalows. The most distinctive difference is the cold temperatures sending chills down our spines each time the wind blows.

Welcome to San Francisco, iLeaders!

Surviving through 7 months of “hardships” and the entire Swine Flu saga, we have all safely entered into a higher level of learning and transformational experiencing - Silicon Valley.

Innovations.

Competitions.

Excitations.

Three short descriptions for the world’s famous high technological hub. Whilst we were to acquire and apply some important lessons over to Singapore, the stark contrasts, I feel, between an Asian and a Western society remained largely different. Could it ever be bridged? Do we want two societies to be similar? A week’s insights began to unveil my magical journey into finding Neverland.

The first commandment of every resident in Neverland is knowing that failures are pre-requisites to upcoming successes. “Fail often to succeed sooner,” Phil Sharp of IDEO branded the designing company with optimism when the iLeaders wondered about its sustained leading position in the industry. Failures may be disheartening but on the flipped side of the coin, we are one step closer to the solution. Peter Loh from GetQuik shared his careless mistakes that led to a loss of approximately USD200 but was encouraged by his employer, Ken Ryu.

It is no wonder that the Neverlanders are hardworking and determined. A personal example was a few years ago, my carelessness had almost led to some money in my interned company. Instead of being consoled, I was being scolded quite harshly, unfortunately, that I felt ashamed and fearful afterwards. Scolding do have an effect on the work attitude but the heart will always be burdened by impending reprimands.

What I really like about this place was the degree of openness everything and everybody have. An artistic sculpture to depict freedom of homosexuals in Stanford, the eminent hanging of bicycles off the ceilings of IDEO, the non-partitioned desks in many companies are little evidences to retaining of individual expressions within a company. Again, Phil Sharp said that it was pointless to have people coming to work being somebody else they are not. They value each others’ opinions very much and they want everyone to feel at home and be themselves so that the best ideas could be harvested.

Over at discussion on Friday, the idea of being able to imitate work values into different culture is impossible. Initially, I could not bring myself to agree with impossibilities. However, thinking through after some time, I finally give up. A change in work values could only be kick started by a change in a country’s culture. The States brought up people who cherish freedom of expressions very much and individual identity is a must whereas in Singapore, we are brought up in a authoritative manner with everyone following rules. There is some progress that the younger generations are making, but how much can we change this?

Back in Personal e-Motion, where I worked at, I was overwhelmed by the flat organizational structure. However, slowly I came to realize that it may be just due to the size of the company. We were just a ten-persons team in January, which grew twice the size when I left. The last few weeks while working with the new employees, they were telling me that they were unable to be as “disrespectful” and informal to my boss like I do all the time. They could not see themselves cracking jokes and ordering the boss around. I would not blame this sign on a changing organizational structure because we are still pretty flat but the way of management has slowly changed. The boss has began to change his own identity in front of the new employees to control the crowd. There was lesser interactions and direct mentorships with the new employees unlike what I had experienced when I just joined.

I think what they were lacking was the sense of identity and belonging in the company. We used to have Saturday discussions to brainstorm for new product ideas. Everyone was able to contribute their expertise and knowledge. Not that we do not do it on our usual 9 to 5 jobs, Saturday was more relaxing and impromptu. I used to call it the Google Day in my weekly iLead reports because it was a fresh yet powerful brainstorming concept. Unfortunately, the newcomers were not being able to experience this because the boss was unable to juggle 20 over people. He had to knock his company down into departments and speak separately to the heads. I guess this was the start of the Asian hierarchy concept and the loss of individualism within an organization.

How then does big companies in SIlicon Valley bridge this gap between their employers and employees? Something to find out next week, especially in Google!

Neverland is a place where people fantasizes and would not be able to reach into. Michael Jackson created his own Neverland because he was always deprive of something and would wish to get it in his little playpark. Silicon Valley is all Asian’s Neverland for now. Whether or not we could reach their level of openness would depends on the people. A manager could be very open but his subordinates could still be rigid. It takes two hands to clap, hence we could only admire Silicon Valley for now…

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