Some reflection at the beginning of my Volans journey

Jieying Zheng

August 27, 2009

Further into the second week of my Volans journey, I am taking John’s advice and jotting down some bits and pieces around the “soft” side I have experienced so far. I am planning to echo this write-up when it approaches the end of my internship and look back at the way in which my thoughts and reactions have evolved.

Here are some initial thoughts, more or less as they came.

Does intuition work?

The answer is YES… well, at least here.

The Myers Briggs profiling exercise (MBTI) tells me that I am a rather intuitive person by nature. But I was raised in Chengdu, China, a rather rigid education system, and can well remember that answers prompted by intuition, rather than derived from reason, were almost embarrassing to admit at school.

Later, when in Singapore and during my years with Aviva, intuition and testing again formed an interesting combination for my answers at work. While I found intuition often led me ponder upon the established assumptions which the management might have been comfortable with, I did not feel able to raise them unless they had been rigorously tested — or I had been given permission from management to do so.

At some point, I was even wondering if intuition featured only at the beginning of the journey toward maturity, and, along the way, would and should be substituted by “rational processes”. Therefore, I said in my personal statement for MBA application that one reason for my pursuing an MBA is to “get more grounded in business, because currently many of my thoughts are intuitive…” Whilst time will tell how much I have achieved my goal of getting more “grounded”, I certainly had more chances to fight against the intuitive waves in my mind on the MBA course.

Interestingly enough, here I have met John, who scored almost off the scale for “Intuition” in taking the MBTI process. Also, I can well imagine that many bold ideas that Volans deals with daily are coming from the like-minded entrepreneurs. Part of me is excited about the possibility for unleashing my intuitive nature again, while part of me is unsure how this will be well blended with all the metrics I have learned up to date.

The divider and the “boss”

Sam (Lakha) found a cubical divider with a joking smile last Friday, which made John exclaim “get that thing out!” We all laughed. I remember the first day I walked into the office and was slightly shocked that everyone sat around the same table! Quite a contrast with what I have previously experienced, where I would sometimes hear moans that the dividers were not high enough.

Admittedly I am still adjusting to the fact of sitting literally next to the “boss”, who would pop his head around for occasional (yes, only occasionally!) jokes or offer tea or, later in a special day, chips and wine.

…yet, ACTION!

Collaboration by no means equals a slow pace. Things happen very fast here. The first time I wrote John before met him, I got his reply within 15 minutes. The other evidence of speed is reflected in the jump of thoughts in the intellectual “heavy lift” among group discussions, which require independent critical thinking expressed in a quick manner. This level of agility, again, is quite different from what I had been previously experiencing, where analysis, review and thoroughness were a common theme.

Not hurrying to generalise conclusions, I cannot help but wonder about the cultural clash of different styles and their impact on the world we operate.

On intuition …

At Volans, we tend to see ourselves as experimentalists, referring out to the work of David Galenson on the quality and valuations for the work done by painters, film-makers and composers at different stages of their lives.

I imagine tolerance for mistakes in new ideas, for example, would be quite different in the entrepreneurial world than elsewhere. However, to what extent are mistakes tolerated at Volans is one question I will be interested in learning. On the other hand, to what extent should mistakes be “reasonably” tolerated in the corporate world, in order to create a more secure environment for innovative intrapreneurs, while maintaining a comfortable level for all, is another question that I want to answer.

On collaboration …

The word “clustering” has occurred a lot in discussions lately in the office. We aim to break barriers. To me it features not only the integration of various sectors in the ecosystem, but also potentially in the collaborative nature of group dynamics among the Phoenix Economy players on both the institutional and individual level.

Some players may be entitled to exercise more authoritative power than others by the common social expectations; however, in reality all are potentially contributing – pushing or pulling– to the same goal of sustainability. Systems cannot sensibly be viewed separately any more. How leaders can foster an effective, collaborative dynamic in order to shift the paradigm before it is too late is another million-dollar question.

On hierarchy (or the lack of it) …

Funny enough, my Chinese culture and my professional background in a large multi-national both engrained in me a certain way of responding to authority. Taking risk and taking trust naturally have come more from other sources of influence in my life. I keep wondering about the entrepreneurs in China and countries of similar culture e.g. South Korea. How does the entrepreneurship leadership style work under such strong national cultures? On the other hand, how do intrapreneurs within large multi-nationals work their way through the hierarchy in order to make things happen? Undoubtedly there are countless success stories, which I would be very interested to find out more about.

In the final analysis, I just started peeling the onion of my “cultural shock”. Is it due to the clash of entrepreneurial vs. corporate culture, or Asian vs. English mindsets? Looking for answers has allowed me to view these styles across a spectrum, rather than trying to categorise them into boxes. I very much look forward to discovering more in the coming three months.