Identity, Values and Strengths Exploration


Explain a situation where you have had an ethical decision to make. Discuss how you weighed up the values involved in that decision, the decision you made and the consequences of the action you took.

I lived and worked in Indonesia for 2 years as a project manager of a mining operation. During my time there, I was constantly challenged by the business culture there where lies, deceits and bribery is the norm. The most difficult and troubling thing is people would target foreigners and purposefully nitpick on anything that they would be able to leverage.

Quite often I would have to bring samples back with me and occasionally the custom officer would stop and question me after going through the x-ray scanner but the first time was excruciating; I was stopped and searched for 20 minutes, having to take everything out of my luggage in public was frustrating and humiliating. I told my translator what had happened to me and he explained they were just looking for money. Ever since then it became a “pay for convenience” routine for me.

I’m not particularly proud of the decision I made at the time, but I think recognizing the issue and understanding the social norm is an important step to adapt to a new environment.

Describe how your culture has influenced your values and identity.

There were many great philosophers over the course of China’s history. But one of Confucius’ teachings left an ever lasting impression on me: 己所不欲，勿施於人。"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

This fundamental principle is also known as the Golden rules of ethics or ethic of reciprocity in other parts of the world and has served me well throughout my life.

Evaluate your strengths and limitations in terms of your learning and career development

Strengths

Limitations

Identify which of your strengths might help you in your learning journey and how they might intersect with learning obstacles.

Being open-minded has allowed me to learn without bias which enabled me to absorb a lot more different information; information that might overturn my current belief or understanding of the matter. For example, I've been a meat eater for my whole life, like most kids, hated vege growing up. But ever since I came across a Netflix documentary on whole food plant based diet, I was intrigued and had to research more into it. After understanding the philosophy and theory behind the idea, I immediately put it into practice and reduced my meat consumption ever since.

Share an example from your experience of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss the strategies you used at that time, how effective they were, and your reflections on what other strategies you would try now, and why.

When I was a project manager, I was trying to improve the logistics flow of the operation but the contractors were adamant about the change. At the time, I was too focus on numbers and facts and eventually failed to implement the change.

I learned the hard way that it is not enough to persuade someone to change with just facts and numbers. At the time, I only had one thing in mind: efficiency. I neglected the human factor and failed to think in their shoes of being challenged by someone much younger than them with less experience in the industry. Looking back, it was a no brainer that I was doomed to fail right from the start.

If I were to approach the same issue again, I would definitely use a more compassionate approach and adopt some of the strategies from Professor Dan Ariely’s research in irrationality.