Gung ho

After watching Gung ho in class, the biggest lesson that I learned from the Movie was that motivation is incredible if you are able to harness it from the companies employees. The Japanese failed to motivate the american employees because they wouldn't let them stay used to their own customs, this produced unhappiness from the workers, as they were forbidden to listen to music, smoke cigars and even had to change positions while they worked. The main american character who played the role of a manager at the plant was able to motivate his employees multiple times, whether it was from telling an old story of his about his success in basketball, and how they need to work like it was the 4th quarter of the championship basketball game, to questioning the employees pride about how the Japanese were better workers than the Americans were. His motivation led to the American workers working overtime and even on weekends in order to try to reach their misguided goal of 13 thousand cars. The Movie also showed how the guy was also a pretty bad manager because he blatantly lied to his own employees about the deal that the Japanese made with him, and then tried to blame it on the Japanese after the employees came after him. He sort of learns from his mistake and ultimately motivates the workers again by trying to fulfil the deal by working with the Japanese manager in front of the employees, even after their plant had been announced that it would be closing down, and he made it seem like he wanted to save their jobs, which made them want to get back to work to try complete the deal.

The Movie was actually pretty good, and it showed a good understanding of the differences between the Japanese and American business cultures. The Japanese are all about teamwork and putting the company first, while Americans don't work as hard as they could, and spend more time with their families instead of putting the company first. It was interesting to see how they mixed, and how the Japanese reacted when they realised that the american workers did not work in the same manner as the Japanese workers. It was pretty funny about how insensitive both the Japanese and the Americans were to each other, at one point as the Japanese were arriving from their flight, the Americans were celebrating outside, which the Japanese generally don't like, but they also had a Chinese dragon (which is offensive because its not even their heritage) and a bunch of kids dressed up in karate uniforms.

Overall it was worth watching Gung Ho because it showed us the culture differences between the Americans and the Japanese.