Dr Harry Entebang - A Biography

Dr. Harry Entebang: A Biography 1

KML 6033 Social and Cultural Dimensions in Learning and Instruction

Instructor: Dr. Julia Lee Ai Cheng

Joshua Baru Andrew ()

Mohammad Faizal B. Ismail ()

Voon Hui Joo (14030315)

Wong Ling Hua (14030314)

Due date: 6th January 2015

Assignment 3


1.0 Introduction

Among so many capable people, how do we choose? Why is him? We have our own

criteria to choose as we (Joshua, Faizal, Voon and Wong) are currently taking Master in

Learning Science programmes. This course is intended for professionals whom are interested

in teaching & learning and best suit to teachers, trainers, lecturers and professionals. Reasons

to choose him was most of us are in the education line. So, we decided to look for a Senior

lecturer as we are interested to know our career path as an educator in future. Besides, we are

interested to know how one can be so success and struggle from poor family. We know that

majority educator only can afford for moderate living life as compare to entrepreneur. We

believed this is a fate and therefore we interested to know him more.

He is Dr. Harry Entebang, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Economics & Business

and CEO of UNIMAS Holdings Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned company of Universiti Malaysia

Sarawak (UNIMAS). He is Iban (Dayak) and born in 11th December 1968 at Simanggang, Sri

Aman, Sarawak. He is married with four children.

For academic background and qualification, he went to year 1 at Chung Hua primary

school as his mother is a typical Chinese lady. Therefore, strongly encourages him to study at

Chinese School. But he was not interested in Chinese. Therefore, he was not performed in

primary school yet very naughty to pass his primary school time. After year 6, he joined

Government Secondary school in Simanggang for form 1- form 5. He had great and

outstanding academic performance. Then, in 1990, he went to MARA Institute of

Technology (UiTM) to study Diploma in Accountancy as this was the best course offered at

that time. According to him, his initial ambition wanted to become lawyer but not come to the

bus, as no courses provided. One the best program is accountancy, so enter it. After finished

Diploma, in 1991, he worked as sub-accountant. At the same time, in 1992 to 1996, he

studied part time for degree in UITM. In 1999, he enrolled in UNIMAS for CMBA


programme which is the first batch students and had graduated in 2002. He worked at

Sarawak State Farmers’ Organisation for six years, subsequently, he moved to another

company, Sarawak Information system which is a wholly owned company by the State

Government of Sarawak. He had also worked there for another 6 years (1998 – 2003).

Upon completion of CMBA (UNIMAS) in 2003, he moved his job to UNIMAS

Holdings Sdn Bhd. One of the motivation to become a lecturer was asked to become a trainer

working closely with state government department instead of working hours from 8am –

5pm, stayed and looked at the same place for 12 years and want to experience more

interesting life. In sum, prior to joining UNIMAS, he worked for the Sarawak state

government agencies for 11 years and had been stay at UNIMAS until this date.

His areas of expertise involve accounting & financial planning, financial performance

analysis, organizational strategic planning, innovation, strategic renewal, corporate

entrepreneurship and credit management. He had published locally and internationally in

refereed journals while actively involves in various training and consultancy services. One of

the examples is Corporate Entrepreneurial Orientations in State Owned Enterprises in

Malaysia.

2.0 Analysis of Interview Data

Born in December 1968 in Simanggang to a farming family of seven children, Dr.

Harry had a childhood with tight economy. The economic condition during 1970s in Sarawak

was not good and people worked hard just to provide basic necessities for family. Condition

he faced during that time motivate him to make changes in his life. Dr. Harry knew that the

only way to improve his future life was through education. Bandura (2001) in his Social

Cognitive Theory mentions essence of humanness is the capacity to have control over the

nature and decide quality of one’s life. However, his education path was not smooth initially.


Since his mother is a Chinese, Dr. Harry was sent to a Chung Hua primary school for

his primary education, where he faced lot of challenges in learning there. He cannot read and

write well in Mandarin and slowly gave up in his study. Poor academic performance led him

to become a naughty boy in his school. Unsatisfied result on his primary school certificate

made him to reflect on the importance of education and change his attitude toward learning

for brighter future. Dr. Harry managed to learn everything he should had learnt in primary

school in his transition class within a year. Since then, he always got the first place in his

class.

Social Cognitive Theory by Bandura plays influential role on evolved factors in

human adaption and change. Human behavior was shaped and controlled automatically and

mechanically by environment stimuli (Bandura, 2001). Social condition can influence human

thoughts. Dr. Harry intended to make changes in his life and knew the only way was through

education. He also realized he must change his learning attitude after completing primary

school. Dr. Harry said, “Education can make big different in one’s life.”

Dr. Harry felt the changes before and after he achieved his doctorial degree. Before he

got his PhD, he never considers many things in his life; he only lives for himself and care of

his family. However, after he got his PhD, people approach him for advises and expect to get

something from him. He told us that “When you have achieved something in life, you have to

start to think of other people and giving out what do you have.” Sociocultural theory by

Vygotsky proposed that there is dynamic interdependence of social and individual processes.

Social can affecting an individual and the individual also affects the social. People are not

simply undergoers of experiences but agents of experiences (Bandura, 2001). Dr. Harry

realized that he can impact other peoples and began to think of other peoples. He started to

become imparter of knowledge and contributes on things that can help the society.


Question 1

Is there anyone in your life who has significantly / greatly transformed your thinking and

perspective? Who is this person?

Dr Harry admired Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn born in September 17, 1930 and was an

American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker for personal development. He had

conducted seminars over 39 years and addressed more than 6,000 audiences and 4 million

people worldwide. Even in 1985, he also won the coveted CPAE Award from the National

Speakers Association. Jim Rohn has authored more than 17 books, audio and video programs

He spent lot of money to buy Jim Rohn’s books or tapeas it let him viewed things differently

and also wider his view or thinking.

Dr Harry used to listen to Jim Rohn’s talk and books whenever there is spare time as

he found that Jim Rohn is a philosophical man and his word are made sense and can be

translated in real life. This implies "Vygotsky conceptualized development as the

transformation of socially shared activities into internalized processes" where build inner talk

for him from time to time.

Question 2

How has this person shaped your thinking and changed you? How did the influence

unfold?

Dr Harry had got bored as employee life as worked from 8am to 5pm. From there, he

understood that no matter how hard he worked, toward the end of the year, everyone still got

same pay. He also had mention that only his bonus was slightly higher than others as due to

his profession, he was able to help company to save money from paying lots of company

yearly income tax.


Dr Harry learnt from Jim Rohn that if he wanted to earn more, he had to think outside

the box. He was not satisfied with what he had before joining UNIMAS Holding Sdn Bhd.

He wanted to earn more money than what he received before year 2003. From Jim Rohn, he

started to think of what can he do for people or offer to people in order to earn more and to

sustain household expenses with four children.

He started to think of and analyze his strength, weakness, opportunity and threads

(SWOT) in his career path. He focused on his strength and opportunities based on his

academic qualification, personality and inner self talk from Jim Rohn. In 1999, Dr Harry

came up with a business proposal. Only two years later, it was accepted. This was where

began his road toward higher level of career. In year 2003, he had come out with another

proposal. Since then, his income had improved from year to years.

"Vygotsky conceptualized development as the transformation of socially shared

activities into internalized processes." We view that Dr Harry had shift his career from sub

accountant to a CEO and senior lecturer. Later, we found that Jim Rohn started to work as a

stock clerk for department store and ended up with entrepreneur, author and motivational

speaker. This had probably influenced his opinion about career shifts. Theoretically, an

internalisation process had incurred (Vygotsky, 1978).

Question 3

What strategies and knowledge did you learn from these individuals?

We understand that Rogoff expanded Vygotsky’s genetic law of development and

called it guided participation. The same go for Dr. Harry Entebang. For example, he said that

“school never teach us to make money or rich. But can’t denied that university produce good

graduate become good employees which not to enrich themselves.” From this idea - Dr Harry

review again about his wants or needs in his life.


According to conceptualisation model, Vygostsky (1978) SCT, development of

knowledge is the transformation of socially shared activities into internalised process of

learning. His principle is never give up. Since Form 5, he had a dream to study overseas. As

his background is from poor family which not able to afford him to do so. But he still

interested to know the process (overseas lifestyle) even though he had got his Masters in

UNIMAS with happy marriage and surrounded by four children. He still embarked his

journey to seek solution. In personal, he keeps on doing self-reflectiveness in shaping his

career and evaluated his pursuits, goals and motivation (Bandura, 2001). Instead of looking at

the product, Dr Harry is interested in the process; understanding is the great importance of the

genetics analysis (Vygotsky, 1978). His dream finally realised 20 years after Form 5.

Question 4

You are such a successful individual; how did you motivate yourself through inner-speech

or self-talk to get to where you are now?

The toughest moment Dr. Harry faced in his life was during the time he pursuing

doctorial degree in United Kingdom. His family was together with him during the first year.

However, his wife could not stand the weather in UK and hence bring their children back to

Kuching. Dr. Harry was been left alone in UK for the next two years. He was very lonely and

misses his family so much. The only thing he thought of was to finish his doctorial degree as

soon as possible and came back to gather with his family. Bandura (2001) defined agency as

agent that act to make things happen intentionally. Dr. Harry managed to achieve his goal

with completed his doctorial degree in two years and eight months.

He told us that do things that you have not done before need a lot of self motivation.

He had performed self talk frequently to motivate and encourage himself during those two

years. He usually performed self talk by look at the mirror and talked to himself in his room.


Bandura (2001) figured out four core features of human agency: intentionality, forethought,

self-reflectiveness and self-reactiveness. Dr. Harry is fulfilled with all these features. He has

intentions to set some goals and performs proactive commitment for the outcomes. He also

thinks and selects action that likely produce desired outcomes. He motivated himself and

provides self-guide on his actions in anticipation of future events (Bandura, 2001). Dr. Harry

said, “Self talk is very important element in my life, when time is very tough.” He also did

self-reflection by self talk. He always thought on his own strength and ways to solve

challenges faced in life.

Question 5

What are some of your philosophies in life for solving problems that you encounter and for

thinking outside the box in your work and personal life?

When asked about some of his philosophies in life, Dr. Harry replied, “In this life,

you been trained and are paid to be a problem solver, you can do all things.” He sees difficult

things faced in his life as challenges instead problems. The challenges are always be there

and cannot be avoid no matter where are we. Therefore, the only way is to face and solve it.

Dr. Harry believes that everyone has abilities to overcome challenges and these abilities

depend on own perception and attitude toward things and environment.

Dr. Harry thinks that we can do all thing, we can always seek help from others if lack

of certain knowledge or skills needed to solve the challenges. There are three mode of human

agency: direct personal agency, proxy agency and collective agency. When facing challenge

where Dr. Harry finds his knowledge or skills are insufficient to solve the challenge, he will

seek helps from others. This sentence implies the Social Cognitive Theory by Bandura that

pointed up “people try to approach those who have access to resources, expertise or who

wield influence and power to act for them, to secure the outcome they desired.” People do not


live their lives in isolation but work together in coordination with others to secure what

cannot be accomplished on their own (Bandura, 2001).

Question 6

Would you please share with us the significant role model who had shaped your

development/growth?

Dr. Harry Entebang mentioned he did not have any role model in life but very admire

Dr. Patrick Dixon. He always watches the video of Dr. Patrick through YouTube and learnt

some ideas to improve himself and also the society. Dr. Harry described Dr. Patrick as “Man

of God”. He mentioned Dr. Patrick is a good speaker. He interested in the idea of Dr. Patrick

Dixon to get involve in community’s engagement. An idea of Dr. Patrick that he very

admires is “think of the other people”. Dr. Harry said he have everything in his life and want

to share or invested it in communities development. Not only the luxury but he said he can

contribute his knowledge and skills to help the society growth.

Dr. Harry shared with us that “at the certain age, we start to think of the other people.

I am not from a rich family. My background is farming family. If I did not help my society,

nobody wants to care for it. I really want to change the life of the rural people.” That is why

he interested to help the other people. From Bandura (1971), human behaviour can change in

terms of a reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural and environmental

determinants. When Dr. Harry watch a video of Dr. Patrick, he picks the idea as knowledge

gain (cognitive) from it and change his behaviour and people that involved in that

environment. In this scenario, Dr. Harry select, organize and transform the idea from Dr.

Patrick in his situation especially in term to help the society growth.


Question 7

What are some of your goals in life that you would like to share with us?

Dr. Harry has many goals to achieve in life. Of course he wants to be a rich man and

have a good health in life. The first goal he said was he want to write and publish own books

that can change the world in particular field. As a senior lecture at Faculty of Economics and

Business at UNIMAS, having the skills and also knowledge, he said he can make it with his

ability.

Second goal for him is to be a good father and can be proud of his family member. He

said, “lets legacy create itself and not family create legacy.” He did not force his daughter’s

interests in debate or her study. He lets his daughter to choose what she wants to be.

The third goal of Dr. Harry is to involve or contributes much more in church work. He

believes in God and believes God will support him in whatever he does. When looking back

into theory of social cognitive, Dr. Harry is an agent of changes. He wants to change life of

the other people. He is cognitive agent as he mentions from his goal that he wants to create a

book that can change the world in particular part. He is very proactive and reflective person.

He is motivated to achieve personal goals and these properties are described in the paper by

Bandura (2001).

Question 8

What are some of your pursuits in life?

First is the belief in God and he want involved more in church work. He wants to

contribute more for church organization. After involved in this work, he told us that the

feeling was very different. Even he has more duties or works, but his mind is very peaceful

and has many friends especially among church member. He told us that God had made him

into what the person he is today. Through interviews with Dr. Harry, we could say that Dr.


Harry is a man who has a personal nature that is very effective against the church and the

community. These properties can be associated with the idea of Bandura (2001) which stated

that personal efficacy is needed to manage the other people life and have an effect in social

changes.

Question 9

What are some of the significant transformative roles that you play in the government/

society/ industry?

Dr. Harry is the current CEO of UNIMAS Holdings Sdn Bhd. In 2013, the company

was in bad shape, where they had several issues and the company was not doing so well. The

top management of UNIMAS then turned to Dr. Harry for help, where they asked him to be

the CEO of the company. Dr. Harry was reluctant at first, but after pondering on the matter,

he finally agreed to the offer as he sees it as an opportunity to give back or contribute to the

university.

Since his involvement with the company, Dr. Harry has manage to turnaround the

company, where the company improved in terms of profit, cash flow, staff morale and putting

everything back in order. Hence, Dr. Harry states that he believes his involvement with

UNIMAS Holdings Sdn Bhd is the most significant role he played.

Bandura (2001) mentioned about influential role of evolved factors in human

adaptation and change, under the topic of Social Cognitive Theory. Dr. Harry was required to

turnaround a company which he did not started; hence he is in a new environment. The

success of the turnaround will depend on how Dr. Harry manages the company, getting use to

the new environment, new place, new work scope, new staff. He needs to bring his 'A' game

and learn to adapt and learn. Having high self-efficacy is also crucial to keep him motivated


in his role as the CEO of the company. Influence is also a part of the physicalistic theory of

human agency.

Question 10

Are there any people who guided you in stages of your life? Do you go for any

apprenticeship before?

According to Dr. Harry, he never had a specify person who guided him. However he

does have friends, seniors and other people who he would ask as seek help and guidance from

time to time. To quote Dr. Harry, “I must say I don’t have answers for everything, I think its

best that we ask people who are more experience than us. Books are okay but it is better to

ask people with experience in certain things”. This shows that despite learning mostly from

reading books and listening to talks, Dr. Harry also believe that it is better to have interaction

with other individuals in order to learn and gain more information, knowledge as well as

skills.

Regarding apprenticeship, Dr. Harry mentioned that he has no experiences on it, he

even joked about doing everything via trial and error. So we ask his personal opinion

regarding apprenticeship, either it is useful and can it help in individual to learn. Dr. Harry

believes that by having a good mentor or coach, with a good program, can produce good

graduate or students. However, the graduate or student must be willing to be taught, shaped

and change.

Looking at the paper by Lave & Wenger (1991), which mainly talks on situated

learning, or learning in doing, is mostly regarding apprenticeship, where how one learns from

another individual, group or other factors. Apprenticeship is about being guided by someone,

or in other terms, expert - novice.


Then there is also about the zone proximal development or ZPD, mentioned by

Vygotsky (1978) as "the zone of proximal development is the distance between the actual

developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential

development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration

with more capable peers.", which shows the potential of an individual in learning better with

the guidance or collaboration with other experts. In the context of Dr. Harry, who lack in

having a figure or personal mentor, used other methods to substitute this "figure" or "personal

mentor" or "guidance", by reading books and listening to talks from famous speakers to help

him learn. As mentioned by Dr. Harry also that he do seek guidance from his peers and other

experienced people, so it is not really that ZPD was not there, just that it was in a slightly

different context of ZPD which then catapulted Dr. Harry's potential not only as a CEO and

lecturer, but also as a father, husband and a human being in total.

Question 1 1

Did you learn mostly through activity or interaction/talk?

Dr. Harry mentioned that he learn from whatever sources that can help him, from his

experience, it was through books, listening to talks, interaction with other people, and that he

will pick up things from here and there to learn or gain knowledge. He stated that Jim Rohn

and Patrick Nixon had philosophies and ideas which inspired him in one way or another.

Reading books and learning from other people and picking up good things along the way.

Again from the paper by Lave & Wenger (1991) which touches on situated learning

and apprenticeship, where learning can occur collaboratively, in a group. The example given

by Lave & Wenger on the Alcoholics Anonymous, where activity and sharing experiences

was key and that opportunity to practice can be a resource for learning, we believe Dr. Harry


also learned through his interaction with others, collaboratively, as well as his own learning

via reading books and listening to talks, contributes to his learning experience.

3.0 Conclusion

As a whole, Dr. Harry's learning experience came from different sources, via personal

means and motivation, as well as external help and social interaction. His time spending with

books and listening to talks has contributed in his learning experiences as well as when he

does things, learning through "trial and error", by seeking guidance from others. Theories,

mostly from Bandura, Vygotsky, Lave & Wenger has shown how does these factors affect

and impacted Dr. Harry's learning experiences, as the CEO of UNIMAS Holdings Sdn Bhd,

as a senior lecturer, as a father and husband as also as a human being, since his childhood

until his current position in life. We believe that Dr. Harry's life experience so far can be an

inspiration to others as well. Before we ended the interview, Dr. Harry shared some of his

thoughts based on his life experience to share with everyone;

“To me, life is a journey. And whether we are going to have a successful journey or not,

depends on how we look at things, how we deal with people, how we manage limitation,

challenges, problems. To me if we can handle that, we will be able to live a 'good life'.

Sometimes we really plan to have good life but things didn't work out the way we want it

to be, don't be discourage. Sometimes our life are miserable but there are other people

who are more miserable than us. I always say this to my wife, be thankful with what we

have. I may not be staying in a big house, drive big cars, but once we start to be thankful,

that is the beginning of happiness. For things to change, I have to change. most of the

time we want things to change, we want other people to change but forget about

ourselves. I cannot change the world, but I can change myself.” (Entebang, 2014)

Dr Harry Entebang - A Biography

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