Affirmative action debate pt2 Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Affirmative action debate pt2 - Thesis Example The enforcement of affirmative action in admission into universities and higher education for those minority groups in the community will act to motivate those oppressed by the discrimination to join in the campaign for its implementation and to work even harder in school. Children of immigrant parents and children from poor families will benefit from the affirmative action. Awareness creation campaigns can be carried out through the media and at the local government level to ensure that the minority groups understand how they can benefit from the action and can therefore support the debate of implementing this action in all institutions of higher education. There has been existing stereotypes that only whites are high achievers and the elites of the US society. This has been majorly because the other races have not been having equal access to higher education equally as the white people. If affirmative action is enforced therefore, this will soon change and the stereotypes will be abolished. One way of ensuring this is by having the stereotyped races sign petitions for the implementation of this policy. If the signatures are more, the policy can be passed to be a law for all states and all institutions of higher learning. In most employment sectors (especially the prestigious jobs), there is domination by certain genders only and the other minority gender (mostly women) are crowded in lesser positions of authority. This has been the case because fewer women have been accessing certain causes in universities and colleges which may lead them to authority positions in the job market. Most women are concentrated in art courses, home economics and secretarial courses, whereas men are in the managerial and science courses. If affirmative action is present in admission into these institutions, there can be an equal number of men and women in certain professionals hence reducing the discrimination and

Mgt 401 Week 2 Essay Example for Free

Mgt 401 Week 2 Essay Business Model Comparison Most small businesses require some outside funding. Not many entrepreneurs have enough personal capital to open and maintain funding for a business. To attract investors and attain partnerships, a business owner should consider a business model necessary. This paper will compare two restaurant businesses, identify the business model and forms of ownership for each business by completing a Comparison of Business matrix, describe benefits by building a sustainable competitive advantage, and giving advantages and disadvantages of each business ownership. Great introduction. You state the purpose and what you plan to address! McDonald’s restaurants are among the most recognizable in the world. Their quintessential arches can be identified in almost every country. This fast-food mogul is one of the biggest and most profitable corporations in the industry (what industry? Make sure you provide information on the restaurant industry). Serving as a polar opposite is Datillo’s restaurant in Hemet, California. This small restaurant is known as the only fine dining experience in town and has only one location. The companies both represent the polar opposites of forms of business ownership. Comparison of Businesses Matrix |Comparison Items |McDonald’s |Datillo’s | | |Fast food, low quality, low prices. |Sit-down restaurant, high quality, and | | | |mid-level prices | |Value Proposition |â€Å"We place the customer experience at the core|â€Å"Welcome home, here you can enjoy a casual | | |of all we do† |lunch or dinner in a warm, festive | | | (Values In Action, 2013). |atmosphere.† | | | | (Datillos Ristorante: About Us, 2013). | |Target Market |All Markets, all classes |All Markets, all classes | |Value Chain |Attractive to people looking for inexpensive |Attractive to people looking for a fine dining| | |and fast food. Fast growth rate. |experience. Can compete with rivals on quality| | | |and service. | |Revenue |In 2012 gross income was $27.6 Billion. |In 2012 gross income was | | | |$459,000. | |Position |More opportunity for expansion and |Unique cuisine (niche) offers competitive | | |competitive advatange |advantage, less opportunity for expansion | |Competitive St rategy |Serving food at the lowest possible price |Only fine dining in town. Authentic Italian | | |while reserving as much quality. Also reliant|food, very high quality products. | | |on nostalgia to bring customers back. | | |Form of Ownership |Corporation: When a business is owned by |Sole Proprietorship: a business that is owned | | |multiple people and run by lower-lying |and managed by one person. | | |managers and employees. | | Good information! Benefits To Building A Competitive Advantage When evaluating the benefits of each business, it is important to consider the size of each business. As an example, both sole proprietorships and partnerships are relatively small in size and may perhaps provide more personalized service to each of their clients. In many businesses, customers appreciate personalized service and may in turn hire small businesses for that service. On the other hand, a larger business, like McDonald’s, typically is composed of more resources and may offer the prospective customer a lower price. Another competitive advantage of a smaller business, like Datillo’s, is the ability to provide customers with a higher level of quality. Because customers of small businesses deal more closely with a ‘tight nit’ group of employees, the quality and service provided to the customer is much greater than a larger corporation composed of numerous locations. Both small and large businesses each have distinct advantages that enable them each to thrive. Although some customers may appreciate the more personalized service of small businesses, others may prefer a lower price and a larger name brand. Make sure paragraphs are a minimum of 3 sentences! Advantages and Disadvantages of Business Ownership McDonald is known for the quality the restaurant serves, and the opportunities the McDonald restaurant offer. McDonalds has been number one in the fast-food market in the United States, and the most memorable brands, products, and mascots. McDonalds franchise owner can be safer than lesser-known franchises because the McDonalds name and operational model comes packaged with its own legion of loyal customers and industry-best practices for restaurant success. A franchise store such as McDonalds can help business owners to achieve financial independence by associating with an international powerhouse that can almost guarantee a certain degree of success. Another advantages of McDonald have is that McDonald’s cis that they can invest behind any market research it does and eliminates the need for a franchisee to do expensive research. Although McDonald it has its advantages, there are disadvantages associate with McDonalds. The restaurants have been target in a battle against what has been term the obesity epidemic, casting McDonalds outlets along with their owners in a highly negative light in the media, and their communities. McDonalds and its peers respond to this negativity by attempting to add healthy options to their menu, but the stigma is likely to linger. One of the advantages Dattilo’s Restaurants is that the restaurant’s offers an extensive classic Italian menu, comprised of items made from locally sourced premium quality ingredients, cooked to orde r for each guest. The restaurant uses authentic and healthy Italian accent. Dattilo’s also offers Internet special discounts and family gathering for its customers (Dattilo’s Ristorante, 2013). The disadvantage is Dattilo’s restaurant location are limited, the restaurant has not expanded their services statewide. Confusing sentence, consider rewording! Conclusion A business model is one essential factor in the success of a business. The business models of McDonald’s and Dattilo’s are much different but both successful. McDonald’s is a major corporation with thousands of locations and Dattilo’s with just one, but both have been in business for many years. There are advantages and disadvantages of both types of businesses, but regardless building a sustainable competitive advantage is achievable. The two restaurants compared in this paper offer different levels of quality, service, and cuisine, thus requiring a different level of ownership that each business model relays. References Datillos Ristorante: (2013).About Us, 2013, rRetrieved from: http://dattiloristorante.com/?page_id=8 McDonald’s: Values in Action, 2013, retrieved from: http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html |Content and Organization |Points |Comments: | |70 Percent |Earned: 6.5 | | |Profile of a Small Business (Week 2) | |All key elements of the | | | |assignment are | | | |covered†¦good job! | | |Y | | | | | | | | |You clearly identify the| | | |two businesses but make | | |Y |sure you clearly | | | |identify the industry. | | | | | | |N |Good job explaining the | | | |advantages and | | | |disadvantages. | | |N | | | | |Make sure you provide | | | |academic and business | | | |research to validate | | | |your thoughts and | | |Y |opinions. | | | | | | | | | | | |Your introduction | | | |clearly states your | | | |purpose and what you | | | |plan to address. | | |Y | | | | | | | | |Your conclusion needs to| | | |review the major points | | |Y |of the paper- good job | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Y | | | | | | | | | | | |Y | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Y | | |All key elements of the assignment are covered in a substantive way. | | | |700 to 1050 word count | | | |The content is comprehensive, accurate, and/or persuasive. | | | |The paper develops a central theme or idea, directed toward the appropriate | | | |audience. | | | |The paper links theory to relevant examples of current experience and industry | | | |practice and uses the vocabulary of the theory correctly. | | | |Major points are stated clearly; are supported by specific details, examples, | | | |or analysis; and are organized logically. | | | | | | | |Identify an industry with which you are familiar, and then choose two | | | |businesses in that industry. | | | | | | | |Identify the business model and forms of ownership for each business, then | | | |complete the Comparison of Businesses Matrix. | | | | | | | |Describe benefits associated with each business by evaluating how they built a | | | |sustainable competitive advantage. | | | | | | | |Explain advantages and disadvantages of each business’s ownership. | | | |The introduction provides sufficient background on the topic and previews major| | | |points. | | | |The conclusion is logical, flows from the body of the paper, and reviews the | | | |major points. | | | | | | | |Readability and Style |Points Earned: 1.5 |Comments: | |15 Percent | | | | | |Great job†¦your sentences| | | |are well-written and | | |Y |error free. | | | | | | |Y | | | | | | | |Y | | | | | | | |Y | | | | | | | | | | | |Y | | |Paragraph transitions are present and logical and maintain the flow throughout | | | |the paper. | | | |The tone is appropriate to the content and assignment. | | | |Sentences are complete, clear, and concise. | | | |Sentences are well-constructed, with consistently strong, varied sentences. | | | |Sentence transitions are present and maintain the flow of thought. | | | | | | | |Mechanics |Points |Comments: | |15 Percent |Earned: 1 | | | | | | | | |Research adds validity | | |N |to your thoughts and | | | |ideas. Continue to | | | |expand your use. You | | |N |provide no business | | | |research or materials | | |N |from class. | | |Y |Ensure paragraphs are | | | |complete thoughts and | | |Y |flow into each section. | | | | | | | | | | | |Please continue to | | | |review the CWE and APA | | | |guidelines. | |The paper, including the title page, reference page, tables, and appendices, | | | |follow APA guidelines for format. | | | |Citations of original works within the body of the paper follow APA guidelines.| | | |The paper is laid out with effective use of headings, font styles, and white | | | |space. | | | |Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed. | | | |Spelling is correct. | | | | | | | | | |Comments: | | | |Great work team! | | |Points earned: |9 |

Team And Leadership Effectiveness In The Workplace

Team And Leadership Effectiveness In The Workplace Leadership is defined as the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation. In essence, leadership involves accomplishing goals with and through people (Hersey and Blanchard, 1993). Leaders envisage the future; they motivate organisation members and impart values-whether they are concerned for honesty, hard work, quality and taking calculated risk or concern for customers and employees. It seems there is no common definition of leadership , perhaps it is because the leadership concept is complicated and fuzzy. According to Robert Tannenbaum, Irving R. Weschler and Fred Massarik leadership is defined as interpersonal influence exercised in a situation and directed, through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specialized goal or goals. Leadership is about showing the way, by going in advance, and influencing the behaviour of others. It refers to introducing new business behaviour, practices, o r technologies, which demonstrate that sustainable development is possible (Sommer, 2003) Todays business leaders have identified two important factors that could drive success in organisations of world class cadre- continually enhancing performance by becoming faster, better and more effective, and including all employees in Performance improvement can be achieved only by enhancing the processes within an organisation. Since the processes are created and operated by the people, the only way to enhance performance would be through people. Therefore continuous effective improvement depends on the capability of managers to guarantee that each and every one becomes involved in enhancing performance, work efficaciously in teams in order to analyse processes, and study problems to implement solutions. Leadership Under the leadership of Mr. Narayan Murthy, the ex-chairman of the Infosys, the company has ended up being one of the most successful IT companies in the world. Infosys Technologies Ltd is one of the leading IT companies In India and worldwide. It is now a global leader in the Next Generation of IT and Consulting. Starting in 1981, Infosys witnessed its corporate success in a short time. Although the company started functioning almost twenty five years ago, it is in the recent times that it experienced strong growth. Ever since it started the company has had a remarkable growth in terms of revenue. Revenue in 1994 was only US$9.5million but in 2005 Infosys revenue touched US$2billion which was only half this revenue in 2004. There is a saying that Great companies can neither be built nor their greatness sustained without great leaders, the above results clearly proves that Mr. Murthy is one such great leader who lead the company to the success path. According to the Hay group review, a global management consulting firm, of 1249 leaders from prominent organisations functioning in the Indian market, about 60% create a de-motivating climate and do not employ those who can lead. It also found only 18% develop an engaging climate that promotes high performance. So today it is so very much necessary for many organisations to create motivating climate and engage people who can lead effectively. The successful organisation has one major attribute that sets it apart from unsuccessful organisations: dynamic and effective leadership (Hersey and Blanchard, 1993). Infosys took an initiative in this direction and opened Infosys leadership institute where it intends to grow leaders. The Leadership development program at Infosys Leadership Institute targets to produce a collective pool of leaders and shape them to take on present and future challenges in business. The Infosys Leadership Institute offers a wide range of organisational and individual development sessions to expound business problems. At Infosys they believe that a good leader can be only one who uses all different styles of leadership with one of them usually dominating and a bad leader is one who sticks to one style. At Infosys it is not that only the top management gives suggestions to support its vision and manage agility, uncertainty and ambiguity at all circumstances. Courtesy: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/swami_lalita-161501-infosys-leadership-ob-education-ppt-powerpoint/ The leadership believes in taking valuable suggestions from its young achievers in the company. The Chairman diagnosed that young achievers in the company were wavering to come forth with their ideas. These people had a great value to add to the company but could not give in to the discussions feeling in secured of infracting hierarchy. Mr. Murthy communicated to be open minded and encouraged the young achievers to speak. He found that the suggestions and thoughts given by them had a lot of substance and can significantly help the company. The leaders at Infosys are so very much adaptable, bothered significantly over the above issue they built a leadership institute where they can develop and groom leaders from its promising employees irrespective of the hierarchy and provide them the opportunity to help build the company. Today many organisations are facing talent problem, where people are being rushed into activities they are unaware of or assigned to jobs for which they have inadequate preparations. Due to the phenomenal growth of India in last 5 to 10 years people were getting promoted before their time and these people held a wrong perception of empowerment. Even though they had the authority, they lacked in terms of experience and credence to be true leaders. If organisations have to maintain conservative growth estimates, much of todays leaders need to motivate the employees who work for them. If not able to successfully motivate, it would be difficult to keep employees sticking around long enough to progress them into competent leaders. So it becomes very important to have motivating climate in any company in order to enhance its own performance. According to Hersey and Blanchard(1993), in leading or influencing there are three competencies of Leadership: Diagnosing-being able to understand the situation you are trying to influence, Adapting-being able to adapt your behaviour and other resources you have available to meet the contingencies of the situation, Communicating-being able to communicate in a way that people can easily understand and accept. The soul of leadership competencies in Infosys rest in their vision statement which reads as: We will be a globally respected corporation that provides best of breed business solutions, leveraging technology, delivered by best in Class people. To achieve their vision, leadership competencies have been marked along four dimensions: Work, people, technology and business. Each of these is further exaggerated into smaller functional terms in the graphic shown below. Courtesy: http://www.thehindu.com/businessline/praxis/pr0304/03040380.pdf The Infosys leadership institutes primary goal is to assist the company to counter the explicit challenges of now and in the future. They believe that by improving the quality of leadership they can handle its phenomenal growth, with stand the complexities of the market and swiftly changing environment, and through thought leadership they can develop higher customer value. Courtesy: http://www.thehindu.com/businessline/praxis/pr0304/03040380.pdf At Infosys in order to increase their quality of leadership they use a Nine pillar model of leadership development. At Infosys, for leadership development these nine pillars are functional elements. For the development of leadership competencies at discrete level each pillar has its own distinct importance. 360-degree appraisal: It is method of consistently collecting data about an individuals performance and potential from a broad range of co-workers. This may include the manager, direct reportees, peers and both internal and external customers. It is an organised method of gathering and processing data and gives the employee an opportunity to express on his valuable information. The response received from 360-degree feedback is used as a foundation to direct the person in gaining new skills and improving existing skills all arranged to the leadership competencies model. Development assignments: They are a traditional and powerful form of leadership development. Potential employees are allowed to have experience in various functions through Cross functional assignments and internal job rotations. Development assignments help an employee to gain practical leadership skills outside their zone of experience. Development relationships: Mentoring is viewed as a developmental relationship in the framework of leadership development. In order to transfer and share knowledge and experience, one-on-one relationships in work scenes are facilitated. This mentoring for leadership program is functional and learning from this course will be utilized to refine and broaden the element of leadership development throughout the organisation. Leadership skills training: It is a process by which individuals in the organisation go through a sequence of learning interventions on matter relevant to leadership. A Leaders teach series was formed in which the board of directors including the chairman, the Managing director, and the Chief Executive Officer hold a workshop with help of leadership institute faculty for the development of future leaders. Feedback Intensive program: These are comprehensive behavioural interventions based on informal and formal feedback taken from people that the individual interfaces with. These programs are structured in a way that individuals give and receive feedback in an environment that is non-threatening and could generate a workable plan for goal setting for progressive professional and personal development. Action Learning: It is a real time experience which is time based used to crack systematic, unresolved and real organisational problems. It is termed as a pragmatic process directed at producing a resolution a problem that has been identified by the organisation and a workable plan is designed for goal setting and strategies for progressive development to attain them. Systematic process Learn: It is an intervention that will enable individuals to view the organisation as system in whole which consists of many interacting sub systems. It is intended to yield plan for continuous advancement in systematic processes and details as to how a participant will initiate such an improvement. Community Empathy: The organisation holds a fundamental belief the social conscience requires to be nurtured and improved in each of its potential leaders. And the value of this community empathy aligns with the above fundamental belief. The Infosys leadership holds an ambition to opportunities for potential candidates on a regular structured basis to enrol themselves in cause outside the company that contribute to good of the less fortunate. Infosys culture workshop: These workshops are intended to help individuals to understand the purpose processes and the core values in ambience of leadership development. These workshops have been designed to in a way that allows expansive interaction among the individuals leading to strengthening of the Infosys culture and ensuring enough authorization to assure adherence to the culture of the company. Leadership traits: According to Warren Bennis, leaders should empower their organisations to develop an environment where people feel important, competence and learning matter, people are part of the team, and work is interesting. Leaders should also be creating an environment where standard matters and dedication to work enthuses effort. According to Huczynski and Buchanan, a charismatic leader holds the following characteristics: Visioning- providing a luxurious and extraordinary total dining experience that delights customers, empowering- giving staff a voice, showing confidence and trust, allowing staff to influence what they do, experiencing high standards,energizing- communicating vision, making staff feel part of something special, aiming for perfection, excitement, joy, passion in the work. The transactional leader a leader who treats relationships with followers in terms of an exchange, giving followers what they want in return for what the leaders desires, following prescribed tasks to pursue established goals( Huczynski and Buchanan, 2007) Transformational leader- a leader who treats relationships with followers in terms of motivation and commitment influencing and inspiring followers to give more than mere compliance to improve organizational performance( Huczynski and Buchanan, 2007) Traits that are found most often to be feature of successful leaders as per Yukl are: Assertive, cooperative, dependable, decisive, dominant, persistent, energetic, self-confident, willingness to assume responsibility, tolerant to stress, alert to social environment, adaptable to situations, achievement oriented and ambitious. Empirical research studies suggest that leadership is a dynamic process, varying from situation to situation with changes in the leader, the followers and the situation. Because of this, while there may be helping or hindering traits in a given situation, there is no universal set of traits that will ensure leadership success (Hersey and Blanchard, 1993) Team Work: Teams that can bring and stick employees together to investigate problems to implement solutions would be one of the best ways to increase productivity and product quality. And teams which can continually improve can be considered as powerful tools any organisation can use to ensure employees remain firmly focussed on meeting business goals and customer needs. Employers emphasis the significance of employees working as a team and apprise for people who hold the quality to work in such a way. Team work comes into consideration when there is a need to utilize different strengths of employees and goodness of cooperation. Principles of team work: Understanding the team is very important, as a team member he/she should know the following things: Roles and responsibilities operations of a team advantages of working as a team for individuals(motivation, job satisfaction, pride, external qualification) advantages of working as a team for the organisation (improved results due to increases in quality and productivity) Probable disadvantages of teams(Conflicts, domination) Working relations: Characteristics of a good team member Different working relationship problems with members and colleagues in other groups Team and leadership activities in order to improve team work success Team activities: The team should contribute to constant improvement activities, brainstorm activities, performance reviews, team briefings, problem resolution sessions, question and answer sessions, and team and individual appraisals. The team should be reading and contribute to team boards. The team should use internal network systems or e-mail to support communication. The team must keep displays and visuals updated. Leadership activities: Setting team objectives and goals, action planning, and recognising achievable business targets. Distribution and monitoring of team members, deciding on employee role and responsibilities, team work-load prioritization to make sure targets are met efficiently and effectively. Supervising the team performance against the objectives and goals, managing ineffective and poor performance, encouraging and motivating team members, developing a cohesive work-team through teambuilding approaches, analysis the training needs, creation of skills matrix, mentoring, team and individual appraisals, communication and consultation with management, peers and sub-ordinates and subject specialists, successfully managing conflict and tensions, grievance and disciplinary procedures. Conclusion: This paper shows the leadership in Infosys, one of the most successful IT Company in the world. Mr. Narayan Murthy, the Ex-chairman of the company has been a true leader and shows what a brilliant visionary he is. Under his leadership the company has grown tremendously within twenty five years of its existence. At Infosys they believed that a good leader can only be one who uses all different styles of leadership with one of them usually dominating. At Infosys, in order to improve the quality of leadership a leadership development program was initiated by opening the Infosys Leadership institute. This leadership Institute offers a wide range of organisational and individual development sessions to expound business problems and targets to produce a collective pool of leaders and shape them to take on present and future challenges in business. In order to achieve their vision, leadership competencies are marked along four dimensions of Work, people, technology and business. The Infosys believe that by improving the quality of leadership they can handle its phenomenal growth, with stand the complexities of the market and swiftly changing environment, and through thought leadership they can develop higher customer value. The Nine Pillar model of leadership development is used to improve the quality of leadership and as a consultant I would suggest the other company to use the Nine Pillar model as a basis to develop a similar model to improve their quality of leadership. About the team work it is now evident that it comes into consideration when there is a need to virtue of cooperation and use various strengths of employees. By understanding the principles of team work, and the team and leadership activities to be carried out properly could result in improvement in teamwork success.

Life In The 20th Century As Sh Essay -- essays research papers

Life in the twentieth century is different through each decade but also much different than life in a century before. The short story â€Å"Magic†, written by Katherine Anne Porter in 1930, shows how people think they have choices in life but their future is actually already planned out for them. Ernest Hemingway’s short story â€Å"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place† which was written in 1933 shows how people feel about the well being of others and others feelings. â€Å"The Storm†, written by Kate Chopin in 1898 is an example of how views of marriage have changed. Although this wasn’t written in the twentieth century it was written right before the beginning and still paints a picture of how life is now going into the twenty-first century.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the story â€Å"Magic† a young prostitute named Ninette is treated very badly in the house she lives in. This is proven by the quote â€Å"They quarreled, the madam cheated her on her checks: you know, the girl got a check, a brass one, every time, and at the week’s end she gave those back to the madam, yes, that was the way, and got her percentage, a very small little of her earnings: it is a business, you see, like any other- and the madam used to pretend the girl had given back only so many checks, you see, and really she had given many more, but after they were out of her hands, what could she do?† (Page 121) This quote shows how the woman of the house cheated Ninette out of her money. These next two quotes tell how Ninette was phy...

Transformational Leadership in Safety :: essays research papers

Running head: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND SAFETY Transformational Leadership and Safety Transformational Leadership and Safety The Postal Service in Baton Rouge and cities around the nation has a poor reputation when it comes to safety and health of its employees. In an attempt to debunk this unjust accusation, Management and craft employees alike set out to accomplish a task never before achieved by a postal facility with more than 20 employees. Many managers in the Southwest Area thought it suicide to invite the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in for an inspection and try to achieve the highest recommendation obtainable, the coveted â€Å"STAR† award. The plants 491 employees, supervisors and managers using transformational leadership, prepared for and accomplished this achievement in only 90 days. Transformational Leadership by definition is the broadening and elevating of the awareness, acceptance and attitudes of the workforce beyond their personal interest for the good of a group or company (Bass, 1990) Management, union officials, and craft employees acting as safety captains, worked together to motivate the workforce to see a bigger picture. The first and most important task was building a relationship of trust. The Postal Service is notorious for discipline of its employees when something goes wrong but is slow to reward these same employees for a job well done. The Plant Manager at Baton Rouge, Joseph Tate a 42-year veteran of the service, decided that charisma, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, as discussed by Sally A. Carless (1998) were necessary in achieving a cultural change. He believed that in order to achieve a STAR rating the employees would have to come onboard. With the blessings of the Louisiana District office, he instituted a new safety program that was fashioned after that of Dow Chemical, 3-M and other industry leaders. Employee involvement, as in every industrial success, was the key. Employees selected their own safety captains from the craft workers. Instead of the supervisors of each unit giving the same old boring safety talks, it was now the responsibility of the safety captains to present relevant safety information for each unit. Safety captains gathered information throughout the week, and used examples, tasks, tools and materials used within the unit for these talks. Weekly safety meetings became participative and interesting from the onset. Monthly meetings attended by the safety captains, the plant manager, and the district safety manager proved extremely productive. Monthly safety contests with prizes, job safety analysis completed by the employees themselves, additional OSHA sanctioned training, and a safety information centers on the workroom floor were but a few of the ideas implemented.

Oedipus Fate and Outline Paper Essay

The play Oedipus the King, translated by Robert Fagles, is a story of drama and tragedy. Oedipus’ pride and morals cause him to take fate into his own hands and it ends up blowing up in his face. He was abandoned as a baby and was raised by the king and queen of Corinth. When he reached manhood, he was informed by an oracle that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. He left Corinth forever and along his way he came to cart carrying his real father. Out of rage, he killed everyone including his father. In Thebes, he defeated the Sphinx. His reward was kingship and the dead king’s wife, his mother. Oedipus tried to change his future but eventually fate caught up with him. Oedipus, as a king, was both caring and conceited. He talked as though everyone should know his name but at the same time worked to solve the illness that plagued his people. As an investigator, he was harsh, determined, and at times mean to the ones that he interrogated. As a husband and father, he was loving and caring, and as an arch-criminal, he was humble and accepting. His most predominant characteristic is being moral. He ran when he was told that he destined to kill his father and marry his mother. He gouged his eyes out when he found out that he was married to his mother and fathered her children. The characteristics that soften his as being moral were that he was prideful and determined. His pride and determination caused the events of his life to be brought to light and made him look unmoral. His personality causes him to continue with the investigation because he is prideful, determined, and in denial. His determination drives him to push the investigation into who killed King Laius. His pride keeps him from being the royal scapegoat when asked to be. His denial that he actually killed his father, married his mother, and fathered her children kept him investigating the death of King Laius. Eventually in the end he accepts his fate which he tried to avoid for a long time. He accepted his fate which was a humble and noble act by a king. That’s what makes his act the greatest act of kingship of all. He sacrificed himself for the betterment of his people knowing that he had done wrong and needed to be punished. In this play, Oedipus tried so very hard to control his own fate from the time he reached manhood to when it caught up to him. His fate caught up with him. Everything he didn’t want to become and tried to avoid came true in the end. It was a tragic ending for a man who tried so hard not be who ended up being. Oedipus Fate Outline Thesis: Oedipus the King tries to take fate into his own hands and it backfires. I. Discuss the character Oedipus as king, investigator, husband, father, and arch-criminal A. King is caring, investigator he is determined, as a husband and father he is loving, and as an arch-criminal he is reluctant to give up power II. What seems to be his predominant characteristic A. the King’s predominant characteristic is that he moral III. Under what circumstances does he exhibit this characteristic A. He feels for his people and tries to find a cure for them to heal their suffering IV. What additional characteristics does he have that soften this predominant characteristic A. Pride and Determination, they were the down fall of Oedipus V. How does his personality essentially force him to first begin his investigation A. He is caring and determined to find a cure for his people, which turned into an investigation into who killed King Laius VI. In what way is this final acceptance perhaps the greatest act of kingship of all, thus showing forth his arà ªte in the best light possible A.

Managing in Hospitality Organizations

IntroductionThe role of management in an organization, especially employee management, is crucial and determines the performance and success of the organization. It is thus essential to measure and address employee apprehension towards any change of scenario within the organization. This paper addresses employee management methods to bring about a change in their perception of a new scenarios as desirable and motivating. This involves bringing a strong shift from an intuitive stance of opposing change that stems for inertial comfort in the current setup.This paper is centered on the decision of a hotel owner to change the target clientele of the hotel from international tourists to the high-end market. The five star hotel ‘Walkerhill’ is located in the suburbs, quite far from the International airport and has this disadvantage over its competitors in terms of location. However this change would possibly be met with resistance from employees and managers, many of whom hav e worked for about 10 years. This paper puts forth approaches and methods to amiably change the perception of employees and managers at two levels – the group level and at an individual level. The objective is to convince them to adopt the changes in full trust and enthusiasm and make the new setup a successful and high-performance driven one.The next two sections discuss methods that can be employed at a group level. The first section concentrates on interpersonal behavior in the organization. It suggests how manager and employee groups can be amiably convinced about the necessity for change by acquiring their trust and involving them in the decision making process, while keeping the change in place.The second section emphasizes on the importance of a good team and processes that help in bringing about the change productively. The third section addresses coping up with organizational change at the individual level. It describes how the owner and management can communicate wi th the employees to reduce apprehensions and stress about the impending change and make them comfortable.The fourth and last section describes the role motivation plays in bringing about a positive change and high performance within an organization. Organizational changes if implemented as a drive to seek higher goals that require increased challenges, positive change in atmosphere and a renewed recognition of individual performance and achievement, can transform the common apprehension into an openly received change.Group level Interpersonal Behavior in the Workplace To convince the management, the owner must be able to communicate his ideas, logic and perceptions clearly. The owner might face some difficulty in bringing this change, since the managers have been around for long, and probably know their trade well as much as hold a strong affinity for their experience in the setup. However, there is an amicable possibility for this change.One of the things that the owner can do is g ain the trust of his managers. However, it cannot be a calculus-based approach to trust or an identification-based approach – it has to be brought through organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, the owner has to make sure that each member of the management is treated fairly. For instance, with this issue he must give each and every one a chance to voice out his/her opinion regarding upgrading the hotel and explain why he or she is against it. This will let them know that even though the owner’s ideas may be in conflict with those of the management, the owner still values their knowledge and respects their position as managers.Once they all get their chance to share their thoughts, the owner should then explain his side, but without apparently competing with his managers about the better plan, as this will only create friction, in the form of substantive conflict and it will be even more difficult to convince the management to upgrade the hotel. Instead, the party should negotiate or bargain, and try to find a common ground. Since everyone has had his/her side heard under this approach, they can address the questions surrounding the issue of why upgrading to a 5-star hotel might be a bad idea, and what can be done to turn this around, to compensate for or resolve it.Lastly, the owner should try to control his emotions when explaining his side. No matter how harsh or how blunt the management may be, regarding his decisions as â€Å"unnecessary†, the owner must remain emotionally stable. The same goes for the management—if one of them suddenly starts raising his voice, he should be calmed down before proceeding with the meeting. They should also be reminded of their positions—they are managers, not owners—and should respect the owner’s authority over them. The owner himself should not push his weight around.Group Processes and Work Teams At Walkerhill, we value good teamwork, since good teams are more pr oductive.   To accomplish this, most productive teams must be assembled to maximize the value of their productivity.A highly productive team must be assembled that offers maximum productivity. There are no absolute set of rules to follow in assembling a good team, since every situation is different and no two minds think alike.   However, through case studies we will show guidelines in building a good team.A way to build a good team here is to incorporate healthy acceptance of changes required for a new setup that caters to a different clientele, that is, the shift from serving tourists to a high-end market.   We must incorporate this attitude into the leaders of the hotel, which means this kind of training must start with the managers.   We believe change of attitude is infectious, so changing a negative minded manager into one with a positive mindset towards the hotel’s changes isn’t just adding a positive mind but eliminating one negative mind and adding a p ositive mind.An example we would like to use is to convince the managers that instead of changing our clientele from tourists to the high-end market, we are adding or broadening our market to increase/diversify our target market.   This approach may also assure the employees that we are not abandoning our tourist market.   A positive manager is far more impactful than a positive employee.However, the manager of the team can’t influence the team much if the managers and the employees are not close.   The levels of bonds between the team members are called group cohesiveness.   To strengthen the level of group cohesiveness, we like to use two determinants of cohesiveness: group size and history of success.   We like to minimize the size of each team so the teams can work to their full potential.We can’t put a specific number of individuals per team because the need of minimum number of individuals is different for each department.   Of course, we would not be hesitant to add more individuals to a team if needed.   By minimizing the number of members needed to perform at a high grade, we can cut the labor cost and limit the level of social loafing because smaller groups eliminate social loafing.We also believe that competitiveness is good to have within the organization.   To promote this, we would have a chart indicating which teams had the best performance compared to ones in similar departments.   In addition, the winners would be rewarded for their hard work.   The reward system would reward monthly/annually and individuals/teams.   A 360 degrees approach would be applied to the feedback collection system in order to incorporate feedback at all levels within the organization to help it run more efficiently.Coping with Organizational Life: Stress and Careers In the hotel’s situation, we can raise the issue about the stress in terms of individual level. Usually, people do not like change. Some people feel scared when t hey face some change in their life. In the hotel’s case, the managers and employees were being asked for a big change by the owner of the hotel. As is the common psychology, the managers and employees did not like the change. They wanted to keep the same conditions in the hotel’s operation.In this situation, we can suppose that the managers and employees would have got some psychological pressures such as fear, uncertainty, overload, and heavy responsibility from the sudden request. We can also suppose that they would have suffered from a lot of stress by the pressures. We recognize that the owner should deal with the issue about the managers and employees’ psychological pressures and stress. In short, the owner should consider how he can relieve the managers and employees from the psychological pressures and stress, so for them to accept the new change without any resistance.As a key solution of the situation, we can think of the owner’s effective commun ications skills. The effective communications skills should include the following key points: a reasonable basis for the change, a positive and successful prospect from the change, and vast benefits for managers and employees.As the reasonable basis for the change, the owner can suggest a few examples such as decrease of the foreign tourists, or increase of the demand of the domestic high –end market. In the respect of the positive and successful prospect from the change, the owner can also represent several examples such as upgraded brand image of the hotel, more effectiveness in hotel’s operation, and increase of the profits.   In the respect of the benefit for managers and employees, the owner can suggest a few promises such as more improved work environment, higher valued position for the managers and employees, and wage raise.Through those effective communications skills, the owner would indicate the positive aspects for the change, and, through those positive a spects, he would gradually relieve the psychological pressures and stress existing within the managers and employees. As the result, we can expect that the mangers and employees would accept the change without any resistance.Motivating People to Work Towards a Change One consequential factor in making the employees of an organization accept a change and increase performance in the new scenario is motivation. Once the managers are open to the change, the next step is to cascade the motivation, benefits and ownership of the change down to the employees. This can be done at various levels through a combination of different approaches.The first step towards motivating employees to perform at a maximum level of creativity and be a valuable asset to an organization is to ensure that their basic needs are being met. The change should be perceived as enhancing the facilities that meet their lower and rudimentary needs, like good salary for personal needs, an environment that is physically a nd psychologically safe to work in and is conductive to social affiliation and professional bonding. Once an employee finds that these things are in place, and a change will only enhance these factors, maximized performance, desire for success and recognition of accomplishments come naturally.Another step that motivates people is the urge to fill the gap between differences of outcomes and efforts in a job and turn relationships into equitable ones where ratios of outcome/input are similar between their colleagues and co-workers. This factor can be employed to increase motivation at two levels. One is by showing that the change put the employees at par in benefits with employees of other luxury hotels, who may be enjoying more remuneration for the similar responsibilities. The second approach is to introduce transparency in the organization so that employees are aware of roles that are fulfilled responsibly and achieve a good outcome/input ratio, thus stimulating them to model it.Th e hotel should have a very transparent scenario for rewarding and growth that makes the employees aware that a good performance is visible and appreciated at the top-most organizational level. The employees feel motivated to increase effort to enhance performance and are confident of being recognized and rewarded. This also recursively adds to the atmosphere of the organization and keeps people happy, which in turn also enhances motivation and appreciation of a conductive setup.One important approach to making employees work towards a new scenario is setting new goals and making them recognize the challenges of a higher goal level. Combined with a reassurance in the possibility of attaining the feasible yet possibly difficult end, goal setting enhances performance strongly by inducing a desire to reach a goal and feel competent while realizing self-efficacy. Difficult tasks and high goal commitment together maximize performance as opposed to low commitment. To achieve this specific, high performance goals need to be defined. Goals should be difficult yet feasible. This should be combined with feedback, which facilitates in gauging goal attainment. And lastly, this should be allowed time as it takes some time to reach and sustain performance at the new level.A new scenario brings about new job responsibilities. Jobs should be designed as to increase the motivation and performance of the employees. Each role should be designed as to appear inherently appealing. Jobs can include more number of tasks at the same level of responsibility and skills (horizontal loading) or with higher levels of skills and responsibilities (vertical loading). The new role should make people feel that they are doing meaningful and valuable work.Meaningfulness of a work is impacted by skills variety, degree to which a task requires responsibility from beginning to end (task identity) and task significance , as to the impact it has on others. Responsibility for outcome of work is determi ned by autonomy the employees have in determining their own task plan, schedule, etc. Knowledge of the actual result of activities is driven by feedback. This gives the employees a measure of their growth and development. All these together result in employee motivation, performance and satisfaction.ConclusionAn organization operates successfully as a function of the employees’ motivation, committed performance, sense of ownership, growth and satisfaction. While any organization constantly changes and evolves during its life, a sharp change almost always accompanies with employee insecurity and apprehension. Thus it requires foresight, planned and calculated effort to assuage the employee mindset and make it welcome the changed scenario as positive. This requires employing various methods at group and individual levels to make the benefits of change apparent.It is important to involve the employee as a part owner of the change and be a proactive participant in the action plan for the change. This also helps the top decision-makers and owners see details that may have been overlooked in planning the strategy to meet change.The organizational modifications can be brought about successfully through adopting productive processes and forming productive teams. Good teams come with a good degree group cohesiveness and healthy competition.Changes come with employee stress and insecurity, which need to be specifically addressed by the top-level management. An organization needs to show the employee it cares, and the key to this is effective communication. Measures need to be taken to overcome individual stress.Lastly, a positive atmosphere is a predecessor of good performance. The rudimentary needs like comfort and security of employees should be enhanced so that they can concentrate on achieving success and maximizing their level of creativity. Awareness of the organizational roles and at par rival-organization roles gives employees impetus to fill the gap in t he ratio of outcome versus input. A positive variation inspires positive traversal.An organization that is transparent and rewarding inspires employees to expect reward for personal effort and makes them go that extra mile. Well defined, challenging yet achievable goals ensure high employee commitment. In addition job roles defined to increase the skills levels used, ownership of a task life and marked by impactful tasks augment the meaningfulness of the work. Autonomy in choosing the action plan for task enhances sense of responsibility. Additionally, feedback enhances measure of goal attainment thus resulting in an employee’s professional growth. All of this together contribute to the performance, satisfaction and motivation of the employees and result in low absenteeism and turnover.