Learning from the Past

Learning about the past Learning about the past has no value for those of us living in the present. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. There are several views from the people, whether important or not for us keep memorizing the thing that had happened in the past and then try to put on ours life now. For this topic, I would like to discuss about the positive and negative impacts that we can get from that. First of all, there are some proverbs said, the bad experiences are the best teacher that can bring us to live more better in the present or future. For instance, when the first time we learned how to drive a car, probably we might have gotten accident because of lack experiences, but by the time we had already used to it, we will able to drive with easily and pretty sure we know how to handle the car even though the road is treacherous. In addition, learning about the past can make us more efficient either in time or money. Moreover, we can give a good impacts to other people too. In general, the child will always follow in his/her parents behavior during the process of maturity. However, there are also some adverse results that we can get if we still stick with something in the past. People who had ever committed with drugs, they should try to forget it. Otherwise, they will never move on. In my opinion, I agree that learning about something in the past can bring us some value, success will not come without failure, especially old history, that can make our next generation become appreciate about their ancestors and interest to know the history of the world.

Resolving Conflicts With People Essay

Abstract Conflict in the workplace just seems to be a fact of life. There are situations where different people with different goals and needs have come into conflict. And if the conflicts are not resolved they can be intense personal animosity between individuals involved. There are bound to be differences, arguments and conflicts in the work place and conflict resolution is an essential skill that a person should have. This is a skill that is thought or acquired through experience and learning from others. Resolving Conflicts Over the years I have been involved in situations where there were arguments, differences in opinion which all usually resulted in a conflict of some sort. I think conflicts also have magnitudes and the scale of a conflict and how important the situation is to the job can also dictate how and when it is resolved. In this paper I will describe one of the situations where I was involved in a conflict, what transpired and how it was resolved. A couple years ago I found myself in a situation at work where I was not happy with one of my colleagues. I was about to go on a month log vacation and after a conversation with my manager he designated a colleague as my back up and suggested I updated them on things I was working on and what they needed to do to keep the work progressing while I was gone. Basically my job is to support airlines by responding to questions and issues that they have about the Airplanes that by company sells to them. This was a very critical part of what the company did and was part of supporting customers to keep them happy and potentially buy from us again in the future. So I scheduled a meeting with my colleague and we talked about all the projects I was working on, the status of the projects, what needed to be done to complete the project and how to support the new incoming projects. I told him about the issues I was having with some airlines, the point of contacts and how to best reach them to resolve the issues. There was a specific client that had a very urgent issue that needed to be resolved and I relayed to my colleague the status and told my colleague the deadline for the inquiry was near and he needed to close out the case before moving on to anything else. When I got back from vacation about a month later, I realized that a lot of the cases I was working on were still open and even worse the deadlines had passed and the customers had not gotten the responses they needed to keep opera ting the planes. When I asked my colleague about the situation he explained to me that he was very busy and was not able to spend a lot of time working on the issues that I had left him to take care of in my absence. My initial perception was that my colleague was irresponsible and unreliable. I was very frustrated and angry because a lot of customers were disappointed and unhappy because of the lack of response from my company. This burden fell on me because everyone knew it was my responsibility to respond to the customers and I was blamed for the dissatisfaction on the part of the customers. From my colleagues’ point of view, the manager asked him to step in a back fill for me while I was out, he was told to still work on things that he needed to do and also back fill for me at the same time. The manager had told him that I was going on vacation and he would need him to keep any eye on the things I was working on but still make sure he worked on his projects. My colleague decided to prioritize himself and chose to do most of his work rather than prioritize to see if any of my cases were urgent and respond in a timely manner. Ultimately his perception was that he just had to do a little bit to get my work moving along but was not responsible for making sure that all my work was completed in time. I asked my coworker why he had not helped the customers and he explained to me that he was overworked and did not have enough time to get the job done. I decided to confront my coworker because it bothered me and I thought it was better to air the grievances in the open than to let them fester. I was very upset and told him I thought he could have done a better job and I felt his job ethic was pretty bad because this was work he was supposed to have done. There was a bit of an argument and some harsh words were exchanged. The argument centered around me thinking he should have done more to make sure my work load was progressing while I was gone, a nd his main response that he could not manage my work load and his at the same time and be as productive as I expected him to have been. We were able to resolve the conflict before it escalated without, having any long term grudges against each other. Some of the reasons the conflict was resolved was because we spoke calmly to one another and tried not to be aggressive. I have learnt that listening to the other person’s point of view helps to understand their position and see things the way they had understood it. The main reason for the conflict was miscommunication on the managers part. The manager told my coworker to do what he could to help out when he could when I was gone, by what I thought my manager told me was that my coworker would be taking over for me while I was gone. So I had different expectations for what I thought my coworker was going to help me with. We both spoke to our manager about what had transpired and how the miscommunication had affected the current workload, he understood our individual points, apologized to both of us and neither of us was blamed or held responsible for the late responses to the customers. The main reason why we were able to resolve the conflict and have the desirable outcome, is the reality is that it can take time to reach a win-win solution, and we did not want to spend hours trying to decide who was wrong or right. There was increased understanding, increased cohesion and improved self knowledge between us which made resolving the conflict much easier than if we had not agreed resolving the conflict without placing blame was our priority. Communication and the willingness to listen is very important in resolving a conflict, however, if the conflict was not handled effectively, the result could have been damaging to the cohesion of the team and perception that we had of each other. Talent is wasted as people disengage or are dissatisfied with situations in the work place and it’s easy to end up in a vicious downward spiral of negativity and recrimination. There was no better solution to how this conflict was resolved, but one thing that could have been done d ifferently was to increase communication with the manager and involved the manager when my coworker and I had the meeting. This way the manager would have been able to set expectation for each of us and cleared up any competition. But because we both received instructions separately we both interpreted differently and that cause confusion. The trust level between my coworker and I actually increased after this incedent, because after communicating with him more I got to know him on a more personal level and understood that he had a very good work ethic and was only doing what he was instructed to do. What could have helped come to a better outcome is sending emails to the customers letting them know I was out of town and that even though somebody was standing in for me while I was gone I would do my best to follow up with anyone who had not received help by the time I got back from vacation. I would also have sent an email to the manager detailing my interpretation of his instructions and reiterating his expectations from my point of view. Last thing I could have done different is to document the transition plan of things that my coworker needed to do and sent it to my coworker and manager to make sure that everyone was on the same page. References Arnold Anderson. (nd).Workplace Examples Of Workplace Negotiation. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/workplace-examples-conflict.negotiation-11402.html Naomi Drew. (nd).Six Steps For Resolving Conflict Retrieved from http://www.learningpeace.com/pages/LP_04.htm

To begin assignment read Henry Mintzberg's article (enclosed) The Fall Essay

To begin assignment read Henry Mintzberg's article (enclosed) The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning (Harvard Business Review, January-February 1994) - Essay Example One weakness with strategic planning is that it is comprised of a calculated approach which is fixed towards attaining a goal in contrast to strategic thinking which is committed to encompass other people’s views in attainment of that particular goal. Strategies are only effective if committed people infuse them with their energy directed at achieving the stipulated goals. On the other hand, it can be noted that planning could not learn or think but only limited to the widely held belief of doing things within an organisation. He posits that strategic planning should have been termed strategic programming rather where it would be promoted as a process to formalise the strategies that have already been developed. On its own, planning cannot generate strategies. However, planning is important in that it promotes coordination and also ensures that everyone in the organisation pulls in the same direction. It can be used to gain moral support from outsiders who are more influential to the organisation. In this scenario, it can be noted that as human beings, we are inclined to formalise our behaviour in most instances but careful consideration has to be taken when it comes to strategy making process. Strategy making is often a complex activity which requires creativity in the process. The extent to which we are guided by formalisation sometimes make us stop thinking beyond what is regarded as the norm. When it comes to strategic making process, intuitive thinking ought to play a pivotal role in informing and shaping of the organisational vision. This can be possible through the use of effective thinking which is not only subjected to the principles stipulated to be followed. A close analysis of the given article shows that it is concerned with highlighting some of the shortfalls of strategic planning that can impede the process of strategic decision making process which ought to be guided by

Manegenment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Manegenment - Essay Example ect as well reasons why project managers focus on those activities that lie within a critical path rather than those on the slack time when crashing a project. Research indicates that for many years, project networks has been developed using the PERT diagram despite being based on stochastic process which may lead to inaccurate outcomes (Pinto & Jeffrey, pp 312-314). However, with the development of Gantt charts, numerous advantages have been derived over the application of PERT diagram in project scheduling. This is because Gantt diagram not only provide a link between the activities and project schedule time, but also provides an opportunity to now how the activities will be undertaken as well as the actual date when the project will begin till and the time it will be accomplished (Pinto & Jeffrey, pp 312).However, despite the short comings of PERT diagram, the diagram provides project managers with a tool for planning on how the tasks will be accomplished (Pinto & Jeffrey, pp 312-314). Crashing project may involve compressing the activities duration in order to reduce the amount of time that could have been taken to complete the project (Pinto & Jeffrey, pp 220-311). Therefore, a project might be crashed under the following circumstances: when the project is lagging behind the scheduled time, secondly due to market demand whereby, it may be required to accomplish a project earlier before the scheduled date (Pinto & Jeffrey, pp 220-311). Project managers focus on crashing activities within a critical path because it is one of the longest paths within a network (Pinto & effrey pp-232-302). Additionally, crashing those activities within the slack path may reduce time but may subject a project to an additional cost that could have been avoided if crashing was strictly undertaken within the critical path (Pinto & Jeffrey pp-232-302). Therefore, it is advisable to utilize critical path when crashing a project in order to compress the amount of time and reduce

OHIO & DUBAI (Comparative Essay) in Business Research Paper

OHIO & DUBAI (Comparative Essay) in Business - Research Paper Example However, the economic prospects of Ohio today are quite unattractive and that this adversely affect investing or doing business in the state. This is reflected in a study conducted by Bo Carlsson (2002) wherein the firms in Ohio report a lack of regional venture capital firms as well as a lack of venture capital firms based outside the state particularly those interested in Ohio-based startups. (p. 171) All in all, the dismal business environment in Ohio can be seen in the economic activity, population trends, tax and real estate. There is an ongoing competition among US states for a share in investment as they compete with each other in regard to which locale is able to provide the best investment climate. In this landscape of escalating inter-state competition, selective interests within traditional industrial states sough to mobilize governmental powers and resources behind a strategy of inward investment. In Ohio’s case, construction of an inward-led model of economic development consisted of three elements. According to Nicholas Phelps and Philip Raines, these are: a set of economic and political interests that provided the social base for the strategy; formal institutions dedicated to a particular form of economic development; and, a framework for coordinating economic development practices. (p. 84) In Ohio’s economic history, it is clear that development came from the interconnection of these three elements. The first involved the establishment of the Ohio Department of Industrial and Eco nomic Development; the second is the codification of the relationship between State and private interests in the form of Ohio Economic Development Council; and, the third involves the routine practices through which inward investment has been pursued as a policy for the last four decades. (p. 85) Today, however, one fact stands out for Ohio: it is dramatically losing its competitiveness. Since the twenty-first

Financial Information for Business Decision Coursework

Financial Information for Business Decision - Coursework Example According to the report the company deals in third party land development and capital management. Nevertheless, it runs capital management trusts referred to as Hercules Unit Trust, the Pillar Retail Europark Fund and the Hercules Income Fund. The headquarters of the company is in London, at the Seymour Street. However, the business model adopted by the company is both risk aversive and opportunistic, which enables them to be in a position of attaining the long-term growth in her shareholder value. The major focuses of the company include: the maximization of equity returns, which is done via optimal financing and joint ventures; it aims at the creation of incomparable or excellent long-term ventures with strong covenants; it also focuses on the major assets in the office and retail sectors; as well as aiming to enhance the property returns via active development and management. In addition, we find that flexibility is imperative to high returns for the company that is both in terms of business financing and business organization. This will greatly enable them to take advantage or capitalize on the changes in the property market. From this study it is clear that whenever a business is started, we find that it either implicitly or explicitly adopts a specific business model, which defines the design of the creation of value, its delivery, as well as the capture of the mechanisms applied by the business enterprise. Nonetheless, the significance of a business model is its description of the way by which the business venture delivers value to its clients, attracts the clients to pay for value and also changes the payments to returns. Therefore, it reflects the presumption of the management as regards what is wanted by the clients, and the way a business can be in a position of meeting those needs in the best way possible, get reward for doing so and making a profit.

Technology, Society, and Culture Group Project Term Paper

Technology, Society, and Culture Group Project - Term Paper Example na, Evaristo and Srite (2005) values are acquired early in life through childhood socialization and education, and are often â€Å"stable in nature but can change over time reflecting changes in culture†. Practices develop later in life through activities such as workplace socialization, and are more subject to change than values. According to a cross-cultural research conducted by Kawabata and Tamura (2007) there is limited religious use of the Internet by the Japanese in comparison to the US in spite of a high Internet penetration rate of 66.8% and estimated 85.29 million users by the end of 2005 Internet exchanges are primarily text-based interactions, whereas the new religions, which are more active in Japan than Buddhism or Christianity, have a strong element of religious activities that are physical action-oriented and cannot be translated into text. The structure of public education in Japan is largely based on the American model of education adopted after World War II. Practically almost 100% of Japanese students complete its nine-year compulsory education core. In the late 1980s, the Ministry of Education included computer literacy courses in technology education programs in lower secondary schools to help students understand the roles and functions of computers, and develop capability for the use of computers and information (Murata & Stern, 1993). Combining these new computer courses with introduction of integrated problem solving courses such as mechatronics, applied mechatronics and independent project study at upper secondary technical courses greatly increased the technical human capacity in Japan. Japan has also been able to leverage its superior computer technology and skills to create some of the largest and most advanced products such as textiles, electronics, motor vehicles, chemical substances, processed foods, steel and nonferrous metals and so on. Cultural practices may have changed due to the cross-cultural information brokered by