Learning from Mistakes

I don’t remember anyone ever telling me how important school was. Maybe they did and I just chose to ignore it. Instead, I focused all of my energy on my friends, and â€Å"extra-curricular activities† that had nothing to do with academics. I remember thinking I already knew all there was to know about the real world. But, as a teenager, I guess you don’t really know anything. So, I continued to have fun with my friends without thinking of what the future had in store for me. Now here I am at the age of thirty-three and I realize how much easier my life would have been if I listened to the wise words being told to me by my mom, dad, and mostly from my grandmother. High school should be a time to spread teenage wings, growing up from children into young adulthood. To start preparing for the dreaded â€Å"C† word, College. When most kids were shuffling themselves from class to class, taking notes, flipping through pages of boring text books, I was nowhere to be found. Instead I was hanging out in the parking lot. My activities included swapping gossip from other delinquents. Instead of learning the periodic table of elements, I learned the basic chemistry of illicit drug use. When others were learning the miracles of internal combustion, I learned how to scope out unlocked parked cars that allowed me access to â€Å"OPP† Other People’s Property. I earned my unofficial degree in General Education by majoring in Street Smarts. However, one can’t write that on a resume. During this time, my family raised their efforts in trying to encourage me to go back to school. My parents were informed by the truancy department of my 30 day personal leave of school and my mom was being threatened to go to jail for my actions. My mother had had enough and dragged my know-it-all behind back into school following into each room and sitting with me to ensure I actually attended class. She was my faithful but unwilling lunch partner. As upset as I was that she followed me around like an angry mother bear, my friends enjoyed their free lunch. Midway through my sophomore year in high school I dropped out and focused my time on losing myself in the fog of drugs. Days melted into weeks, which then melted into months. One day I woke up and realized I was nineteen years old. It wasn’t too long after that I found out I was pregnant with my oldest daughter Christal. All of a sudden education became important to me. I enrolled into Serremonte Del Rey Adult education. Going back to school with an infant child was harder then I could imagine. Diapers and bottles became routine and somewhere in the middle of raising a baby I had to find time to do my homework. It was hard but I was able to graduate with my G. E. D. A few years later my second daughter, Jennel, soon came along. Somewhere between the birth of my first and second child, I realized I had to get a job. I was twenty-three at the time. My first job was at a jewelry kiosk called â€Å"Impressions By The Inch. † Working as a single mom took up most of my time and energy. If I wasn’t at work, I was home taking care of kids. The hangouts in the High School parking lot were things of the past. As those fun days disappeared I realized that I had wasted my time having fun and not preparing for me or my daughters future. After working in the jewelry store, I started working as a manager in the retail store called Aeropostale for three years. It was exhausting, raising two daughters and accommodating a hectic schedule was near impossible. I found myself at times sleeping overnight in the back room because it was easier than going home in between work shifts. Soon I found a job working for the Marriott Hotel chain where I’ve been for five years. Working for the Marriott was a blessing in disguise as far as my path back to education. Had it not been for the constant breakdown of office equipment and computer failures, I would not have realized how much I enjoy the inner workings of computers. Recently, my hours at work were reduced giving me an opportunity to go back to school. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was to go back to school to get my degree. Going back to school added other difficulties, but I am glad to accept them because I know I am working towards a goal that will one day make my future better and brighter. Looking back, I have to ask myself, â€Å"Do I regret the choices that I made in my adolescent days? † I can definitely say that I don’t regret a thing! My experiences made me the strong, independent, hard working woman that I am today. My only wish now is that when my children look at me and the life I lived then and live now they will see their mom, a woman that despite my many mistakes, I learned important lessons along the way. Even though I had a rough start in school, I had the courage to go back. Education is an important key in making a better life. It is never too late to go back to school. Street smarts are important to have, but to have a well rounded education means getting a degree. They can use the lessons I learned to help them prepare themselves for a career and not just a job. That is how they can make a better life for their children. I hope they take my experiences and use them to make themselves better women. As far as education, I want them to know what they learn in school helps them make a better future.

Management Philosophy

â€Å"Management aims to accomplish group purposes with the least expenditure of material or human resources† (Koontz, 1969, p. 415). The term management philosophy seems almost oxymoronic in that they appear to work toward different results. The goal of management should be to improve the organization. (Kirkeby, 2000) suggest that the objective of management has always been the goal of making the group, institution, organization, or nation, into the strongest organism possible. Triumph, subjugation, gaining strength, and survival are all priorities of management. These along with personal prestige, acquiring real estate (enlarging your territory), making lots of money, and transferring thought to action paint the perfect picture of today’s successful manager. (Kirkeby, 2000) believes that philosophy is just the opposite, suggesting that philosophy deals with power but in a different way, its focus is the power of thought instead of position or bottom line performance. The pursuit of philosophy is not one of financial gain for the individual but one of freedom and liberation of thought. Similar article: Scientific Management Theory in Health Care Philosophy lends itself to a relationship with reality as opposed to management where goals exist to create, shape, and determine the best reality conducive to productivity. Philosophy does not insist on leading the individual to think, but rather presenting ideas and thought for evaluation and consideration of the individual, allowing them to pick, choose, and add to the original thought, and even completely dismiss. Dr. W. Edwards Deming – The system of profound knowledge/System Theory Dr.  Deming was a known for his work in the many fields to include management philosophy. The management philosophy of Dr. Deming is centered on the system of profound knowledge. The System of Profound Knowledge was presented in his book titled â€Å"The New Economics†, (Deming, 1994). The system of profound knowledge provides a map of theory with assist us in understanding the organizations that we work in. It is comprised of four major tenets (Deming); â€Å"Appreciation of a System, Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Variation, and Psychology†. Deming goes on to suggest that â€Å"many themes show up in various parts of the System of Profound Knowledge, particularly those relating to organizational purpose, driving out fear in an organization, and understanding the implications of variation† (Deming, p. 11). Systems theory lays out management methods that can create systems out of organizations, and the advantages of these systems. There are many road blocks to the establishing an organizational system, (Deming, 1994) describes some of the road blocks as; focus on the benefit of performance from one aspect of the system. This feeds self interest and promotion. Internal competition; this leads to business units with holding information and not willing to share resources and the use of the performance appraisal; this creates a mind-set geared toward individual performance. (Deming) breaks down the four tenets that make up the system of profound knowledge; the Theory of Knowledge or epistemology as it is often referred provides a description for a system that focuses on learning and the use of theory. The Theory of Variation; its purpose is to assist managers in understanding what variation is and how this understanding will improve process within the system. Deming describes management as the ability to predict and for this reason an in-depth understanding of variation is all the more critical. Psychology; is seen and utilized in all aspects of Deming’s system. Deming’s suggest that manages must be able to identify psychological influences on and in their respective units if they are to become a true system. Scientific Management  There are examples all a round us concerning the benefit of Scientific Management; planes, trains, and automobiles, processes, and work environments that we engage each day. All of these examples and many others function and are produced at a higher rate of efficiently due to Scientific Management. Frederick W. Taylor born on March 20, 1865 considered â€Å"the father of Scientific Management†. He strongly campaigned for less human interaction and more machine driven production, even going on to say â€Å"In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first† (Worthy, 1959, p. 3). One of the driving factors for Taylor’s scientific management was that he believed the industrial management of his day was run by individuals that had no professional amplitude Deming suggested that â€Å"management could be formulated as an academic discipline, and that the best results would come from the partnership between a trained and qualified management and a cooperative and innovative workforce† (Weisbord, 1987, p. 9). â€Å"Taylorism† became the first big management fad. Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles (Weisbord, 1987): 1. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks. 2. Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves. 3. Provide detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the performance of that worker's discrete task. 4. Divide work equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks. Taylor was the first to present a systematic study of interactions among job requirements such as tools, methods, and human skill. To fit people to jobs both psychologically and physically, and to let data and facts do the talking rather than prejudice, opinions, or egos† (Weisbord, 1987, p. 10). As scientific management increased in popularity Taylor became more outspoken concerning his position on human relations in the work place, assuming that workers were â€Å"lazy, won't take responsibility, lack desire to achieve significant results, demonstrate inability to direct their own behavior, show indifference to organizational needs, prefer to be led by others, and avoid making decisions whenever possible. † (Montgomery, 1989, p. 6). Compare and Contrast Scientific Management – although scientific management has played and will continue to be an important aspect of our universal business model for production, it is necessary to note the weaknesses that this method contains. Such as its negative influence in current work environments concerning the human contribution. The tenants of Scientific Management are not applicable to all modern organizations. Nelson notes that â€Å"Scientific Management is perhaps best seen as an evolutionary stage in management’s ever developing history. † (Nelson, 1980, p. 14). Today’s the average employee has increased in their understanding of self-worth and their ontribution to the organization. Employees are no longer content with just the financial reward for their work; they also receive satisfaction when allowed to participate in the benefit of the organizations success. The Scientific Management system viewed workers as interested only in the economic reward and working toward that end only. (Worthy, 1959, p. 42) states that â€Å"in current organizations it has been recognized that productivity and success is not just obtained by controlling all factors in the work place, but by contributing to the social well-being and development of the individual employee. Scientific management’s negative aspects are apparent when evaluating the value of employees in the context of organizational contribution and success. (Nelson, 1980) uncovers that at the Taylor’s methods for managing the workers were not fully accepted by thousands of manufacturing plants due to fear of alienating the employees. Nelson states that â€Å"the principals of scientific management are unquestionably authoritarian in that they assume decision-making is best kept at the top of the organization because there exist a lack of trust in the competence of the employees. † (Nelson, p. 27). System of profound knowledge – Dr. Deming’s system of profound knowledge is quite different form that of Taylor’s scientific management in several ways that will be discussed here. The first is in my opinion the most significance, Dr. Deming’s system of profound knowledge unlike scientific management starts with the individual. Transformation of the individual is a key aspect of this system. This transformation is the result of understanding of the system of profound knowledge. (Deming, 1994) suggest that the once a person is transformed, they will understand that their life has value and real meaning. These principles will then be applied to all relationships, personal, professional, and social. The individual upon understanding the system of profound knowledge now has a point of reference for decisions and for organizations that they are a part of. The one challenge that I can see with the system of profound knowledge is this constant pursuit to improve. How do you start? How do you set down all of the baggage in order for transformation to actually begin? The last challenge that I see with this system is that all four tenants have to be put into play, if one of the four is not operative then the other three become null and void. Conclusion While both of these management philosophies/systems proved to be of benefit in different times when injected into different organizations, they are not without challenge and negative aspects. People, while they operate within systems, sub-systems, or processes, they are not comprised of them, however complex they are. When individuals are introduced into a system there has to be processes that will gage the individual performance outside of the system as well as within the system. If not the employee will always be subject to the system and not allowed to explore and identify their potential for success within other systems.

Essay model answers Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Model answers - Essay Example Pershing Square accounts 18% of J.C. Penney while Vornado 9.9%. J.C.Penney anticipate that if Pershing Square Capital’s Bill Ackman and its ally Vornado will make a position for a bid to take-over the company, J.C. Penney will swallow a â€Å"poison pill† to avert the siege. The plan will be activated the moment an investor will buy at least 10% of the company shares in addition to the shares that they already have. The poison pill is an age old strategy against hostile take-overs to dilute the holdings of an investor whose stake exceeds that threshold (Egain 2013). In the case o f J.C. Penney, if anyone builds a stake in the company in a move for a takeover, J.C. Penney will â€Å"issue a dividend of one right for each outstanding common share not owned by the raider. The right will have an exercise price of $55, and it’ll allow investors to, say, buy $110 worth of J.C. Penney shares for only $55 (Brown 2013). In effect, J.C. Penney board can buy back its stocks at a fraction of a penny if a hostile takeover is launched. The strategy was effective because J.C. Penney was able to avert the stand-off and potential takeover of Pershing Square Capital’s Bill Ackman. It also discouraged any potential hostile takeover from other companies and/or individuals. The poison pill was effective that the potential raider Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital mulled an exit from holding any shares of J.C. The poison pill may have been an effective strategy to avert any potential takeover. It was able to guard against the standoff from Pershing Square Capital but its shares fell 1.43% which is $13.14 the day after it announced the use of poison pill â€Å"leaving them off 33% on the year and 45% over the past 12 months† (Egan 2013). This was indeed a poison pill to swallow to avoid hostile takeover because the strategy compound the loss of J.C. Penney by the deterioration of its shares in the stock market. But as J.C. Penney’s CEO

Ethical Filter worksheet Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ethical Filter worksheet - Essay Example At times, one must decide just how honest one can be in a situation without causing further issues to arise. Being communicative is always advantageous as all problems can be resolved on the basis of communication. I have experience of this aspect of personality because of being in groups of friends and working groups. I placed communicativeness at the top of the list in terms of decision making because I think that being communicative is really advantageous in making any kinds of decisions whether they are personal or organizational. With the help of communication, a person cannot only express his/her views regarding a decision but he/she can also allow others to express in order to come to a decision (Caputo, et.al, 2003). Communication is a two way process and is only successful when both the sides are ready to listen to each other (Caputo, et.al, 2003). Therefore, according to my perception, being communicative is most essential for a decision making process and it should be prioritized. Communicativeness is a challenging job as everyone cannot be dragged in discussions at times so extensive effort is required. Communication should be prioritized and in communicating, one’s role should be appreciative. To appreciate the good opinions and information given by a person always encourages people to take part in the decision making process. Also encouragement plays a greater part in persuading people to perform better (Caputo, et.al, 2003). The process of decision making becomes better when people are encouraged to share their opinions. People should be appreciated for their participation (Caputo, et.al, 2003). Appreciation should be there but appreciation that is wrongly done is disadvantageous so this factor should be taken care of. I consider trustworthiness as an important aspect of decision making as one cannot allow the other person to decide or form an opinion if trust is not there in between

Successful Conflict Resolution for Divorced Couples Essay

Successful Conflict Resolution for Divorced Couples - Essay Example At other times, people appear to have rushed into a marriage without properly understanding each other and knowing all the aspects of their spouse's personality. In such a scenario, marriage turns out to be a shock when one comes across the true nature of one's life partner. There is no dearth of cases when the couples tend to have different relational expectations and thus end up having a divorce. However, once a divorce is finalized, the problem does not end here only. The post divorce scenario gives ways to a plethora of conflicts and issues between the couples. The divorce process in itself tends to be a very stressful and trying situation for the involved couples. The entire procedures involves settling and deciding upon a whole range of vital issues like splitting the finances and assets, deciding as to whether the couple intends to go fore a divorce by mutual consent or intends to contest, and above all parenting and kids. Unless both the parties tend to cooperate and resolve their disputes with ample patience and caution, the divorce procedure and the post divorce situation could end up getting real nasty and miserable (Sherman, 2000). Under such circumstances, apt and effective interpersonal communication could play a pivotal role in a successful conflict resolution between the divorced couples. Interpersonal Interpersonal communication stands to be the interactive process that takes place between the two people and this interaction may tend to be face-to-face or may perhaps be mediated by a third party. Apt and conducive interpersonal communications not only plays a central role in most of the successful marriages, but it could also go a long way in settling disputes between the aggrieved couples in a post divorce scenario. Still, the irony is that in most of the divorces, shoddy interpersonal communication tends to be one of the, if not the sole responsible factor. Therefore, how can one expect the divorced couples to negotiate amicably in a post divorce scenarioDivorce can be really less painful if the divorced couples tend to be cognizant of some fundamentals of interpersonal communication. The basic thing to be understood by the divorced spouses is that they simply cannot escape the requisite interpersonal communication, even if they are divorced (King, 2000). Hence, a willingness to communicate tactfully with one's ex could go a long way in settling the post divorce issues, reasonably and amicably. The second thing that the divorced couples must accept is that interpersonal communication is always complex, especially in a divorce scenario (King, 2000). In addition, interpersonal communication always happens to be irreversible (King, 2000). One simply cannot rescind a message, once it is conveyed. Therefore, communication between divorced couples requires patience and a capacity to listen to each other. Above all, interpersonal communications always takes place in a context and never happens in

The Value of Education in Todays Society Research Paper

The Value of Education in Todays Society - Research Paper Example This essay stresses that today’s economy has become more global and Americans are being asked to gain more global knowledge. As the economy and political policies continue to change, the needs for competition and understanding have changed. Many businesses are requiring employees to have knowledge of more than one language so that they negotiate contracts easier. Globalization also brings with it the need for computer knowledge that includes an understanding of virtual working teams, and they must be able to take in knowledge quickly. This project makes a conclusion that education is important to society on many levels. Education drives a society and can help it transition to a stronger community. Education is important to enhance a society and to make it stronger. When someone is gaining education, he or she learns how to help others achieve as they take the role of leadership. Education is important to the economy because educated people spend more and they pay more taxes. They also pay taxes. Both situations bring people together and help the society grow. Most organizations are working with a diverse work group which means that training should be involved with them to understand more about cultures and about what culture looks like. In a global world, it is important is to be culturally sensitive to the needs of all workers and this come with education and training. There is no doubt that education is important to society. There are a variety of ways that educated people help the economy.

How did the French Revolution influence the development of nationalism Essay

How did the French Revolution influence the development of nationalism in 19th century Europe - Essay Example The paper tells that the idea of nationalism is said to have emerged from the French Revolution in 1789. It is reported that, during this time, France was already a fully-fledge territorial nation under the rule of a powerful monarch. The French Revolution that took place during this time brought a lot of changes both political and constitutional that led to a shift of sovereignty from the monarch to the citizens of France. The French Revolution clamoured for the introduction of a system in which power is to be vested on the people who would henceforth be mandated to constitute the nation and determine its destiny. It is also noted that, right from the start, the French revolutionaries brought in place practices and measures aimed at creating a sense of collectivity among the people of France. For instance, the la patrie (the fatherland) idea and Ie citoyen (the citizen) advocated for a united community where people are free and enjoy equal rights as enshrined in the constitution. As a result, the French people chose a national flag, the tricolour, in replacement of its royal standard. This was followed by the election of Estates General by citizens and later on renamed as the National Assembly. After the formation of the National Assembly, the French people then composed hymns, took oaths and commemorated martyrs all in the name of their country. The French also formed a centralized system of government accompanied by the formulation of laws that were to govern the country.