Psychological Aspects of Genetic Research essays

Psychological Aspects of Genetic Research essays In recent news and scientific publications, there has been a great deal written in the area of genetic research. New discoveries of ways to possibly cure disease or rebuild life-saving tissues and organs based on this type of research hold great promise. In addition, this type of therapy raises the question of other applications, particularly in the area of mental illness and diseases. There have not been many concrete findings in this field, but certain experimental research results are fascinating. Experiments in this field are on the forefront of psychological and genetic research. Many connections can be made between genetics and certain psychological expressive traits or genes such as; intelligence, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, aggression, and anxiety. Many of these emotion-based illnesses, such as manic depression and schizophrenia, can be connected to the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) and the 5-HT2c receptor. Another area of the brain under research is the myelin sheath about schizophrenia and manic depression. The brain chemical Serotonin has been the newest target of medication known as anti-depressants, and drugs that deal with mood stabilization. Another gene that is currently being researched at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland is a single gene: Pet-1. This gene regulates the production of serotonin and controls the communication between cells. Serotonin levels have previously been proven to influence emotion, learning, memory, and pain detection. "These small number of neurons can sprinkle serotonin all over the brain. That's why they have been implicated in so many brain processes and psychiatric disorders. But we know extremely little about them. This is the first gene we've found to control this," says study author Evan Deneris, an associate professor of neuroscience at Case Western. The studies of the serotonin transporter gene indicate a distinct phenotype of adults wit...

Inspiration and Advice About Divorce

Inspiration and Advice About Divorce You must have heard the famous proverb, The road to hell is paved with good intentions. All marriages are fraught with problems. Show me a perfect match, and I will show you the worlds greatest illusion. So if you are getting out of the marriage because it did not work out the way you envisioned your perfect life to be, wake up to the real world. Divorce Affects the Whole Family If  there seems to be no chance of reconciliation, divorce may be  inevitable. A relationship devoid of love is no relationship at all. If your spouse and you have decided to go ahead with the divorce, you need to make sure to handle the breakup sensitively. Not just assets and money are at stake; your near and dear ones are also going to bear the brunt of the breakup. Hence, keeping your emotions at a neutral level, you need to ensure that others are not hurt by your decision. Divorce will have an irreversible impact on your family. Children and even ​pets go through emotional upheaval and mental trauma. You need to treat them with great sensitivity, keeping their interest and well-being in mind. Whether you choose to move to a new house, city, or town, make sure that your family does not suffer due to a change of surroundings. Shake Off the Post-Divorce Gloom If divorce has affected you, take some time off work to heal yourself. Join a yoga class, learn a new  language, go out with friends, or even rekindle your childhood hobbies. The loneliness after separation may initially seem unbearable, but be optimistic about moving on. Remind yourself that you are now in control of your life, and you will depend only on yourself for your happiness. Don’t feel guilty about the divorce. Accept your mistakes, and be generously forgiving of yourself. There is no point living in self-pity or condemnation. How to Cope With Loneliness If you are feeling low, read these quotes about moving on. Vent your sadness with sad love quotes. Hang out with friends who are supportive and caring. Make new friends, even though you dont feel ready for a commitment. Dont feel guilty about having fun. You are entitled to happiness, just as everyone else is. Renew Your Life With Optimism Divorce may be the end of a relationship, but it could also open avenues for new relationships. You  also have the chance to reinvent yourself. Take this opportunity to learn more about yourself. Reflect on your life and past mistakes. If you are moving into a new relationship, learn lessons from your previous relationships. Dont carry the baggage of old memories into your new relationship. They can only add to your woes. Instead of living on regrets and nostalgia, look ahead with optimism and dreams. Get inspired to challenge your limits and aim high. Your enthusiasm can help renew your life. Use these divorce quotes as good counsel. You may not be able to undo your past or avoid the divorce, but you can at least ensure that your future relationships don’t suffer in the same way. These divorce quotes provide you with adequate food for thought along with some invaluable insight on relationships. Quotes Robert Anderson: In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage. Walt Whitman: Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul. Mark Gungor, Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage: Marriage problems are relationship problems, they are the result of how two people interact with each other. You may abandon a troubled marriage, but you will still bring the way you interact with others along with you. Nora Ephron: Marriages come and go, but divorces are forever. Christina Aguilera: My parents divorce and hard times at school, all those things combined to mold me, to make me grow up quicker. And it gave me the drive to pursue my dreams that I wouldnt necessarily have had otherwise. Evan Esar: Divorce is the price people play for playing with matches. Rita Mae Brown: Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash. Helen Rowland: When two people decide to get a divorce, it isnt a sign that they dont understand one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to. Roseanne Barr: Take this marriage thing seriously it has to last all the way to the divorce. Zoe Stern: Divorce can sometimes be for the better. You may end up with happier parents, and you will definitely learn a lot about yourself! And thats the whole point of growing up. So if you think about it, there are reasons to be happy about this experience, if you can learn and grow from it. Jack Benny: My wife Mary and I have been married for forty-seven years and not once have we had an argument serious enough to consider divorce; murder, yes, but divorce, never. Suzanne Finnamore, Split: The snag about marriage is, it isnt worth the divorce. American Proverb: The easiest way to get a divorce is to be married. Helen Rowland: Nowadays love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money, and divorce a matter of course. Gerald F. Lieberman: Divorce is a declaration of independence with only two signers. David Arquette: People that go through what I went through and people going through divorce, its really a difficult  process; its heartbreaking and it hurts really bad. It can really mess with your head. Joan Rivers: Half of all marriages end in divorce and then there are the really unhappy ones. Voltaire: Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce. Al Goldstein: If you cannot work on the marriage or the women is a moron, staying married and cheating makes the most sense because divorce is disruptive to the family life and your bank account. Erica Jong: There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier. Zsa Zsa Gabor: Getting divorced just because you dont love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do. Robert Conklin: Its not the situation. Its your reaction to the situation. Margaret Trudeau: It takes two to destroy a marriage. Gary Chapman: Divorce is the result of a lack of preparation for marriage and the failure to learn the skills of working together as teammates in an intimate relationship. Oliver Stone: Anybody whos been through a divorce will tell you that at one point theyve thought murder. The line between thinking murder and doing murder isnt that major. Jewish Proverb: When two divorced people marry, four people get into bed. Jennifer Weiner: Divorce isnt such a tragedy. A tragedys staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce. Frank Pittman: Bad marriages dont cause infidelity; infidelity causes bad marriages. Ambrose Bierce: Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries. Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers Talks With Parents: For a couple with young children, divorce seldom comes as a â€Å"solution† to stress, only as a way to end one form of pain and accept another. Joseph Campbell: When people get married because they think its a long-time love affair, theyll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity. Frank Pittman: Fidelity is the single most important element in solidly enduring marriages. Mary Kay Blakeley, American Mom: Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass. Margaret Atwood: A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but theres less of you.

Supervision and Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Supervision and Leadership - Essay Example This paper highlights that leadership is not about management. Leadership focuses on the top line and Management focuses on the bottom line. While managers focus on the numbers, leaders focus on people. Management is doing things right whereas leadership is doing the right things. Team building and vision are the core of leadership. Leadership is all about building peak performing teams, teams focused on accomplishing goals. Leaders are able to effectively communicate and motivate the team to perform the set goals. As the report stresses leaders face the challenge of being part of a group while simultaneously leading it. This is hard to do well and requires a mix of skill, hard work, initiative, and discretion. A leader’s ultimate responsibility is the management of the group: ensuring safety, while providing an experience for the participants. Leaders work to make the expedition run smoothly and work together to ensure the project aims are met. A good leader recognizes that they cannot do everything and they have to involve their team. Many of the leader’s responsibilities can be delegated to members of the group. Leaders should remember that for many tasks, demonstration is better than explanation. Leaders must monitor progress against: the targets, the motivation and the enthusiasm of the team; the suitability of individuals for specific jobs; and many other items.

Question answer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Question answer - Essay Example The details mentioned in the data require that the long run rate of return must be calculated using the formula of present value of dividend using Dividend Discount Model. . PV GROWING PERPETUITY (DIVIDEND DISCOUNT MODEL) Data: Present Value of Share PV O USD.150 Dividend for the First Year D1 USD. 7 Growth g 0.04 Rate of return r ? FORMULA REARRANGED In the above provided case since the value of price was already provided, the formula for such payments has been manipulated and rate of return has been evaluated. The formula for DDM for the current price of shares is rearranged for the calculation of rate of the return. Applying this arrangement, the long term rate of return for the company is as follows: r 0.086667 r 8.67% Hence, the expected long run rate of return is 8.67%.This refers that when company is paying 60 percent of the earning as dividend to shareholders and investors are pricing the share at USD.150, the required rate of return in the long terms is 6.67%. This percentag e assumes that price is based on incorporating all information about the company. The formula can be summarized as the ratio of the cash flows of dividends received in the future periods by the net difference of the discount rate and the growth rate. This formula is developed on the concept that current price of stocks are a series of payments which grows as dividend perpetually at a constant rate. . The formula assumes that the payments of dividends are received for an infinite period at constant growth rate. For the calculation of Present value it is very important that the discount rate used for the calculation is higher than the growth rate.. PART B Dividend discount model assumes that the price of stocks follows constant growth indefinitely across the life of the company (McLaney, 2009). However, on actual grounds the growth of the company varies from time to time. For instance, in the above case, The Company aims to expand and therefore, therefore, has changed the dividend pol icy across for five years (Ross, Westerfield, and Jordan, 2009). In such case, two stage dividend discount model is used to evaluate the price of the stock in current year. In such a system of two staged growth, the price of stocks are measured by calculating the present value of dividend streams by discounting it with required rate of return. For the second staged growth, the price of a stock is calculated for the year in which growth has changed and is then discounted to current year (Gitman, 2003). In the final stage, the present values of two staged dividend growth are combined. The following formula is used for such cases: Following this, procedure the price of stock in second case is USD. 74.99. Given below is the calculation for the case: PART B DIVIDEND CALCULATION STAGE ONE STAGE 2 YEAR 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dividend MENTIONED IN CASE ONE 7 Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   earning (calculated using Dividend Information of Case (1) and then growth applied $ 11.67 $ 12.13 $ 12.62 $ 13.1 2 $ 13.65 $ 14.19 $ 14.76 Reinvested $ 10.50 $ 10.92 $ 11.36 $ 11.81 $ 12.28 $ 4.26 Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   DIVIDEND WITH NEW % OF GROWTH Dividend $ 1.17 $ 1.21 $ 1.26 $ 1.31 $ 1.36 $ 9.94 $ 10.33 Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   The above table determines that to get base year information, it is assumed that the earning of company for year one remains same as it is provided in the case. Hence, price is as follows: PRICE Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   PV: dividend 1 / (1-R)^t PV: dividend 7 / (r-g)

MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 3 Case Assignment Essay

MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 3 Case Assignment - Essay Example In this paper we will make a detailed analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Southwest Airlines and see how they contribute to its overall success. A firm is blessed with its own resources of men, money, machines and materials that can be used to its best advantage if the strategy it is following is correct and feasible in the present conditions. Strong and Robust Reputation: One of the best strengths of Southwest Airlines is its strong reputation and brand name in the airline industry. Established in 1967, it changed its name to Southwest Airlines in 1971 and from them on has been dominating the local air transport sector in the USA. According to its Annual Report 2011, it presently flies to 76 destinations within the USA, and following its acquisition of Air Tran and strategic alliance with Volaris, Mexico it has also established routes to the Caribbean and Mexico in Latin America, making it an emerging regional player (Annual Report, 2011). Zealous and Committed Staff: Southwest Airlines makes no secret of the fact that it works hard to be the leader in the domestic airline sector. It spends a lot on the training and education of its staff and likes strong, enterprising and hard workers who can do a variety of tasks. Even its internship program encourages this attitude. A unique combination of zeal and enthusiasm on the part of its workers coupled with a businesslike but courteous customer service plan makes for a WOW experience even on this low cost service provider. Although Southwest Airlines has in excess of 45,000 staff belonging to as many as 18 different Collective Bargaining Agents in Unions, yet it has managed to coexist with their needs (Annual Report, 2011). Exemplary Pricing and Service Plans: Another plus point for Southwest which other airlines are struggling to emulate are its challenging low fares and variety of pricing plans,

The Fall And Rise Of Strategic Planning Business Essay

The Fall And Rise Of Strategic Planning Business Essay Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies, at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University in Montreal. His work has focused on the work of the manager, and how managers are trained and developed. The author or co-author of 15 books, Mintzberg is, perhaps, best known for his work on organizational forms identifying five types of organization: simple structure; machine bureaucracy; professional bureaucracy; the divisionalized form; and the adhocracy. He is also credited with advancing the idea of emergent strategy the idea that effective strategy emerges from conversations within an organization rather than being imposed from on high. Mintzberg is a long time critic of traditional MBA programs. His first book,  The Nature of Managerial Work  (1973) challenged the established thinking about the role of the manager, and is one of the few books that actually examine what managers do, rather than discussing what they should do. Other highlights include  The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994); Managers Not MBAs  (2004), and  Managing  (2009).This report presents overview of his major works. Introduction An engineer by training, he received a PhD from MIT before joining McGills faculty of management in 1968. He was the first Fellow to be elected to the Royal Society of Canada from the field of Management. He designed and developed the IMPM, the International Masters Program in Practicing Management, and a degree-level program delivered in six countries Canada, England, France, India, Japan and Korea. It is a degree program that focuses directly on the development of managers in their jobs and organizations. Henry Mintzberg equates the process of strategy making to the process of making pottery. The strategist is similar to  a craftsman, or potter in this case. Mintzberg says, The crafting image better captures the process by which effective strategies come to be. First, the potter may create a product that follows in the tradition of her past work, but she may also create a work that breaks away from tradition in a new direction. Similarly, strategies are patterns that are put into action over time; but strategies may emerge in a different direction than tradition has previously held. Second, strategy making must be a deliberate process-thought must precede action. But strategies can form as well as be formulated. Third, strategists do not necessarily have to be top management running an organization but removed from the inner-workings of that organization. Instead, like the potter is intimately connected with her work, strategists may be those most intimately connected with the compa ny and those products/services it sells. Strategists may be those on the front lines, so to speak. Fourth, the potter may fail to make one piece, but the lump that remains may be formed into something completely different. In the same way, strategies can emerge any time and at any place; errors themselves may become chances for opportunity. The image of a craftsman is someone who is dedicated, passionate, intimately involved with the materials, has a personal touch, has mastered the detail of their art, and is experienced. The strategist must also be someone who is involved and connected with their industry and who is personally involved with the industrial processes. Finally, just as a craftsman may see things that other people miss, the strategist must be able to see emerging patterns and guide them into place as strategies. Mintzbergs major impact on the management world began with his book,  The nature of managerial work which was published in 1973 and also a seminal article in Harvard Business Review,  The managers job: folklore and fact  which was written two years after the book. These two works established Mintzbergs reputation which showed research work done on what managers did, to successfully carrying out their responsibilities, which were substantially different from the most of the theories learnt in MBA classrooms. Mintzbergs management thinking is against the concept of having one or two clever theories within some narrow discipline. His approach is merely broad enough to involve virtually the study of everything that managers do and how they do it. His appeal was further enhanced by a belief that management is about applying human skills to systems and not applying systems to people. In all the articles of Mintzberg this belief is explained. In his article  The managers job: folklore and fact,  Mintzberg has set out the reality of what managers do. A single theme runs through the article and that is the pressures of the job drive that the manager carry to take on too much work, respond quickly to each and every stimulus encourage interruption, seek the tangible, decisions in small increments, avoid the abstract, make, and do everything abruptly. Mintzberg, in this article has stressed the importance of the managers role and the need to understand it thoroughly before attempting to train and develop those engaged in carrying it out. No job is more vital to our society than that of the manager. It is the manager who determines whether our social institutions serve us well or whether they squander our talents and resources. It is time to strip away the folklore about managerial work, and time to study it realistically so that we can begin the difficult task of making significant improvements in its performance. In  The nature of managerial work, Mintzberg proposes six characteristics of management work and ten basic management roles. As per him, these characteristics and roles apply to all management jobs, from supervisor to chief executive. The six characteristics are: 1. The managers job is a mixture of regular, programmed jobs and unprogrammed tasks. 2. A manager is both a generalist and a specialist. 3. Managers rely on information from all sources but show a preference for that which is orally transmitted. 4. Managerial work is made up of activities that are characterized by brevity, variety and fragmentation. 5. Management work is more an art than a science and is reliant on intuitive processes and a feel for what is right. 6. Management work is becoming more complex. The ten roles that he believes make up the content of the managers job are divided into three categories: 1. Interpersonal a)  Figurehead   performing symbolic duties as a representative of the organization. b)  Leader   establishing the atmosphere and motivating the subordinates. c)  Liaiser   developing and maintaining webs of contacts outside the organization. 2. Information a)  Monitor   collecting all types of information that are relevant and useful to the organization. b)  Disseminator   transmitting information from outside the organization to those inside. c)  Spokesman   transmitting information from inside the organization to outsiders. 3. Decision-making a)  Entrepreneur   initiating change and adapting to the environment. b)  Disturbance Handler   dealing with unexpected events. c)  Resource Allocator   deciding on the use of organizational resources. d)  Negotiator   negotiating with individuals and dealing with other organizations. The Structure of Organizations In his book,  The structuring of organizations, Mintzberg has identified five types of `ideal organization structures. Following are the more detailed view of organization types drawn up: The entrepreneurial organization: Having small staff, loose division of labor, have small management hierarchy, being informal with power focused on the chief executive. The machine organization  : highly specialized, large operating units, routine operating tasks, formal communication, elaborate administrative systems, tasks grouped under functions, central decision making and a sharp distinction between line and staff. The diversified organization: a set of semi-autonomous units under a central administrative structure. These units are called divisions and are centrally administered called as headquarter. The professional organization: found in hospitals, universities, public agencies and firms producing standardized products or services and doing routine work, this structure relies on the skills and knowledge of professional staff in order to function. The innovative organization: Mintzbergs definition of modern organization, flexible, rejecting any form of bureaucracy and avoiding emphasis on planning and control systems. Innovation achieved by hiring experts, giving them power, training and developing them and employing them in multi-discipline teams that work in an atmosphere unbounded by conventional specialism and differentiation. The missionary organization: Here, mission is counted above everything else. The mission is clear, focused, distinctive and inspiring. Staff readily identifies with it and shares common values. They are motivated by their own zeal and enthusiasm. Mintzberg defines, the following mechanisms, regarding the coordination between different tasks: 1. Mutual adjustment, to achieve coordination by the simple process of informal communication. 2. Direct supervision, achieved by having one person issue orders or instructions to several others whose work interrelates (as when a boss tells others what is to be done) 3. Standardization of work processes, achieves coordination by specifying the work processes of people carrying out interrelated tasks (standards developed in the techno-structure to be carried out in the operating core, as in the case of the work instructions that come out of time and motion studies) 4. Standardization of outputs, which achieves coordination by specifying the results of different work (developed in the techno-structure, as in a financial plan that specifies subunit performance targets or specifications that outline the dimensions of a product to be produced) 5. Standardization of skills and knowledge, in which different work is coordinated by virtue of the related training given to the workers (as in medical specialists, a surgeon and an anesthetist in an operating room, responding almost automatically to each others standardized procedures) 6. Standardization of norms, in which the norms infusing the work that are controlled, usually for the entire organization, so that everyone functions according to the same set of beliefs. According to the organizational configurations model of Mintzberg each organization can consist of a maximum of six basic parts: 1. Strategic Apex (top management) 2. Middle Line (middle management) 3. Operating Core (operations, operational processes) 4. Techno-structure (analysts that design systems, processes, etc.) 5. Support Staff (support outside of operating workflow) 6. Ideology (halo of beliefs and traditions; norms, values, culture) Strategy and planning The relationship between strategy and planning is a constant theme in Mintzbergs writing and his views on the subject are considered to be of contributed significantly to the current management thinking. In his 1994 book, The rise and fall of Strategic Planning, Mintzberg produces a criticism on conventional theory. He believes that there are some failures in traditional understanding of planning procedure. Processes the elaborate processes use to create bureaucracy and suppress innovation and originality. Data `hard data (the raw material of all strategists) provides information, but `soft data, provides wisdom: Hard information can be no better and is often at times far worse than soft information. Detachment Mintzberg dismisses the process of producing strategies in ivory towers i.e. he believes that effective strategists cant be made by people who are at a distance from the detail of a business. They should be the ones who have immersed themselves in it, while being able to abstract the strategic messages from it. He sees strategy not as the consequence of planning but the opposite: Strategies  illustrate the concept of the delicate, painstaking process of developing strategy a process of emergence that is far away from the classical picture of strategists grouped around a table predicting the future. He argues that while an organization needs a strategy, strategic plans are generally useless as one cannot predict two to three years ahead. 5 Ps of Strategy To develop understanding of strategy Mintzberg developed what is known as the 5 Ps of Strategy. These are: Strategy as  Plan Strategy as Intended Pattern Strategy as Emergent/Unintended Pattern Strategy as Position Strategy as Perspective Strategy as  Plan: Mintzberg defined it as some  sort of consciously intended course of action, a guideline (or set of guidelines) to deal with a situation.  The  example of Game Theory, where  Strategy is nothing but a complete plan: a plan that specifies what choices [the player] will make in every possible situation. Rebuilding Companies as Communities Community means caring about our work, our colleagues, and our place in the world, geographic and otherwise, and in turn being inspired by this caring. Tellingly, some of the companies we admire most-Toyota, Semco (Brazil), Mondragon (a Basque federation of cooperatives), Pixar, and so on-typically have this strong sense of community. Young, successful companies usually have this sense of community. They are growing, energized, committed to their people, almost a family. But sustaining it with the onset of maturity can be another matter: Things slow down, politics builds up, and the world is no longer their oyster. Community is sometimes easier to preserve in the social sector-with NGOs, not-for-profits, and cooperatives. The mission may be more engaging, and the people more engaged. But somehow, in our hectic, individualist world, the sense of community has been lost in too many companies and other organizations. In the United States in particular, many great enterprises, along with the countrys legendary sense of enterprise, have been collapsing as a consequence. The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning When strategic planning was defined the mid-1960s, corporate leaders embraced it as the one best way to devise and implement strategies that would enhance the competitiveness of each business unit. For the scientific management pioneered by Frederick Taylor, this involved separating thinking from doing and creating a new function by having specialists like strategic planners. Planning systems were expected to produce the best strategies as well as step-by-step instructions for carrying out these strategies so that the managers could not get them wrong. Strategic planning has long since fallen from its pedestal. But even now followed by people as very few understand that strategic planning  is not  strategic thinking. Strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking, by causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers. This confusion lies at the heart of the issue i.e. the most successful strategies are visions and not plans. Strategic planning has actually been  strategic programming,  the articulation and elaboration of strategies, or visions, that already exist. Mintzberg says after understanding the difference between planning and strategic thinking, companies can get back to what the strategy-making process should be i.e. capturing what the manager learns from all sources (both the soft insights from his or her personal experiences and the experiences of others throughout the organization and the hard data from market research and the like) and then synthesizing that learning into a vision of the direction that the business should pursue. This doesnt imply that organizations, which have disenchanted with strategic planning, are needed to get rid of their planners or conclude that there is no need for programming. In fact, organizations should transform the conventional planning jobs. Planners should perform the role of providing the formal analyses or hard data required by the strategic thinkers and hence should make their contribution in strategy making process. Hence, planners should act as catalysts supporting strategy making by aiding and encouraging managers to think strategically. Thus, they can be programmers of a strategy, helping to specify concrete steps needed to carry out the vision. By redefining the planners job, companies will acknowledge the difference between planning and strategic thinking. Planning has always been about  analysis about breaking down a goal or set of intentions into steps, formalizing those steps so that they can be implemented almost automatically, and articulating the anticipated consequences or results of each step. This has been accepted by Michael Porter, who is known as the most widely read writer on strategy. Strategic thinking, is about  synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective of the enterprise, a not-too-precisely articulated vision of direction, such as the vision of Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, that three-dimensional visual computing is the way to make computers easier to use. Such strategies cant be developed on schedule basis and cant be immaculately conceived. They should be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization through the processes of informal learning that must necessarily be carried out by people at various levels who are deeply involved with the specific issues at hand. Crafting Strategy Imagine someone planning strategy. What likely springs to mind is an image of orderly thinking: a senior manager, or a group of them, sitting in an office formulating courses of action that everyone else will implement on schedule. The keynote is reason-rational control, the systematic analysis of competitors and markets, of company strengths and weaknesses, the combination of these analyses producing clear, explicit, full-blown strategies. Now imagine someone  crafting  strategy. A wholly different image likely results, as different from planning as craft is from mechanization. Craft evokes traditional skill, dedication, perfection through the mastery of detail. What springs to mind is not so much thinking and reason as involvement, a feeling of intimacy and harmony with the materials at hand, developed through long experience and commitment. Formulation and implementation merge into a fluid process of learning through which creative strategies evolve. My thesis is simple: the crafting image better captures the process by which effective strategies come to be. The planning image, long popular in the literature, distorts these processes and thereby misguides organizations that embrace it unreservedly. In developing this thesis, I shall draw on the experiences of a single craftsman, a potter, and compare them with the results of a research project that tracked the strategies of a number of corporations across several decades. Because the two contexts are so obviously different, my metaphor, like my assertion, may seem farfetched at first. Yet if we think of a craftsman as an organization of one, we can see that he or she must also resolve one of the great challenges the corporate strategist faces: knowing the organizations capabilities well enough to think deeply enough about its strategic direction. By considering strategy making from the perspective of one person, free of all the paraphernalia of what has been called the strategy industry, we can learn something about the formation of strategy in the corporation. For much as our potter has to manage her craft, so too managers have to craft their strategy. At work, the potter sits before a lump of clay on the wheel. Her mind is on the clay, but she is also aware of sitting between her past experiences and her future prospects. She knows exactly what has and has not worked for her in the past. She has an intimate knowledge of her work, her capabilities, and her markets. As a craftsman, she senses rather than analyzes these things; her knowledge is tacit. All these things are working in her mind as her hands are working the clay. The product that emerges on the wheel is likely to be in the tradition of her past work, but she may break away and embark on a new direction. Even so, the past is no less present, projecting itself into the future. In my metaphor, managers are craftsmen and strategy is their clay. Like the potter, they sit between a past of corporate capabilities and a future of market opportunities. And if they are truly craftsmen, they bring to their work an equally intimate knowledge of the materials at hand. That is the essence of crafting strategy. In this article, we will explore this metaphor by looking at how strategies get made as opposed to how they are supposed to get made. Throughout, I will be drawing on the two sets of experiences Ive mentioned. One, described in the sidebar, is a research project on patterns in strategy formation that has been going on at McGill University under my direction since 1971. The second is the stream of work of a successful potter, my wife, who began her craft in 1967. The Five Minds of a Manager The CEO of a Canadian company has recently complained that he was not able to get his engineers to think like managers. Such a complaint is common in nature, but behind it lays an uncommon important question: What does it mean to think like a manager? We dont see much attention paid to answer that question in later years. Many of us have become enamored of leadership so much that management has been pushed into the background. Now days, we dont see anybody aspiring to become a good manager; in fact everybody, wants to be known as a great leader. But we ignore that the separation of management from leadership is harmful. As we know that management without leadership encourages an uninspired style, which deadens activities. In contrast, Leadership without management encourages a disconnected style, which promotes hubris. Knowing the destructive power of hubris in organizations we should get back to old management. The only problem is that the plain old management is comparatively more complicated and hence, confusing. Managers are asked to be global and also to be local to collaborate and to compete in the market. Show change, perpetually to maintain order. Make the numbers even while nurturing your people. Now the question is how anyone is supposed to reconcile all this? The reality is that no one can actually do it. For becoming effective, managers have to face the juxtapositions so that they can arrive at a deep integration of these seemingly contradictory concerns. This means that managers must focus not only on what exactly they have to accomplish but also on how they have to think. Basically, managers need to have different mind-sets. Helping managers to appreciate this was the challenge they had set for themselves in the mid-1990s the time, when they had began to develop a new masters program for the managers for practicing. They had guessed that they cant rely on the usual format of the MBA education, which actually divides the management world into field like function of marketing, accounting, finance, and so on. Their intention was basically to educate managers who were coming out of such narrow mindsets. They wanted to have a new structure which would encourage synthesis than separation. They came up with a framework based on the five aspects of the managerial mindset, which has proved not only powerful in the classroom but also of utter importance in practice. Below, they have explained how they came up with the five managerial mind-sets. The Managers Job:  Folklore and Fact If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organize, coordinate, and control. Then watch what they do. Dont be surprised if you cant relate what you see to these words. When a manager is told that a factory has just burned down and then advises the caller to see whether temporary arrangements can be made to supply customers through a foreign subsidiary, is that manager planning, organizing, coordinating, or controlling? How about when he or she presents a gold watch to a retiring employee? Or attends a conference to meet people in the trade and returns with an interesting new product idea for employees to consider? These four words, which have dominated management vocabulary since the French industrialist Henri Fayol first introduced them in 1916, tell us little about what managers actually do. At best, they indicate some vague objectives managers have when they work. The field of management, so devoted to progress and change, has for more than half a century not seriously addressed  the  basic question: What do managers do? Without a proper answer, how can we teach management? How can we design planning or information systems for managers? How can we improve the practice of management at all? Our ignorance of the nature of managerial work shows up in various ways in the modern organization-in boasts by successful managers who never spent a single day in a management training program; in the turnover of corporate planners who never quite understood what it was the manager wanted; in the computer consoles gathering dust in the back room because the managers never used the fancy on-line MIS some analyst thought they needed. Perhaps most important, our ignorance shows up in the inability of our large public organizations to come to grips with some of their most serious policy problems. Somehow, in the rush to automate production, to use management science in the functional areas of marketing and finance, and to apply the skills of the behavioral scientist to the problem of worker motivation, the manager-the person in charge of the organization or one of its subunits-has been forgotten. I intend to break the reader away from Fayols words and introduce a more supportable and useful description of managerial work. This description derives from my review and synthesis of research on how various managers have spent their time. In some studies, managers were observed intensively; in a number of others, they kept detailed diaries; in a few studies, their records were analyzed. All kinds of managers were studied-foremen, factory supervisors, staff managers, field sales managers, hospital administrators, presidents of companies and nations, and even street gang leaders. These managers worked in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Great Britain. Strategy as Pattern Mintzberg defines strategy as  consistency in behavior, whether or not intended.  Strategy can emerge as patterns, which may be seen as the resulting actions. To prove this point, he gives example of Henry Ford who originally developed the Model T, which was the strategy to offer the car in the  black color, but by strategy as a pattern, this was an intended strategy. An unintended strategy, as a pattern can be seen with an example of IKEA who began to flat pack their furniture, where as the original idea for this was to borne of one of the companies designers which are trying to load a table into their car and when they realized that it wouldnt fit and hence, they would have to detach the legs of the table. At that time, they realized that customers would be facing the similar issue while purchasing their product, and as such a vital aspect of Ileas strategy it emerged unintentionally.http://louisdietvorst.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/emergent-strategy.jpg?w=481h=372 Strategy as Position Strategy as a position refers to the environment in which the organization operates in and the mediating force between the internal and external context. An example to justify this concept can be of organizations strategy towards dealing with critical environmental factors such as extreme heat, disposal of waste, use of green IT. Strategy as Perspective This aspect of strategy is concerned with how the organization itself sees the business  environment. For example, an organization will have an option of being the pacesetters, who is always seen at the bleeding edge of technology and who, sell their products based on advances of technology. Whereas another option would be to be followers, where organizations learn from the mistakes of the pace setter and hence, they adopt only proven technologies and are more  concerned  with the quality and reliability of products rather than bleeding technological edge. Examples to prove this is of the automotive industry, where it can be seen, how Ford has began the new Ford Focus market to be the technological leader in this product category. With the use of economies of scale Ford has managed to cheaply introduce technologies like Self-Parking, it is a technology associated with premium brands rather than Ford who is traditionally known for targeting blue-collar workers. Key works by Henry Mintzberg Books Managing.  FT Prentice-Hall, 2009 Management: its not what you think.  (With Bruce Ahlstrand and Josepeh Lampel). FT Prentice-Hall, 2010 Strategy bites back.  (With Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel). Pearson, 2005 Managers not MBAs.  Berrett-Koehler, 2004 Strategy safari.  (With Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lample) London: Prentice-Hall, 1998 The strategy process: concepts, contexts, cases (3rd ed).London: Prentice-Hall International, 1996 The rise and fall of strategic planning.  Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall International, 1994 Mintzberg on management: inside our strange world of organizations.  New York: Free Press, 1989 Power in and around organizations.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983 Structures in fives: designing effective organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983 The structuring of organizations: a synthesis of the research. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979 The nature of managerial work.  New York: Harper and Row, 1973 Journal articles Key articles are given below, for a complete list from 1967 to date, with some links through to full text, please seehttp://www.mintzberg.org/articles The managers job: folklore and fact.  Harvard Business Review, 68 (2) Mar-Apr 1990, pp. 163-176. Originally published in 1975, the article includes a retrospective commentary by the author. Crafting strategy.  Harvard Business Review, 65 (4) Jul-Aug 1987, pp. 66-75 The fall and rise of strategic planning.  Harvard Business Review, 72 (1) Jan-Feb 1994, pp. 107-114 Rounding out the managers job.  Sloan Management Review, 36 (1) Autumn 1994, pp. 11-26 Musings on management.  Harvard Business Review, 74 (4) Jul-Aug 1996, pp. 61-67 Managing on the edge.  International Journal of Public Sector Management, 10 (3) 1997, pp. 131-153 The yin and yang of managing.  Organizational Dynamics, 29 (4) 2001, pp. 306-312

A Deadly Realization Essay -- essays research papers

A Deadly Realization I walked into school around 8:25, rolling out of bed only a half hour before. I wiped the rain from my face, I hate when it rains. As usual, I strolled in with a casual walk, like I was the coolest, because I could come in late every morning since I had no first period class. The first person I saw as I walked through the cafeteria toward the staircase was Louise. Usually an outgoing and crazy person, she strikes many as being on crack. She calmly and quietly said "hey", with her face to the floor, not even looking at me. On my way up the staircase to my locker, I passed my good friend Mike. He looked me in the face and said, "Did you hear?" I replied with intense wonder of what the latest gossip at Shoreham-Wading River High School could be. "No", I replied, "what happened?" "You'll find out at the assembly." I had a few minutes before second period began, so I walked to the library, and pulled up a seat across from my friend Ke vin. "What's up, I heard we have an assembly this morning." "Yeah, I think two juniors got in an accident last night, but I heard they're all ok." I jokingly responded, "Well, at least periods are shorter." He gave me a tiny smirk, silently telling me we shouldn't be laughing over such a horrible thing. The bell rang, and first period ended. Dr. Hayward the principal came over the loudspeaker, "All students please report to the auditorium." Kevin and I got up, and joined the crowd slowly squeezing into the auditorium through the two open doors. I looked around and saw a group of my best friends sitting together. Katie had her head on Louise's shoulder, and Mike and Kyle sat there with a blank stare on their faces. I made my way into a seat, and looked at everyone, "Hey guys." No one responded, not even a look. By this point, I was scared at what news I might hear. I didn't know what to be thinking. For everyone to be so upset, it must be really serious. I looked around. Everyone had a look of wonder on their face, or they were crying, or just didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to think. I had never seen my friends like this before. Never have I seen Mike so serious, he would laugh if I got run over by a car. But this time was different for sur... ...ast person I knew that would take their own life. He always seemed happy, never missed a good laugh, and always walked around with a smile on his face. On the last day of school, the senior class planted a tree in his honor. It was strange, only about twenty kids showed up. Those that felt really close to Wes. I think to those few, Wes will never really die, and he'll always be there. Often times, when I'm upset about something, I remember what happened to Wes, and realize, things can be much, much worse. That night, I drove down Wes's street with a bunch of my friends. We each began to talk of our fondest memories of Wes, of all our memories of Wes. His smile was unforgettable, and his personality the kindest. I'll never forget that last thing Wes told me. "I'll see you on Monday." I never saw Wes that Monday, and I'll never forgive myself for not making more of that night with him. I think one really important thing that I learned from Wes, is to treat everyday of your life as if it may be your last. I've heard that line so many times before, I never really thought about it, but now, I hope to never forget it.