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Wednesday, November 27, 2019

AI Development Progress Report Evaluation

Introduction A lot of research was done to come up with the Artificial Intelligence article for non experts. Artificial Intelligence is by all means one of the disciplines whose context is quite difficult to fathom especially if you are not an expert. The purpose of this report is to inform you of how much work I have completed towards the production of the article, as well as how much work remains to be done to help people fully appreciate the role of Artificial Intelligence in post modern development.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on AI Development Progress Report Evaluation specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Work Completed â€Å"Article for Non Experts: Artificial Intelligence† The article follows an outline which helps in developing appropriate context suitable for conveying the intended message. The outline is also intended to help the reader get back to track in case he or she gets confused by detailed discussions within the main document. The sidebar implicitly explains to the reader the relevance of conducting research in the field of Artificial Intelligence by quoting John smith. Basically, the sidebar arouses curiosity among readers by giving them a reason as to why they should be very much concerned with what transpires in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The sideline compliments the sidebar by giving precise information to the reader on other available articles that are related to the current article and how they can be obtained. This also helps the readers identify with a reliable source of information related to Artificial Intelligence. This is followed by an introduction to the article that explains what Artificial Intelligence is and what it is not. The article thesis describes an Artificially Intelligent Machine as that which is capable of learning from experience as well as be able to be taught. The history of Artificial Intelligence is given in a religious persp ective to capture the sidebars notion that the creature described in holy books could actually be an Artificially Intelligent machine. This helps in retaining the reader’s curiosity apart from explaining the possibility of both positive and negative aspects of Artificial Intelligence. The reader is to independently determine what aspect outweighs the other as the article does not do this. Work Scheduled â€Å"Article for Non Experts: Artificial Intelligence† The current article gives the outcome of thorough research conducted on the history of artificial intelligence. Evolution stages of the discipline are discussed. The challenges encountered and successes achieved have been discussed. The article ends by giving the current status of Artificial Intelligence by reflecting on a real life case study. The case study shows that the crucial stage of attaining the goal of Artificial Intelligence that is capable of altering human destiny is no longer a pipe dream but a realit y.Advertising Looking for report on it? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This is so since machines that can learn from experience and that can be taught are being built under a project commissioned by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).The next article should focus on explaining to the non experts the positive and negative implications of advances that are being made in this field by DARPA. Conclusion The goal of the next research project will be to discuss the industrial trends of Artificial Intelligence and the overall social, economical and political impact of the DARPA project once it is fully functional. The current state of Artificial Intelligence in astronomy will be discussed and this will be followed by hypothesizing on the future state of Artificial Intelligence. This report on AI Development Progress Report Evaluation was written and submitted by user Zeke Hayes to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Explore and Evaluate Your Writing Process

Explore and Evaluate Your Writing Process Once youve made the decision to work on improving your writing, you need to think about exactly what youll be working on. In other words, you need to consider how to handle the various steps involved in the process of writing: from discovering ideas for a topic, through successive drafts, to a final revision and proofreading. Examples Lets look at how three students have described the steps they typically follow when writing a paper: Before doing anything, I make sure Ive got a quiet room and a clear head. When I feel ready to work, I sit in front of my laptop and begin tapping out whatever comes to mind. Then, after taking a short walk, I read over what Ive written and pick out the things that strike me as worth keepingkey ideas and interesting details. After this, I usually go on to compose a rough draft pretty quickly. Then (maybe in a day or two, if Ive gotten an early start) I read the draft and add explanations and ideas and make some grammatical changes. Then I write it over again, making more changes as I go. Sometimes I complete the whole process in an hour or two. Sometimes it takes a week or more. I like to do my first draft on paperthat is, after Ive daydreamed for an hour or two, raided the refrigerator, and made a fresh pot of coffee. I specialize in procrastination. After running out of ways to distract myself, I start to scribble down everything I can think of. And I mean scribblewrite fast, make a mess. When I figure out what Ive scrawled, I try to fix it up into an orderly, halfway-decent essay. Then I put it aside (after making another trip to the refrigerator) and start all over again. When Im done, I compare both papers and combine them by taking some things out and putting other things in. Then I read my draft out loud. If it sounds okay, I go to the computer and type it up. In trying to put together a paper, I go through four phases. First, theres the idea phase, where I get this bright idea. Then there is the productive phase, where Im really smoking, and I start thinking about the Pulitzer Prize. After that, of course, comes the block phase, and all those prize-winning dreams turn into nightmares of this big, six-foot guy jammed into a first-graders desk and being made to print the alphabet over and over again. Eventually (hours, sometimes days later), I hit the deadline phase: I realize that this sucker has got to be written, and so I start burning it out again. This phase often doesnt start until ten minutes before a paper is due, which doesnt leave a lot of time to proofreada phase I never seem to get around to. As these examples show, no single method of writing is followed by all writers in all circumstances. Four Steps Each of us has to discover the approach that works best on any particular occasion. We can, however, identify a few basic steps that most successful writers follow in one way or another: Discovering (also known as invention): finding a topic and coming up with something to say about it. A few of the discovery strategies that can help you get started are freewriting, probing, listing, and brainstorming.Drafting: putting ideas down in some rough form. A first draft is generally messy and repetitive and full of mistakesand thats just fine. The purpose of a rough draft is to capture ideas and supporting details, not compose a perfect paragraph or essay on the first attempt.Revising: changing and rewriting a draft to make it better. In this step, you try to anticipate the needs of your readers by rearranging ideas and reshaping sentences to make clearer connections.Editing and Proofreading: carefully examining a paper to see that it contains no errors of grammar, spelling, or punctuation. The four stages overlap, and at times you may have to back up and repeat a stage, but that doesnt mean you have to focus on all four stages at the same time. In fact, trying to do too much at one time is likely to create frustration, not make the writing go faster or easier. Writing Suggestion: Describe Your Writing Process In a paragraph or two, describe your own writing processthe steps that you ordinarily follow when composing a paper. How do you get started? Do you write several drafts or just one? If you revise, what sort of things do you look for and what sort of changes do you tend to make? How do you edit and proofread, and what types of errors do you most often find? Hold on to this description, and then look at it again in a month or so to see what changes you have made in the way you write.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Animal Behavior Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Animal Behavior - Essay Example In what ways were chimpanzees superior to humans Goodall observed (p. 232) that unlike humans, a chimpanzee is not inhibited by any fear of making a fool of him/herself. What this means is that chimpanzees may not exhibit in their adulthood the effects of any traumatic experiences in their childhood. They instinctively learn from their experience and move on is what she seemed to imply, although such a conclusion may be doubtful scientifically because it was not possible at the time of her observation to have any properly documented childhood histories of the adult chimpanzees she observed. And, of course, what we may consider foolish behavior may be for a chimpanzee just an ordinary show of animal happiness. At the least, we can admit that chimpanzees are superior in a way because they do not go around rampaging in the forest just because they were bullied by others of their kind, as Goodall observed. Goodall also made some observations where humans were "better" than chimpanzees, and this is in caring for their young (p. 185). Unlike humans where the male of the species get involved (emotionally and physically) from pregnancy to adulthood, male chimpanzees do not do so, leaving the task and troubles of pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing to the female. This form of behavior Goodall marks as one of the main differences between human and chimpanzee societies. This leads us to ask whether this difference has something to do with the malaise in human society today, and whether leaving child-rearing to human mothers would be better. There were other instances when Goodall found chimpanzees in a league of their own and incomparable to humans, such as in the way they trust the others, especially humans, or in the tolerant and kind behavior they show towards their young (p. 74; p. 178). They do not turn traitor, friendly one moment and then aggressive the next, or harm others for no reason. This did not mean that chimpanzees do not express aggressive behavior when threatened, but once they accept someone as their own, everyone is expected to follow the established social order or get out of the group (perhaps, start a new one). In a sense, these chimpanzees were exhibiting animal behavior but devoid of the evil and bad intentions that abound among humans. Personally, Goodall's account shows the many similarities and differences between humans and chimpanzees, and leads me to question the advantages and disadvantages of rational behavior, or whether chimpanzees can teach us lessons that would help us make this world a better place. Looking at the world as it is now, I disagree with Goodall's observation (p. 34) that we accept the chimpanzee as Man, because I think it would be an insult to the chimpanzee. Perhaps later, when we humans learn to use our "superior" mental and spiritual capacities to do what is good and to avoid evil, it would be an honor for us to be accepted by the chimpanzees as their biological and genomic kin. The Truth about Dogs Budiansky (2001) presented a genomic dimension of man's best friend, a "gene's eye" view to show how dogs evolved from their

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Custmer care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Custmer care - Essay Example The businesses who are struggling for improving their customer service are unable to consider and recognize the need and role of their own employees. The traditional form of approach to customer service through customer relationship management and automated workflows are not performing well as they are not considering the power their employees. Customer service can be transformed by the customer service organizations by empowering their employees. The employee empowerment can transform customer service providing benefits to business, customer and employee, the three stakeholders in customer relationship. Empowerment Empowerment is the process of granting greater responsibility to everyone who works for an organization. In literal sense, it denotes granting the power of making decisions. It is the process of authorizing or enabling an individual to behave, thinks, control work and take action and make decisions in autonomous ways. Empowering the members of an organization is a tremend ous motivational tool as it provides them the feeling that they are contributing to the organization by their own initiative and are improving the performance and achieving better results. The empowerment of employees plays a significant role in achieving superior customer service as they are the best in performing their jobs (Mabey, Skinner and Clark, 1998, pp.42-43). Ways of empowerment The empowerment can be fostered among the employees of an organization in the following manner: Creation of non-threatening environment The empowerment and creativity are defused by the traditional organizations using power and micro management. Creativity and empowerment should flourish in the organization by providing freedom to employees in respect of pursuing their interest and they should be supported and encouraged by the management. Resolving problems by employees The managers should not always provide answers to every problem; rather the employees should be guided to think critically for th emselves to resolve the issues. When employees will act on their own, it will result in better solutions because they will be the experts while performing their jobs and the manager might not have all the facts available with him. Allowing for mistakes Individuals and companies can grow and learn by making mistakes. The employees should be supported even after making mistakes. Learning is the most significant part that takes place within an organization. The employees should be encouraged to share information with the team. The individuals are not required to make mistakes to learn rather they can also learn from the mistakes of others. Respecting employee ideas or suggestions The ideas or suggestions of employees should never be ignored as one of these ideas may turn the company into a business of multi-million dollar. If an idea does not seem appropriate, the rationale should be discussed with the employee. This will not make the employee to feel ignored by the management. Develop ing each employee through projects Each employee should be made the team leader on a certain project which will provide them the confidence to grow and to be an excellent contributor within the company. Creating opportunities for advancement and development The excellent contributors are required to be felt valued. The additional work is

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Religion, Media and Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Religion, Media and Ethics - Essay Example Media ethics as such is a complex subject, as it is formulated on the basis of the concurrent culture, economy and national policies. It has been observed by a number of researchers that the media symbolizes societal values. Slinger (1983) has mentioned a number of examples in which media comes up with advertisements which prompts the views to connect the product being advertised to societal values specific to the viewers. One important value that a person relates to is his personal beliefs and religious beliefs. It’s generally considered that the popular programs in the secular media do not have religious intentions. Considering the recent development of secularizing of religious broadcasting sponsored by religious organizations, the identification of religiously persuading content becomes difficult. Programs and specifically labeled content dealt by religious media are the ones which are bracketed as of the ones which influence the public religiously. However, there are arguments that this is not the case. Mark Pinsky (2001, p.5) observes that he ‘found God, faith and spirituality in abundance on Th e Simpsons’.Jana Reiss (2004, p.xii) claims that Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel ‘are two of the most religious programs on network TV’. These arguments suggest that cartoon programs and other popular programs may also be considered as religious. I agree with this argument. The earlier argument that only religious media can contain religious content is based on the assumption that religion is associated with religious institutions and organizations. Schultze (1990) has argued that being religious does not mean belonging to a religion but it’s a way of life with its own world view. Anything which would influence this world view thus must be considered religious persuasion. Thus there is no wonder in Pinsky finding spirituality and god in the cartoon

Friday, November 15, 2019

The Secret Language of Leadership Steve Denning

The Secret Language of Leadership Steve Denning Selected in 2000 as one of the worlds ten most admired knowledge leader, Steve Denning is an award winner for the books  «The secret language of leadership » and  «the leaders guide to storytelling ». He studied law and psychology in Sydney University and then went to Oxford in the UK for a law postgraduate degree. He worked in organization in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia and was until 2000 the program director Knowledge Management at the World Bank. In the book the Secret Language of Leadership, the steps that have to be achieved to become a successful leader are to get the attention, to stimulate desire, to reinforce the reason and to continue the conversation. To reach those, a leader has to use six enablers that will be describing in our analysis of the language of Leadership: key enablers. Articulating a clear, inspiring goal Stephen Denning starts his explanation of the key enablers of the language of Leadership by a quote o George Bernard Shaw: This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.† This quote shows us the importance we give on the recognition of the actions we can do or the goal we can reach. We will now analyze how important it is to articulate a clear, inspiring goal. Stephen Denning illustrate the chapter, Articulating a clear, inspiring goal, of his book; with the example of the company Apple. Steve Jobs the creator of Apple had created chaos in his company because even if he is a brilliant person he was not an inexperience chairman.   A new CEO took his place in 1983, John Sculley, who was a star manager of other big companies as Pepsi. Even if Sculley did a good job on stabilizing the corporation and rationnalized the products, the Apple staff was no supporting him. Sculley wanted to implement a shift in Apple life by producing low cost computers like Dell, but the staff was not interested in becoming just another computer company. They wanted to follow Steve Jobs goal of creating cool, innovative electronic products, a purpose that for themselves was worthwhile in itself. John Sculley was forced out in 1993, his instrumental goals were not embraced and he was not successful on inspiring Apple staff to pursue new goals energetically and enthusiastically. What the staff wanted was to pursue Apple original purpose, which was more seductive for them as they came into this company for those values. Michael Spindler, Sculleys successors met the same fate. Steve Jobs came back as the CEO of Apple, and he didnt try to change the company purpose, which he settled many years before. We now know the success of Apple, Steve Jobs became a great CEO and he spread the world with his initiate focus, which was designing cool, innovative electronic products. Apple is a success story and Steve Jobs is often associate to this success, even when he has medical trouble it has an important impact on Apple stock exchange. Steve Jobs is so link to Apple that every launching of his product and every keynote he does make a huge buzz. In my opinion and especially in the market of new technologies when a company his created with a new concept, a brand new idea, a new way to work and projection in the future; the people who mean to work for those values are so convince that it is what you have to reach that they wont consider any other proposition.   Sculley and Spindler did not take into consideration what was Apple staff considerations and first goals; it is why we ask them to quit the company. It is complicated to change the main purpose of a business and the common goals and ideas of a whole staff when there are extremely committed to it. Before making changes in a company you have to define a clear vision and history of what people working in are sensitive and committed to. 1. Articulating a Worthwhile purpose In this part, Stephen Denning set up the problematic of the importance of enduring enthusiasm. He is wondering why Steve Jobs could generate enduring enthusiasm while John Sculley couldnt. Stephen Denning take the example of two kids playing piano, one child loves it, its a joy for her to play, it fills her life with meaning and she wins prizes. Her joy of playing is even more important that the prizes or recognition she could get. An other child is forced by her parents to play, she has a natural aptitude for music but do not enjoy it so much. Those two girls have a different view on this activity, the first one feels energized and enthusiastic and the second one is bored. Stephen Denning link this example with the practice of sharing knowledge in the organization, which is called knowledge management. Some people within the organization commit their working lives to making the best knowledge available to those who need it. They are honest and open to others. The source of their own personal growth is from the knowledge they spread within the organization, the benefits for them is the inherent value of sharing knowledge itself. Some people are practicing knowledge management on their own, it is to bring more money into the company, but for those who want to share their knowledge, they will find reward in the essential fact that the knowledge will be share. Stephen Denning says: A principal difference between these two different ways of viewing an activity is that when the activity generates sustained enthusiasm, the activity is being pursued for its own sake, not merely to achieve some instrumental or external good such as money, status, prestige, power, or winning. The perceived inherent worth of the activity being undertaken is foundational.† For Stephen Denning the enthusiasm toward an activity is important, because if you are enthusiastic for an activity, you will be for the own sake of this activity and not for some other instrumental goals. I totally agree with this vision, as I consider than even if you can be successful for an activity you dont really like, you wont have the same interest and implication to that activity that if youre really enthusiastic about it. When you are a leader your are face to certain situation that if you are not enthusiastic about what you are doing it will be difficult for you to find solutions or it will take you more time to do it, or you will not act you should do. The enthusiasm you could have for an activity can have influence on the people you are working with. The have feelings and can perceive if you are running for instrumental goals or if you find happiness on the own sake of an activity. It is an element to recognize basic leaders to outstanding ones. In some situation, Stephen Denning   take the example of prisoners in a concentration camps, people can find psychic energy to create meaning for their lives.   The people who are able to find inherent value in whatever they are doing are sometimes called â€Å"autotelic personalities†: they have the capacity to be intrinsically motivated by almost any activity. It is a great advantage of being able to find value in what you are doing and to be motivated in whatever you do, but I am sceptical on the degree of enthusiasm of those people. I agree in the fact that you can motivate yourself for some activities that you are not really into it, but I think their might be a difference in the level of implication and enthusiasm for activities that really fit to you and you personality and vision that the one which are not. Stephen Denning define the characteristics of activities that can generate sustained enthusiasm: The participants in the activity can see themselves making progress toward something that is good for its own sake, additional effort is a joy and not a burden. The participants experience their own personal growth and development as part of the activity. A balance between ability level and challenge—the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult—is also conducive to enthusiasm. The participants see themselves as contributing to, raising the sights of, and enhancing the efforts of other people pursuing the same activity. Ideally, the activity should bring some positive instrumental benefits: income, status, prestige. But even without that, it should at least be without negative instrumental effects. If those four elements are in place, there are chances that enthusiasm can be sustained. We can also notice that the primacy of goals pursued for their own sake in transformational leadership does not mean that instrumental benefits are unimportant. In practice, instrumental benefits reinforce the pursuit of goals for their own sake. Instrumental goals are complementary to enthusiasm and the pursued of goals by their own sake. But you have to remember that even if instrumental benefits are important, if you placed them first, enthusiasm is likely to die. You always have to consider the inherent value of the activity. For Stephen Denning: â€Å"One central aspect of the language of transformational leadership is therefore to articulate goals and activities in terms that can be viewed by participants as worthwhile in themselves, not merely pursued because they lead to instrumental benefits.† This is a fundamental quote that resume the importance of articulating a clear, inspiring goal. Those facts are true for leaders, but it is also true for corporations, they are most inspiring when they pursue large goals that are worthwhile in themselves. In this book, we find the example of Toyota, their goal is to: â€Å"to enrich society through the building of cars and trucks.† Also the example of Johnson Johnson who defines the companys responsibilities as first, to the consumers and medical professionals using its products, second, to employees and managers, third to the communities where its people work and live, and fourth and last, to its stockholders. Or Costco, their goal is to provide its members quality goods at low markups. Transformational leaders present their goals as larger than any particular task or organization or time-bound objective.   Stephen Denning take the example in politics: â€Å"Thus Abraham Lincoln can be assassinated, but his vision of a nation pursuing a new birth of freedom lives on. John F. Kennedy can be shot, but his vision of changing race relations in the United States is implemented by his successor. Martin Luther King Jr. can be murdered, but a whole nation continues the work that he started.† It is true that Goals that are articulated as worthwhile in themselves enhance the possibility of sustained enthusiasm, and hence the possibility of transformational leadership. But, articulating the goal as worthwhile in itself doesnt mean that listeners will necessarily see it in this way. Enthusiasm and finding reward in the activity your are pursuing is important, you find more energy and capabilities of reaching your goals and you know that when an activity is pursued for its own sake, the activity never ends. You are so convinced of the meaning and the importance of the activity that you want to reach a level of excellence, the activity will have no limits. It is what give us excitement when we are doing something we are convinced to do. In my opinion to be a good leader you should look for those feelings and excitement in an activity that will fulfill you needs. Or if you want to become a good leader it is the way you have to perceive an activity, you have to tend to those attempt. We are now going to see the importance of setting priorities among goals. 2. Setting Priorities Among Goals Leader fails a lot because they dont have a clear and inspiring goal or have too many of them. Leadership is such a demanding activity that any one individual can probably pursue no more than a couple of significant change ideas at any one time. It is essential to set priorities. Selecting a goal, or at most several goals, and then persevering is a requirement for success as a transformational leader. Stephen Denning take the example of Ronal Reagan, who was a single mindedness leader and politician.   He success was mainly based on a relatively small number of goals : defeating the Soviet Union and reducing taxes and the size of government. What I learn for the chapter tow of the part two of   The secret language of Leadership, is the importance of commitment and enthusiasm toward an activity in order to embrace inspiring goals that will be define clearly and focus on some   domains, in order to make the activity a success. The leaders own story Committing to the goal Stephen Denning starts this third chapter by pointing out the fact that Abraham Lincoln did not begin his presidency as a transformational leader. By definition, transformational leadership is a process that changes and transforms individuals. It is often associated with ethics and involves long-term goals. Transformational leadership focuses on the process by which the leader engages with followers, and together create a connection that raises each of them to higher levels of motivation and morality. A transformational leader must be attentive to follower needs and motivation, and tries to help followers reach their full potential. It requires long term strategic planning, clear objectives, a clear vision, the efficiency of systems and processes According to B.M. Bass, one of the leading theorists on transformational leadership, the leader transforms and motivates followers by: making them more aware of the importance of task outcomes, inducing them to transcend their own self-interest for the sake of the organization or team, and activating their higher order needs. Transformational leadership is concerned both with the performance of followers as well as developing them to their full potential. What make Stephen Denning says that Abraham Lincoln did not begin his presidency as a transformational leader is that he was explicit in declaring that he had no intent to abolish slavery to his earlier speeches. Its explicit goal was to preserve the Union at that time, which mad sense as there was no consensus for abolishing slavery. But soon, in 1862, nearly 2 years after the beginning of his presidency, he came to the view that the Union could not be preserved without abolishing slavery. Stephen Denning says: â€Å"Privately, he continued to argue that his goal remained the pragmatic one of preserving the Union. But publicly, Lincoln became a leader in a moral cause.† In December 1862 Abraham Lincoln made a speech to the Congress: We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.† This speech symbolize the moment when Lincoln became a transformational leader, he justified his action on instrumental and legal grounds. This new vision, based on moral grounds, Lincoln showed that it was something worthwhile in itself. With this changes Lincoln is proclaiming a new Union who want to restrain slavery, who will fulfill the promise of liberty. We can say that Lincoln is a transformational leader after this participation in the Congress in December 1862 because he stimulates people to want to do something different, inspiring them to higher levels of aspiration. Abraham Lincoln gives a new vision of what the United States should sand for: â€Å"government of the people, by the people, for the people† Stephen Denning came to the point of studying politicians as leaders. 1. Politicians as Leaders We often think of our politicians as leaders. But they are more oriented on the acquisition and retention of political office rather than being worried about people moral values and inspiring them to change. But if they do care, they usually survive in the world of politics. A successful politicians is one who is willing to fight, to attack the establish order, who is flexible. And who is able to preserve a public image of being honest, compassionate, moral and devout. Stephen Denning notice that: â€Å" Retaining power is principally about listening to the electorate. â€Å"If you want to get elected, learn to speak,† said Tom Daschle, former Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate. â€Å"If you want to stay elected, learn to listen.† It is difficult to understand the commitment to change of politicians and also ambiguous, because you are not 100% sure of what drive them to the commitment of their goals. Stephen Denning says that we should not be surprised of the lack of leadership in politics because nothing in the terminology of politics suggests that the people are electing â€Å"leaders†. Also that politicians have qualities like containing conflicts, guiding forces of change by giving direction, value and purpose but that it is not necessarily the qualities of a transformational leader. I agree with the fact that politicians have qualities and that it is not the sign of a transformational leader. But when you choose to elect a politician, you would like him to manage your country and maybe to make yourself more aware of the importance of task outcomes, for your own self-interest, you might want his politician to be concern of developing the population to its full potential. But it is that in reality that does not happen that much, or will we know it and we would live in a perfect world or close to the excellence ! 2. CEOs as Leaders Stephen Denning takes the example of Alan Klapmeier in Cirrus Design, a manufacturer of private aircraft. Alan wanted to introduce a new innovation that would change the industry, but its board of directors stopped him because they just completes a market research highlighting that this product elicited the least interest. Later Klapmeier convinced his board of directors, the innovation was introduced and it became a success. The decisive issue for the board of directors was not if the innovation was worthwhile but it was the institutional preoccupation. Stephen Denning says: â€Å" If a firm can focus its efforts on activities valuable in themselves where it has, or can develop, an edge over its competitors, social responsibility can become not a drag on the firms profitability but rather a strategic business opportunity. Companies can do well while doing good.† He also highlight the fact that is easier to pursue an inherently worthwhile purpose in a privately held corporation rather than in a publicly held corporation as their business tend to be faire-weather corporate citizens, they are under continuing pressure to grow and do whatever is profitable. Furthermore, pursuing goals that are both worthwhile and profitable doesnt remove the inherent tensions between the pursuit of worthwhile activities and the goal of enhancing the bottom line. We can see that it is not easy for a CEO to be a leader, it depends of the environment, the context; it is why a leader as to be flexible and can adapt easily to the environment. We can also say that in publicly own companies they have the same tools as private own companies so they can try harder to pursue an inherently worthwhile purpose by develop a challenging and attractive vision, together with the employees and translate it to actions, express confidence, decisiveness and optimism about the vision and its implementation, realize the vision through small planned steps for its full implementation. But we also have to balances with the fact that objectives are not the same in private and publicly own companies. Speaking to the CEO (NB: people of power will be called CEO) Leadership is here approached through change. The main question rose by the author is â€Å"How to communicate disruptive new ideas to people with great power†. This implies the question of the HOW of course, which is one of the Management science and research main concerns but there is also here a dimension not that often developed, its the communication with people having power. We often hear how to be a leader and get your team and â€Å"N-1† to do things but it is not that often that the target of power people (CEO) is approached. The key idea expressed here is â€Å"understanding†. The author emphasis on the human part of every individual and on the importance of the context. He thinks the person as an individual but part of a global scheme. To lead correctly you have to explore deeper and learn about personal individual. What are their preferences, hopes, manners, fears The idea here is to understand how people work inside, what trigger them. Because if you can understand the deeper needs of an individual you cant then easily figure out the proper way to communicate with him. You have then greater chances for him to listen to you and then to believe you. 1. Garry Williams and Robert Miller theory The author then develops a theory by Gary Williams and Robert Miller. They have agreed on 3 main leaders categories (80%): the charismatic, the skeptics and the followers, and they. then talk about thinkers and controllers (20%) Leaders needs: For charismatic: the boldness of idea should be featured For skeptical: need to hear the message from a person he trusts For risk averse follower: need to be reassured other people do it do Controller and thinkers: need details Trust Issue: The question of trust is developed. They distinguish here in the game of trust two different parties: the people in the inner circle of trust of the leader and the others. Inner Circle Not yet †trusted† Has the CEOs attention Sponsors the interaction Can be perceived as an opponent Can be perceived as irrelevant If so wont be listened to When aware of that, the challenges are easier to identify. The problem is here to focus on the CEOs interests and to make him believe in the idea you want to present to him by making it a part of himself. Committing to change The author uses here a powerful expression â€Å"Commitment mind, body and soul†. He explains here that to him the only way for a leader to succeed is to commit fully to an objective. The leader is here expected to â€Å"see intensively even obsessively, to feel it†. Being committed 100% is crucial for the leaders effectiveness, but the real problem is not to get him to convince the other but to get him passionate about the goal and get it to become a part of him. Because if strongly and intimately convinced he will be able to take the goal/company or team to a higher level. The leaders feelings stressed out? Feelings are often considered in Leadership theories, how to connect with people to make them do what is needed for the common goal (often the company)? But what I think is extremely interesting here is the consideration made to the leaders feelings. The question is not how to deal with the teams feelings but to analyze what thrive the leaders and how they handle their emotions. The Author here develops a little paragraph on how stressful it can be for a leader to become a leader. The two mains reasons to this stress would be : Steve Denning then points out the famous and classical world Leaders such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Kennedy who so intimately convinced had to pay the price of their life for their causes. To conclude this discussion I found important to highlight the phrase p79 telling that â€Å"its an opportunity to lift their game to a new level† because to me it sums up very well the basic structure of leadership that is to say the dimension of a vision. 2. Howell Raines leadership tale Steve Denning choose to introduce this chapter with a story: â€Å"The Howell Rainess leadership tale†. He tells us more about Howell Raines, former executive editor of the New York Times and the kind of leader he is and how he lived and tried to implement is change strategy. To sum up, Raines wanted the times to be the first on the news, with bigger and more original stories covered by what he called â€Å"overwhelming force†. He was familiar with the firm and the staff and had strong backing from his boss. One of the first thing is did was to use his right of fire and hire to create the dream team he had in mind. He did implemented change and got the Times to win a Pulitzer but after 19 months he was dismissed because of one of his reporter accused of plagiarism. The underlying reason was a bit different though, he was told to have â€Å"lost the newsroom†. What happened here is that despite his vision and that he strongly believed in what he intended to implement, he had failed to win â€Å"the hearts and minds â€Å"of his staff. He did not listened to his people enough and was perceived as very intimidating and aggressive. He did not succeed in taking other with him in his change strategy mainly because he underestimated his change strategy and its interaction with the staff. New audience: The author here develops the concept of audience evolution. Communication and management as we know it now is pretty recent in human history. â€Å"Once upon a time† people were not considering work like they are now. They had no specific expectations except earning money and would not even think work as a way of making them feel better, important and individually considered. There are 3 notions I will highlight that I think are crucial to understand this change of audience expectations: Quest for happiness: Nowadays we are in what I call the endless happiness quest, everyone wants and have to be happy by any means, and it of course includes work. People have more skills, are more educated and therefore expect more. They want something in return. New relation to authority figures: Another important thing that changes a lot the way the audience is acting is that we nowadays have a new relation towards authority, in private spheres (Family with your parents) and public spheres (at work with your boss). This is very important to keep in mind to understand why the audience acts in a certain way and what it expects. Expansion of diversity: We are dealing with more and more differences between people: â€Å"gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, life style, age group and geographical location† Understand that new audience: The problem is that dealing with different people means that you wont reach them with the same tools. What is the common point to every single individual? We are humans. And what is common to every human being? Emotions. Whatever we do, wherever we come from we are driven by emotions, whether we try to hide them or we work with them we are all emotional. This is what the leader has to use: Emotions. He has to keep in mind that we are all different, have different goals, ambitions, perspectives and needs but a way to get us to understand the other and get involve in change or in a project is to use our emotions, the one that thrives us to go to â€Å"another level†. The author emphasis a 2 dimensions individual with a surface and a deeper world. To make something of someone you have to go to the deeper world, and for this you have first to get to know the individual personal story. They question. They explore. They intuit. They wander. They mingle. They live in it. They listen. They watch.† Its a matter of imaginatively reaching out and getting inside the subjective world of the people who need to change and getting a sense of what it is like living in that world, so that the leaders feel its logic and power and order and compelling harmony† Finding and encouraging New leaders Steve Denning develops an idea that I find particularly interesting it is that leaders cant work alone. No matter how charismatic and how committed he is to his vision an idea he will need the others to make change happen. He speaks about middle hierarchy and calls them â€Å"evangelizers†. He then makes a parallel with Raines story and how he failed involving his staff in his change strategy. He ends that chapter with the concept of Narrative intelligence required for understanding the story of the change idea and the audiences story†. 3.Steve Denning vision of leadership Why Do People Change Their Minds? Stephen Denning explains us that there are 3 ways for people to change their mind: by actual experience, by observed experience, and by symbolic learning. Actual Experience: The way we are living and experiencing things around us can change the way we think about them, mostly because of the feelings we have when experiencing those things. When you feel a strong emotion doing something, you trend to pay attention to it and to remember it more easily and longer than when you dont feel anything. Observed Experience: Actual experience is not the only way to learn from experiences, observing events can have the same emotional effect as real-life experiencing. In the public arena, 9/11 changed the way many people viewed terrorism. Symbolic Learning: Most of the time the learning of an idea communicated symbolically is not as powerful as an experience but it can have similar physiological reactions. In the author case, the combination of direct experience, observed experience, and symbolic learning led to his spending a large part of his life devoted to international development. 1. Changing minds through direct or observed learning: The more immediately people are involved in an actual or observed experience, the more meaningful the learning will be, and the more impact they will have. Direct or observed learning in a business environment can be: acting, conversations, visits, role-playing, simulations, prototyping, training, Advantages of experiential learning (direct or observed): Emotions are involved Participants make up their own opinion (durability of the change) Experiential learning is more effective than passive learning Limits of experiential learning: Leaders dont always have the power to change peoples actual experiences Most of the leaders falls on the use of language as a way to change peoples mind 2. Persuading people to change through language Methods of persuading people change their minds Abstract Narrative Direct and explicit Appeal to reason through detailed evidence and arguments Narratives in which the object is to have the listener live the story as fully and movingly as possible Indirect and implicit Appeals to intuition, through cues, signs, heuristics and manipul The Secret Language of Leadership Steve Denning The Secret Language of Leadership Steve Denning Selected in 2000 as one of the worlds ten most admired knowledge leader, Steve Denning is an award winner for the books  «The secret language of leadership » and  «the leaders guide to storytelling ». He studied law and psychology in Sydney University and then went to Oxford in the UK for a law postgraduate degree. He worked in organization in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia and was until 2000 the program director Knowledge Management at the World Bank. In the book the Secret Language of Leadership, the steps that have to be achieved to become a successful leader are to get the attention, to stimulate desire, to reinforce the reason and to continue the conversation. To reach those, a leader has to use six enablers that will be describing in our analysis of the language of Leadership: key enablers. Articulating a clear, inspiring goal Stephen Denning starts his explanation of the key enablers of the language of Leadership by a quote o George Bernard Shaw: This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.† This quote shows us the importance we give on the recognition of the actions we can do or the goal we can reach. We will now analyze how important it is to articulate a clear, inspiring goal. Stephen Denning illustrate the chapter, Articulating a clear, inspiring goal, of his book; with the example of the company Apple. Steve Jobs the creator of Apple had created chaos in his company because even if he is a brilliant person he was not an inexperience chairman.   A new CEO took his place in 1983, John Sculley, who was a star manager of other big companies as Pepsi. Even if Sculley did a good job on stabilizing the corporation and rationnalized the products, the Apple staff was no supporting him. Sculley wanted to implement a shift in Apple life by producing low cost computers like Dell, but the staff was not interested in becoming just another computer company. They wanted to follow Steve Jobs goal of creating cool, innovative electronic products, a purpose that for themselves was worthwhile in itself. John Sculley was forced out in 1993, his instrumental goals were not embraced and he was not successful on inspiring Apple staff to pursue new goals energetically and enthusiastically. What the staff wanted was to pursue Apple original purpose, which was more seductive for them as they came into this company for those values. Michael Spindler, Sculleys successors met the same fate. Steve Jobs came back as the CEO of Apple, and he didnt try to change the company purpose, which he settled many years before. We now know the success of Apple, Steve Jobs became a great CEO and he spread the world with his initiate focus, which was designing cool, innovative electronic products. Apple is a success story and Steve Jobs is often associate to this success, even when he has medical trouble it has an important impact on Apple stock exchange. Steve Jobs is so link to Apple that every launching of his product and every keynote he does make a huge buzz. In my opinion and especially in the market of new technologies when a company his created with a new concept, a brand new idea, a new way to work and projection in the future; the people who mean to work for those values are so convince that it is what you have to reach that they wont consider any other proposition.   Sculley and Spindler did not take into consideration what was Apple staff considerations and first goals; it is why we ask them to quit the company. It is complicated to change the main purpose of a business and the common goals and ideas of a whole staff when there are extremely committed to it. Before making changes in a company you have to define a clear vision and history of what people working in are sensitive and committed to. 1. Articulating a Worthwhile purpose In this part, Stephen Denning set up the problematic of the importance of enduring enthusiasm. He is wondering why Steve Jobs could generate enduring enthusiasm while John Sculley couldnt. Stephen Denning take the example of two kids playing piano, one child loves it, its a joy for her to play, it fills her life with meaning and she wins prizes. Her joy of playing is even more important that the prizes or recognition she could get. An other child is forced by her parents to play, she has a natural aptitude for music but do not enjoy it so much. Those two girls have a different view on this activity, the first one feels energized and enthusiastic and the second one is bored. Stephen Denning link this example with the practice of sharing knowledge in the organization, which is called knowledge management. Some people within the organization commit their working lives to making the best knowledge available to those who need it. They are honest and open to others. The source of their own personal growth is from the knowledge they spread within the organization, the benefits for them is the inherent value of sharing knowledge itself. Some people are practicing knowledge management on their own, it is to bring more money into the company, but for those who want to share their knowledge, they will find reward in the essential fact that the knowledge will be share. Stephen Denning says: A principal difference between these two different ways of viewing an activity is that when the activity generates sustained enthusiasm, the activity is being pursued for its own sake, not merely to achieve some instrumental or external good such as money, status, prestige, power, or winning. The perceived inherent worth of the activity being undertaken is foundational.† For Stephen Denning the enthusiasm toward an activity is important, because if you are enthusiastic for an activity, you will be for the own sake of this activity and not for some other instrumental goals. I totally agree with this vision, as I consider than even if you can be successful for an activity you dont really like, you wont have the same interest and implication to that activity that if youre really enthusiastic about it. When you are a leader your are face to certain situation that if you are not enthusiastic about what you are doing it will be difficult for you to find solutions or it will take you more time to do it, or you will not act you should do. The enthusiasm you could have for an activity can have influence on the people you are working with. The have feelings and can perceive if you are running for instrumental goals or if you find happiness on the own sake of an activity. It is an element to recognize basic leaders to outstanding ones. In some situation, Stephen Denning   take the example of prisoners in a concentration camps, people can find psychic energy to create meaning for their lives.   The people who are able to find inherent value in whatever they are doing are sometimes called â€Å"autotelic personalities†: they have the capacity to be intrinsically motivated by almost any activity. It is a great advantage of being able to find value in what you are doing and to be motivated in whatever you do, but I am sceptical on the degree of enthusiasm of those people. I agree in the fact that you can motivate yourself for some activities that you are not really into it, but I think their might be a difference in the level of implication and enthusiasm for activities that really fit to you and you personality and vision that the one which are not. Stephen Denning define the characteristics of activities that can generate sustained enthusiasm: The participants in the activity can see themselves making progress toward something that is good for its own sake, additional effort is a joy and not a burden. The participants experience their own personal growth and development as part of the activity. A balance between ability level and challenge—the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult—is also conducive to enthusiasm. The participants see themselves as contributing to, raising the sights of, and enhancing the efforts of other people pursuing the same activity. Ideally, the activity should bring some positive instrumental benefits: income, status, prestige. But even without that, it should at least be without negative instrumental effects. If those four elements are in place, there are chances that enthusiasm can be sustained. We can also notice that the primacy of goals pursued for their own sake in transformational leadership does not mean that instrumental benefits are unimportant. In practice, instrumental benefits reinforce the pursuit of goals for their own sake. Instrumental goals are complementary to enthusiasm and the pursued of goals by their own sake. But you have to remember that even if instrumental benefits are important, if you placed them first, enthusiasm is likely to die. You always have to consider the inherent value of the activity. For Stephen Denning: â€Å"One central aspect of the language of transformational leadership is therefore to articulate goals and activities in terms that can be viewed by participants as worthwhile in themselves, not merely pursued because they lead to instrumental benefits.† This is a fundamental quote that resume the importance of articulating a clear, inspiring goal. Those facts are true for leaders, but it is also true for corporations, they are most inspiring when they pursue large goals that are worthwhile in themselves. In this book, we find the example of Toyota, their goal is to: â€Å"to enrich society through the building of cars and trucks.† Also the example of Johnson Johnson who defines the companys responsibilities as first, to the consumers and medical professionals using its products, second, to employees and managers, third to the communities where its people work and live, and fourth and last, to its stockholders. Or Costco, their goal is to provide its members quality goods at low markups. Transformational leaders present their goals as larger than any particular task or organization or time-bound objective.   Stephen Denning take the example in politics: â€Å"Thus Abraham Lincoln can be assassinated, but his vision of a nation pursuing a new birth of freedom lives on. John F. Kennedy can be shot, but his vision of changing race relations in the United States is implemented by his successor. Martin Luther King Jr. can be murdered, but a whole nation continues the work that he started.† It is true that Goals that are articulated as worthwhile in themselves enhance the possibility of sustained enthusiasm, and hence the possibility of transformational leadership. But, articulating the goal as worthwhile in itself doesnt mean that listeners will necessarily see it in this way. Enthusiasm and finding reward in the activity your are pursuing is important, you find more energy and capabilities of reaching your goals and you know that when an activity is pursued for its own sake, the activity never ends. You are so convinced of the meaning and the importance of the activity that you want to reach a level of excellence, the activity will have no limits. It is what give us excitement when we are doing something we are convinced to do. In my opinion to be a good leader you should look for those feelings and excitement in an activity that will fulfill you needs. Or if you want to become a good leader it is the way you have to perceive an activity, you have to tend to those attempt. We are now going to see the importance of setting priorities among goals. 2. Setting Priorities Among Goals Leader fails a lot because they dont have a clear and inspiring goal or have too many of them. Leadership is such a demanding activity that any one individual can probably pursue no more than a couple of significant change ideas at any one time. It is essential to set priorities. Selecting a goal, or at most several goals, and then persevering is a requirement for success as a transformational leader. Stephen Denning take the example of Ronal Reagan, who was a single mindedness leader and politician.   He success was mainly based on a relatively small number of goals : defeating the Soviet Union and reducing taxes and the size of government. What I learn for the chapter tow of the part two of   The secret language of Leadership, is the importance of commitment and enthusiasm toward an activity in order to embrace inspiring goals that will be define clearly and focus on some   domains, in order to make the activity a success. The leaders own story Committing to the goal Stephen Denning starts this third chapter by pointing out the fact that Abraham Lincoln did not begin his presidency as a transformational leader. By definition, transformational leadership is a process that changes and transforms individuals. It is often associated with ethics and involves long-term goals. Transformational leadership focuses on the process by which the leader engages with followers, and together create a connection that raises each of them to higher levels of motivation and morality. A transformational leader must be attentive to follower needs and motivation, and tries to help followers reach their full potential. It requires long term strategic planning, clear objectives, a clear vision, the efficiency of systems and processes According to B.M. Bass, one of the leading theorists on transformational leadership, the leader transforms and motivates followers by: making them more aware of the importance of task outcomes, inducing them to transcend their own self-interest for the sake of the organization or team, and activating their higher order needs. Transformational leadership is concerned both with the performance of followers as well as developing them to their full potential. What make Stephen Denning says that Abraham Lincoln did not begin his presidency as a transformational leader is that he was explicit in declaring that he had no intent to abolish slavery to his earlier speeches. Its explicit goal was to preserve the Union at that time, which mad sense as there was no consensus for abolishing slavery. But soon, in 1862, nearly 2 years after the beginning of his presidency, he came to the view that the Union could not be preserved without abolishing slavery. Stephen Denning says: â€Å"Privately, he continued to argue that his goal remained the pragmatic one of preserving the Union. But publicly, Lincoln became a leader in a moral cause.† In December 1862 Abraham Lincoln made a speech to the Congress: We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.† This speech symbolize the moment when Lincoln became a transformational leader, he justified his action on instrumental and legal grounds. This new vision, based on moral grounds, Lincoln showed that it was something worthwhile in itself. With this changes Lincoln is proclaiming a new Union who want to restrain slavery, who will fulfill the promise of liberty. We can say that Lincoln is a transformational leader after this participation in the Congress in December 1862 because he stimulates people to want to do something different, inspiring them to higher levels of aspiration. Abraham Lincoln gives a new vision of what the United States should sand for: â€Å"government of the people, by the people, for the people† Stephen Denning came to the point of studying politicians as leaders. 1. Politicians as Leaders We often think of our politicians as leaders. But they are more oriented on the acquisition and retention of political office rather than being worried about people moral values and inspiring them to change. But if they do care, they usually survive in the world of politics. A successful politicians is one who is willing to fight, to attack the establish order, who is flexible. And who is able to preserve a public image of being honest, compassionate, moral and devout. Stephen Denning notice that: â€Å" Retaining power is principally about listening to the electorate. â€Å"If you want to get elected, learn to speak,† said Tom Daschle, former Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate. â€Å"If you want to stay elected, learn to listen.† It is difficult to understand the commitment to change of politicians and also ambiguous, because you are not 100% sure of what drive them to the commitment of their goals. Stephen Denning says that we should not be surprised of the lack of leadership in politics because nothing in the terminology of politics suggests that the people are electing â€Å"leaders†. Also that politicians have qualities like containing conflicts, guiding forces of change by giving direction, value and purpose but that it is not necessarily the qualities of a transformational leader. I agree with the fact that politicians have qualities and that it is not the sign of a transformational leader. But when you choose to elect a politician, you would like him to manage your country and maybe to make yourself more aware of the importance of task outcomes, for your own self-interest, you might want his politician to be concern of developing the population to its full potential. But it is that in reality that does not happen that much, or will we know it and we would live in a perfect world or close to the excellence ! 2. CEOs as Leaders Stephen Denning takes the example of Alan Klapmeier in Cirrus Design, a manufacturer of private aircraft. Alan wanted to introduce a new innovation that would change the industry, but its board of directors stopped him because they just completes a market research highlighting that this product elicited the least interest. Later Klapmeier convinced his board of directors, the innovation was introduced and it became a success. The decisive issue for the board of directors was not if the innovation was worthwhile but it was the institutional preoccupation. Stephen Denning says: â€Å" If a firm can focus its efforts on activities valuable in themselves where it has, or can develop, an edge over its competitors, social responsibility can become not a drag on the firms profitability but rather a strategic business opportunity. Companies can do well while doing good.† He also highlight the fact that is easier to pursue an inherently worthwhile purpose in a privately held corporation rather than in a publicly held corporation as their business tend to be faire-weather corporate citizens, they are under continuing pressure to grow and do whatever is profitable. Furthermore, pursuing goals that are both worthwhile and profitable doesnt remove the inherent tensions between the pursuit of worthwhile activities and the goal of enhancing the bottom line. We can see that it is not easy for a CEO to be a leader, it depends of the environment, the context; it is why a leader as to be flexible and can adapt easily to the environment. We can also say that in publicly own companies they have the same tools as private own companies so they can try harder to pursue an inherently worthwhile purpose by develop a challenging and attractive vision, together with the employees and translate it to actions, express confidence, decisiveness and optimism about the vision and its implementation, realize the vision through small planned steps for its full implementation. But we also have to balances with the fact that objectives are not the same in private and publicly own companies. Speaking to the CEO (NB: people of power will be called CEO) Leadership is here approached through change. The main question rose by the author is â€Å"How to communicate disruptive new ideas to people with great power†. This implies the question of the HOW of course, which is one of the Management science and research main concerns but there is also here a dimension not that often developed, its the communication with people having power. We often hear how to be a leader and get your team and â€Å"N-1† to do things but it is not that often that the target of power people (CEO) is approached. The key idea expressed here is â€Å"understanding†. The author emphasis on the human part of every individual and on the importance of the context. He thinks the person as an individual but part of a global scheme. To lead correctly you have to explore deeper and learn about personal individual. What are their preferences, hopes, manners, fears The idea here is to understand how people work inside, what trigger them. Because if you can understand the deeper needs of an individual you cant then easily figure out the proper way to communicate with him. You have then greater chances for him to listen to you and then to believe you. 1. Garry Williams and Robert Miller theory The author then develops a theory by Gary Williams and Robert Miller. They have agreed on 3 main leaders categories (80%): the charismatic, the skeptics and the followers, and they. then talk about thinkers and controllers (20%) Leaders needs: For charismatic: the boldness of idea should be featured For skeptical: need to hear the message from a person he trusts For risk averse follower: need to be reassured other people do it do Controller and thinkers: need details Trust Issue: The question of trust is developed. They distinguish here in the game of trust two different parties: the people in the inner circle of trust of the leader and the others. Inner Circle Not yet †trusted† Has the CEOs attention Sponsors the interaction Can be perceived as an opponent Can be perceived as irrelevant If so wont be listened to When aware of that, the challenges are easier to identify. The problem is here to focus on the CEOs interests and to make him believe in the idea you want to present to him by making it a part of himself. Committing to change The author uses here a powerful expression â€Å"Commitment mind, body and soul†. He explains here that to him the only way for a leader to succeed is to commit fully to an objective. The leader is here expected to â€Å"see intensively even obsessively, to feel it†. Being committed 100% is crucial for the leaders effectiveness, but the real problem is not to get him to convince the other but to get him passionate about the goal and get it to become a part of him. Because if strongly and intimately convinced he will be able to take the goal/company or team to a higher level. The leaders feelings stressed out? Feelings are often considered in Leadership theories, how to connect with people to make them do what is needed for the common goal (often the company)? But what I think is extremely interesting here is the consideration made to the leaders feelings. The question is not how to deal with the teams feelings but to analyze what thrive the leaders and how they handle their emotions. The Author here develops a little paragraph on how stressful it can be for a leader to become a leader. The two mains reasons to this stress would be : Steve Denning then points out the famous and classical world Leaders such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Kennedy who so intimately convinced had to pay the price of their life for their causes. To conclude this discussion I found important to highlight the phrase p79 telling that â€Å"its an opportunity to lift their game to a new level† because to me it sums up very well the basic structure of leadership that is to say the dimension of a vision. 2. Howell Raines leadership tale Steve Denning choose to introduce this chapter with a story: â€Å"The Howell Rainess leadership tale†. He tells us more about Howell Raines, former executive editor of the New York Times and the kind of leader he is and how he lived and tried to implement is change strategy. To sum up, Raines wanted the times to be the first on the news, with bigger and more original stories covered by what he called â€Å"overwhelming force†. He was familiar with the firm and the staff and had strong backing from his boss. One of the first thing is did was to use his right of fire and hire to create the dream team he had in mind. He did implemented change and got the Times to win a Pulitzer but after 19 months he was dismissed because of one of his reporter accused of plagiarism. The underlying reason was a bit different though, he was told to have â€Å"lost the newsroom†. What happened here is that despite his vision and that he strongly believed in what he intended to implement, he had failed to win â€Å"the hearts and minds â€Å"of his staff. He did not listened to his people enough and was perceived as very intimidating and aggressive. He did not succeed in taking other with him in his change strategy mainly because he underestimated his change strategy and its interaction with the staff. New audience: The author here develops the concept of audience evolution. Communication and management as we know it now is pretty recent in human history. â€Å"Once upon a time† people were not considering work like they are now. They had no specific expectations except earning money and would not even think work as a way of making them feel better, important and individually considered. There are 3 notions I will highlight that I think are crucial to understand this change of audience expectations: Quest for happiness: Nowadays we are in what I call the endless happiness quest, everyone wants and have to be happy by any means, and it of course includes work. People have more skills, are more educated and therefore expect more. They want something in return. New relation to authority figures: Another important thing that changes a lot the way the audience is acting is that we nowadays have a new relation towards authority, in private spheres (Family with your parents) and public spheres (at work with your boss). This is very important to keep in mind to understand why the audience acts in a certain way and what it expects. Expansion of diversity: We are dealing with more and more differences between people: â€Å"gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, life style, age group and geographical location† Understand that new audience: The problem is that dealing with different people means that you wont reach them with the same tools. What is the common point to every single individual? We are humans. And what is common to every human being? Emotions. Whatever we do, wherever we come from we are driven by emotions, whether we try to hide them or we work with them we are all emotional. This is what the leader has to use: Emotions. He has to keep in mind that we are all different, have different goals, ambitions, perspectives and needs but a way to get us to understand the other and get involve in change or in a project is to use our emotions, the one that thrives us to go to â€Å"another level†. The author emphasis a 2 dimensions individual with a surface and a deeper world. To make something of someone you have to go to the deeper world, and for this you have first to get to know the individual personal story. They question. They explore. They intuit. They wander. They mingle. They live in it. They listen. They watch.† Its a matter of imaginatively reaching out and getting inside the subjective world of the people who need to change and getting a sense of what it is like living in that world, so that the leaders feel its logic and power and order and compelling harmony† Finding and encouraging New leaders Steve Denning develops an idea that I find particularly interesting it is that leaders cant work alone. No matter how charismatic and how committed he is to his vision an idea he will need the others to make change happen. He speaks about middle hierarchy and calls them â€Å"evangelizers†. He then makes a parallel with Raines story and how he failed involving his staff in his change strategy. He ends that chapter with the concept of Narrative intelligence required for understanding the story of the change idea and the audiences story†. 3.Steve Denning vision of leadership Why Do People Change Their Minds? Stephen Denning explains us that there are 3 ways for people to change their mind: by actual experience, by observed experience, and by symbolic learning. Actual Experience: The way we are living and experiencing things around us can change the way we think about them, mostly because of the feelings we have when experiencing those things. When you feel a strong emotion doing something, you trend to pay attention to it and to remember it more easily and longer than when you dont feel anything. Observed Experience: Actual experience is not the only way to learn from experiences, observing events can have the same emotional effect as real-life experiencing. In the public arena, 9/11 changed the way many people viewed terrorism. Symbolic Learning: Most of the time the learning of an idea communicated symbolically is not as powerful as an experience but it can have similar physiological reactions. In the author case, the combination of direct experience, observed experience, and symbolic learning led to his spending a large part of his life devoted to international development. 1. Changing minds through direct or observed learning: The more immediately people are involved in an actual or observed experience, the more meaningful the learning will be, and the more impact they will have. Direct or observed learning in a business environment can be: acting, conversations, visits, role-playing, simulations, prototyping, training, Advantages of experiential learning (direct or observed): Emotions are involved Participants make up their own opinion (durability of the change) Experiential learning is more effective than passive learning Limits of experiential learning: Leaders dont always have the power to change peoples actual experiences Most of the leaders falls on the use of language as a way to change peoples mind 2. Persuading people to change through language Methods of persuading people change their minds Abstract Narrative Direct and explicit Appeal to reason through detailed evidence and arguments Narratives in which the object is to have the listener live the story as fully and movingly as possible Indirect and implicit Appeals to intuition, through cues, signs, heuristics and manipul

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Physio Ex 9.0 Ex3

Moorpark College Human Physiology Name: _________________________________ EXERCISE 3 Neurophysiology of Nerve Impulses Laboratory Report Answer the following questions. (3 points each). 1. What is the difference between membrane irritability and membrane conductivity? Membrane irritability is the ability to respond to a stimuli and convert it in to nerve impulses. Membrane conductivity is the ability to transmit that impulse that is created by membrane irritability. 2. If you were to spend a lot of time studying nerve physiology in the laboratory, what type of stimulus would you use, and why? You would use a electric stimulus, this is because with the electric stimulus you can adjust and determine the pressure, frequency, duration, and voltage and control them. 3. Briefly explain how the addition of NaCl in the ECF elicit an action potential? With the addition of more Na ions it increases the concentration of Na ions outside the cell. The driving force of the action potential is the increase in the concentration gradient because of the increase of Na ions outside the cell. 4. General anesthetics such as ether and chloroform open K+ gated-channels in the brain. What would be the effect of inhaled ether on the generation of action potentials in neurons in the brain of a rat exposed to this anesthetic? Provide a good and brief physiological explanation. In activity 7 you tested the effect of lidocaine on eliciting an action potential. Answer the following: 5. What is lidocaine (type of macromolecule) Lidocaine (2-(diethylamino)-N-(2,6-dimethylphenyl)acetamide) is a topical anesthetic used for dental surgeries or other minor surgeries. 6. List three (3) common use of lidocaine. Topical anesthetic. Antiarrythmic medication Relieves itching and burning due to skin inflammation. 7. Lidocaine blocks fast voltage gated sodium (Na+) channels in the cell membrane of nerve fibers. How this explains the analgesic effect of lidocaine? 8. Provide the generic name and brand name of 3 other local anesthetics. Generic Name:Bupivacaine Brand Name:Marcaine Generic Name: Trimecaine Brand Name:Mesdicain Generic Name: Benzocaine Brand Name: Auralgan 9. What is the relationship between size of a nerve and conduction velocity? The larger the size of the nerve it creates a lesser amount of resistance that the ions need to travel the lesser amount of resistance will increase the conduction velocity. 10. What is myelin and how does myelination affect nerve conduction velocity? Explain. Myelin is a mix of proteins and phosopholipids which creates a sheath around nerve fibers which will then increase the speed of conduction. The larger the myelination the larger the gap of the channels is, the farther the signal can jump at a more rapid speed. How to write this report. 1. You may type your answers. Please has a double space from the end of one question and the beginning of the next question. 2. If you handwrite this report first hit return to open space between the questions, print the page and then write your answer. The statement of the questions should be included in the report. 3. Leave the Question statement in BOLD but your answer as plain. 4. Unstapled report = -3 points 5. Give a clean report

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Inventory Control System Essay

This study is established towards gathering and developing strategies that could solve the inappropriate inventory system of 7-eleven Sto. Rosario, Angeles City Outlet. The researchers established Trend analysis (regress over time) and Basic Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) to solve problem of inappropriate inventory management. The findings of this study revealed the problem on the current inventory management system that is evident in the product overstocking and under stocking problem of 7-eleven. Forecasting demand may improve the ordering quantity every time they place an order and EOQ may result in the significant savings for the company. The Story of Convenience Shopping 7-eleven pioneered the convenience store concept way back in `1927 at the Southland Ice Company in Dallas, Texas. In addition to selling blocks of ice to refrigerated food, an enterprising ice dock employee began offering milk, bread and eggs on Sundays and evenings when grocery stores were closed. This new business idea produced ideas that satisfied customers and increased sales, and convenience retailing was born. The company’s first convenience outlets were known as Tote’m stores since customers â€Å"Toted† away their purchases and some even sported genuine Alaskan totem poles in front. In 1946, Tote’m became 7-Eleven to reflect the stores’ new, extended hours 7 a.m until 11 p.m., seven days a week. The companu’s corporate name was changed from the Southland Corporation to 7-Eleven, inc, in 1999. Each Store focuses on meeting the needs of busy shoppers by providing a broad selection of fresh, high quality products and services at everyday fair prices, along with speedy transactions and a clean,safe and friendly shopping environment. In year 2004, 7-Eleven located at Sto. Rosario Street Angeles City was established under the management of Edgar Nucum who was the first manager under corporate group of the Philippine Seven Corporation. However, on May 2, 2005, the said business was turnover To Mevin Teopaco because of the conversion of the establishments from corporate to franchisee  Mr. Teopaco who took the business through formal application and training on how to run the business. He is responsible for ordering, buying and maintaining inventory, hiring and training employees, as well on payroll, cash variation, supplies, certain repairs, maintenance and other controllable in store expenses. The company’s mission is t offer time-conscious customers a full range of products and services that meet their ever-changing daily needs through quality, speed, selection and value in a safe, friendly and pleasant environment. And their vision is to â€Å"become a recognized leader in providing time-conscious consumers with a full-range of products and services that meet their ever-changing daily needs. We will be the customer-preffered convenience store by exceeding customer expectations through quality, speed, selection, and value in a safe and pleasant environment, treating our employees with dignity and respect, recognizing our franchisees and suppliers as business partners, being a good corporate citizen. Achieving our vision and continued growth will provide our shareholders with a beter than competitive return on their investments†. Inventories are ordered on a daily basis and delivered through central distribution located in Pasig City. Inventories are individually monitored thorugh monitoring sheet report, sales and ordering are incorporated at SAS System that link to POS (Point of Sales). Although Mr. Teopaco had special training in managing the said business, still sometimes he experienced and encountered different problems related to operation such as inventory losses. Such problem is caused by different factors. This problem arises when the management encounters discrepancy in the delivery of the products. However, there are products, which the store provides but not salable. Such products sty longer in the store and become spoiled. Which are referred to as bad merchandise or BM. In effect, the company experience losses on inventories because such scenario usually happens in the store. Since the store is open 24 hours a day and the security system of the store is not that fully implemented, there are customers who shop lift from the store especially â€Å"out-of-sight† and small products. Sometimes the management could not trace those products until they make an inventory count. Another thing is that some employees do unnecessary things in the store like eating some of the products or keeping them. In such case, inventory losses happen. The occurrence of these different factors led to the existence of a current  problem, which need to be monitored and evaluated by the management in order to achieve the desired objectives of the said company. The Current Situation on the Inventory Management of 7Eleven The main problem 7Eleven is currently facing is the inventory losses as shown on Figure 1. This problem exists because of different factors that the management should eliminate or if not, at least minimize. Such factors are the theft and shoplifiting that result to lesser sales or profit, and obsolescence of the products that result to high inventory sales. Unavailability of the prodcuts results to stock-outs and lower sales because customers tend to patronize competitor’s products. The second factor that led to the afordeimentioned problem is inefficient employees. Inefficient employees can occur just like not performing their duties well and sometimes by concealing merchandise in a purse, pocket, or bag and removing it from the store. It can also occur by stealing cash, allowing others to steal merchandise, eating the goods and sometimes some employees do not punch other products sold. Employee theft can sometimes be charges as embezzlement due to be trusted fiduciary status of the employee. Being inefficient employee can also result dissatisfied customer. All of these methods lead to loss of inventory(shrinkage) and/or profit for the merchant. Preventing employee theft and being irresponsible is a constant challenge for the store. The store knows that it must put systems in place to prevent or deter internal theft. To be effective, loss prevention systems must be designed to reduce the opportunity,desire, and motivation for employee theft. Basic loss prevention steps involve good procedures for hiring, training and supervision of employees and managers. Procedures that are clearly defined, articulated, and fully implemented will reduce opportunity, desire, and motivation for employees to steal. For others, the only barrier to dishonesty is the fear of being caught. The employee thief risks being fired, arrested, jailed, and paying restitution. The other cause of the said problem is the inefficient inventory control system.With this, inventories are not properly controlled which results to a high percentage of spoilage or expiration of some products. When an inefficient valuation is assigned to the inventory, it may end up having higher inventory expense. Moreover, it will be costly on the part of the store. To determine the cost to be associated with the inventory, a physical inventory must be taken in order to determing the number of units present. Then, the costs are attached to each item in the inventory. When dealing with the inventories, cost should be interpreted to mean the sum of all direct or indirect charges incurred in bringing an item of inventory to its existing condition and/or location. The store have a price tag or a universal product code, it is acommon practice to take the physical inventory at the store from these price tags and codes it can determine their inventory. Maintenance of inventory losses may result in lost sales and disgruntled customers. The last factor is the lack of security control system because of limited employees that wil oversee the inventories specially those that are not visible. In effect, shoplifting and theft arises. Technology alone will not eliminate retail theft. Store who wants to reduce losses should also Strive to provide good customer service and promote high job satisfactions levels among its retail sales associates. Stores that utilize security technologies generally have lower overall inventory shrinkage than those retailers who do not. Technology also allows employees to focus more time on assisting customers and less on patrolling the aisles. Inventory is considered the current asset to the store because it will normally be sold within the store’s operating cycle.   All of the said causes result in inventory losses and lead to different effects, such as, lesser profits/sales, dissatisfied customers, and stock-outs. These are not beneficial to the company so the management need to find ways on how to overcome the causes that lead to the above effects.

Friday, November 8, 2019

Traits Most Admired by the Ancient Greeks Essay Essays

Traits Most Admired by the Ancient Greeks Essay Essays Traits Most Admired by the Ancient Greeks Essay Essay Traits Most Admired by the Ancient Greeks Essay Essay Fictional characters such as Achilles and Odysseus were the most extremely regarded of heroes. The Greeks admired many features in the characters and heroes of their mythology. but the 1s most admired by them were strength. craft and beauty. The Gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus embodied all these traits and features most revered by the Greeks. Strength in conflict was greatly admired by the ancient Greeks. The strongest warriors were a favourite subject of myths. The Gods of their myths are known for their huge strength and are frequently depicted with big musculuss and a arm and armour demoing the Greeks great love of strength. Even the King of Troy. Priam says to Achilles. â€Å"Great godlike Achilles† after he defeats the greatest warrior of Troy. Hector. This shows that Achilles was such a great warrior that he was considered to be at a divine degree of strength. And the Iliad was a favourite narrative to Greece ; hence strength must be a admired trait to them. Cleverness was a favourite trait of the Greeks every bit good. In many of their narratives the hero would hold to calculate out a cagey manner to accomplish their adjective. for illustration Odysseus was a darling hero who was known for his craft along with being a great warrior. He gained this repute after he penetrated the Trojan defences. which were said to be unbreakable. by coming up with the clever program of constructing a big wooden Equus caballus to give them as a gift. and filled it with is work forces. His inventiveness is what made him celebrated and that is because it was a trait the Greeks held to the highest award. Beauty was really of import to the Greeks. From their narratives to their faiths and even their art it is evident that beauty was a extremely regarded trait to hold. All the goddesses were known for being perfect and holding unexcelled beauty. Even in the Iliad character Helen of Troy is known as â€Å"The face that launched a 1000 ships† . which is stating that her beauty was so great it started the Trojan War. The Greeks clearly thought of beauty as a great beginning of power and a great trait to hold. Traits such as inventiveness. strength and beauty were all extremely admired by the Greeks and was invariably shown in their myths and art. And such traits were embodied in their Gods and heroes to demo the people of the clip what to stride for. so these features must hold been really of import to their society.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

The Christmas Story From the Gospel of Luke in Spanish

The Christmas Story From the Gospel of Luke in Spanish The classic story of the first Christmas from the Gospel of Luke has enchanted readers for centuries. Here is that story from the traditional  Reina-Valera Spanish translation of the Bible, a translation whose cultural importance is comparable to that of the King James Version of the Bible in English and comes from the same era. Lukes Christmas account is one that many English readers will recognize as beginning with And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. Boldfaced words are explained in the vocabulary guide below. San Lucas 2:1-20 Acontecià ³ en aquellos dà ­as que salià ³ un edicto de parte de Cà ©sar Augusto, para levantar un censo de todo el mundo habitado. Este primer censo se realizà ³ mientras Cirenio era gobernador de Siria. Todos iban para inscribirse en el censo, cada uno a su ciudad. Entonces Josà © tambià ©n subià ³ desde Galilea, de la ciudad de Nazaret, a Judea, a la ciudad de David que se llama Belà ©n, porque à ©l era de la casa y de la familia de David, para inscribirse con Marà ­a, su esposa, quien estaba encinta. Acontecià ³ que, mientras ellos estaban allà ­, se cumplieron los dà ­as de su alumbramiento, y dio a luz a su hijo primogà ©nito. Le envolvià ³ en paà ±ales, y le acostà ³ en un pesebre, porque no habà ­a lugar para ellos en el mesà ³n. Habà ­a pastores en aquella regià ³n, que velaban y guardaban las vigilias de la noche sobre su rebaà ±o. Y un ngel del Seà ±or se presentà ³ ante ellos, y la gloria del Seà ±or los rodeà ³ resplandor; y temieron con gran temor. Pero el ngel les dijo: No temis, porque he aquà ­ os doy buenas nuevas de gran gozo, que ser para todo el pueblo: que hoy, en la ciudad de David, os ha nacido un Salvador, que es Cristo el Seà ±or. Y esto os servir de seà ±al: Hallarà ©is al nià ±o envuelto en paà ±ales y acostado en un pesebre. De repente aparecià ³ con el ngel una multitud de las huestes celestiales, que alababan a Dios y decà ­an:  ¡Gloria a Dios en las alturas, y en la tierra paz entre los hombres de buena voluntad! Acontecià ³ que, cuando los ngeles se fueron de ellos al cielo, los pastores se decà ­an unos a otros: Pasemos ahora mismo hasta Belà ©n y veamos esto que ha sucedido, y que el Seà ±or nos ha dado a conocer. Fueron de prisa y hallaron a Marà ­a y a Josà ©, y al nià ±o acostado en el pesebre. Al verle, dieron a conocer lo que les habà ­a sido dicho acerca de este nià ±o. Todos los que oyeron se maravillaron de lo que los pastores les dijeron; pero Marà ­a guardaba todas estas cosas, meditndolas en su corazà ³n. Los pastores se volvieron, glorificando y alabando a Dios por todo lo que habà ­an oà ­do y visto, tal como les habà ­a ido dicho. Vocabulary and Grammar Notes Acontecer usually means to happen. It is found mostly in older literature; modern speakers would more likely use pasar, sucedir, or ocurrir. Aquellos is a demonstrative adjective meaning those. Aquellos suggests a more distant point in time than another demonstrative, esos, which also is used for those. By itself, parte is often the equivalent of part in the sense of portion. However, the phrase de parte de is used to indicate who something is coming from, somewhat like on the part of. Todo el mundo, literally all the world, is a common idiom usually translated as everybody. Realizar is usually better thought of as meaning to make real rather than to realize. It is a common  way of saying that something came to be. Iban and fueron are  forms of the verb ir, to go, which has a strongly irregular conjugation. Belà ©n refers to Bethlehem, one of many city names that are substantially different in English and Spanish. Alumbramiento can refer to either physical illumination or the delivery of a baby. Similarly, the idiom dar a luz (literally, to give light) means to give birth. Primogà ©nito is the equivalent of firstborn. Primo- is related to primero, the word for first, and -genito comes from the same root word as genetic. A pesebre is a manger. Although pastor can be the equivalent of pastor, here it refers to a shepherd. A rebaà ±o is a flock. Although Seà ±or here is the equivalent of Lord, it usually is used in modern Spanish as the equivalent of Mr. Se presentà ³ is an example of a reflexive verb usage, which is more common in Spanish than in English. A literal translation would be presented himself, although it could be more simply be translated as appeared. Pueblo here is a collective noun meaning people. It is grammatically singular but plural in meaning. De repente is an idiom meaning immediately. De prisa is an idiom meaning hurriedly. Al verle is an example of using al with an infinitive. Here the indirect object pronoun le is attached to the infinitive ver. Al in this type of construction is often translated as upon, so al verle means upon seeing him. Meditndolas is an example of attaching a direct object pronoun, las, to a gerund, meditando. Note that the addition of the pronoun requires the addition of an orthographic accent to the third syllable.