Strategies Of Success From Stanford :: essays research papers

Everything that has ever ‘come about’ in the world, started in the beginning as an idea. In order for anything to be invented, the inventor had a dream, an idea to make something that would help them and the people around them. Schools today, teach students to change the world- to take charge and stand up for things you believe in. The former president of Stanford University, Clark Kerr, once said, â€Å"The university is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.† This statement can be taken two ways, both positive and negative.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  We’ll save the best for last and, for now, start with the negative. This whole statement can be taken as a pessimistic view of the future. It seems to say that we, the young men and women of the next generation, are unable to continue doing things the way they were done in the past. It seems to say that we need to be taught how to think, and be told that what we want to gain isn’t the right thing. It’s like telling a little child that there is no Santa Claus- everything we believe in is completely changed. â€Å"†¦Making students safe for ideas.† Reading this alone makes it seem as if Julian, Erika the students are not smart enough to decide on his or her own which ideas to take advantage of. As if, the ideas are the ultimate prize and we, the students, are the contestants in a game show, competing to the death to have the best idea of all. It seems to say that we need to be conditioned and shown just what an ‘idea’ is and what to do with one. If you compare it to a gun, for example, you need to be taught how to take proper care of a gun, what to do with one and what not to do with one. The same idea can be put as a meaning for this quote. If you look at it through my eyes, the positive side of the quote has a much bigger impact on me than the negative side does. The optimism seems to jump out at me, blazing like a beachside sunset. This entire quote seems to say, in it’s own way, that schools are here to show the students that their imagination is completely limitless.

Human Relations: A Personal Experience

Human Relations: A Personal Experience Allison R. West Introduction to Graduate Studies in Human Relations 12/4/13 While reading Modern Human Relations at Work I found information that I pretty much expected to find in a book on this subject. I found some specific studies that I had not read about before and ideals that I found to be true in theory, but not so much in practice. The standard questions of whether a happy worker is a productive worker and do open door policies work were addressed. Ten years ago I would have read this text book in a much different manner, with a completely different erspective than I do today.I may have viewed the ideals of organizational human relations with some sort of hope that people can actually work in environments where there are superiors and subordinates can maintain a sense of respect and humanity towards one another, but that has not always been my experience. The old expression â€Å"it's lonely at the top† can be interpreted in sever al ways; there are not many top dogs out there, or that the higher you go the less time you have to mingle with the lowly, or the less you really care to, or the misguided belief that you should have a self-imposed separation .Whatever the meaning or reason one thing is true to my understanding; organizations are truly not classless societies and while they, in theory, should understand human relations better than anyone, they practice very little of what they profess to preach. I do not mean to give the impression that I do not understand the need for hierarchies and the important role they play in efficient organizations, it is not the paradigm, but the players, with which I take issue.In this paper I would like to address the two areas that were of greatest interest to me as they apply to my experiences working within large organizations. The first area referred to the fundamentals of human relations and included a study conducted by the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric in Ill inois that I found interesting. The second discussed the management of conflict between individuals and organizations and included exercises that companies can use to build stronger relationships between botn I wou d like to snare my thoughts on these areas trom both theoretical and practical stand points.The book defined human relations as follows: â€Å"The process by which management brings workers into contact with the organization in such a way that the objectives of oth groups are achieved is human relations† (pg. 5) and takes the point of view of the manager. While the company and the worker share a common purpose of being successful and making money, the worker also has goals that the company may or may not be aware of or concerned with. Successful human relations addresses both the company and the worker and finds a satisfactory solution to all needs.This, in my opinion, is where most companies don't seem to be able to get it right. It is not enough for an organizati on to say that they care about their workers, what their needs are, what their opinions are and how they can best use their talents to nhance the organization, there has to be follow through and this is what usually does not happen. You only have to look at a company's turnover of employees to get a good idea of their attitude towards human relations. I spent 10 years working for an organization that truly did not care at all about their workers, though they professed to.It is my experience with this particular organization, which I will call Agency X that I will be referring to in this paper. Agency X has a high turnover for several reasons, one of which is the amount of stress that comes with the Job and the econd is the response, or lack thereof, on the part of the agency to try and understand, alleviate, or even acknowledge the fact that the needs of the workers are not being met. So while I read through the book, I suppose I was more Jaded and had a more pessimistic attitude th an I should have, but I truly believe that few companies actually care about human relations in practice.I found the Hawthorne studies interesting in that it showed that a worker who feels that they are valued and has some level of relationship with those they work with is productive and that the quality of the supervision they receive effects the uality and quantity of their work (pg. 9). When I worked for Agency X I was a case manager for 4 years and had a supervisor who truly cared and was concerned for the well-being of her workers and the impact the Job was having on us. This supervisor did a good Job of shielding us from the bureaucratic issues that came from above.She believed that the quality of services to clients and the needs of the workers were both equally as important. After 4 years she changed Jobs and I was promoted to her position, it was at this same time that our contract was obtained by another big agency and suddenly things changed. While I continued to supervis e in the way I had been taught, ensuring that what needed to be done was done, that clients were receiving the best possible services and that workers were not burning out and were taking care of themselves I began to see the differences in field work and middle management.I was accused of babying my workers whenever I tried to make things a little easier for them. It is important to note that we worked with abused children and families in volatile situations that required a tremendous amount of travel and field time (we were not child welfare). Let me give an example of a worker who was close to burning out. We had both been at a home in the country where the situation became fragile and volatile and we decided that it was best to leave.After we had driven away (we took separate cars) my worker pulled over to the side of the road and just sat there. I pulled in behind ner and Just watched tor a tew seconds wondering if she was going to get out of the car, but she did not. I walked up to her window to find her in tears. I allowed her to vent her feelings and frustrations and finally I suggested to her that she go home for the rest of the day (it was early Friday afternoon) and spend time with her daughters and not think about work until Monday morning.I told my worker that we would meet in my office on the Monday and talk about what we needed to do make sure her needs and the needs of the client were being met. While this was an appropriate solution to me, I was then â€Å"counseled† as I told my worker to go home when she had not filled out a â€Å"request for leave† form. That was my first indication that Agency X did not care at all about my worker, all they cared about was a piece of paper that they would not have received until timesheets were turned in the following week anyway.So I took that hit, signed y piece of paper that said I was a bad supervisor that day and never said a word to my worker about it. Human relations works at a worker level and even at a middle management level if you have a supervisor who gives a damn about you, but it is only a slogan on a poster for those in upper management. The human resources model outlined on page 11 of our book gives 4 systems that an agency can fall into when dealing with human relations. I feel that an agency can fall into several systems at one time.I think those in middle management still see their workers as valuable assets that should not be easily discarded. Middle anagement have better relationships with their workers and probably fall between system 3 (consultive democratic) and system 4 (participative democratic) depending on how long the subordinate and superior have been working together. Upper management would have you believe that their agency is participative democratic, but they are, in reality, benevolent autocratic (system 2) where condescension and punishment are the main staples of management.It was forced upon me many times that I should separate myse lf from my workers and make sure they understood we were â€Å"not the same†. While I understand that it is not always wise for supervisors o be friends with workers, we do not need to sit in ivory towers looking down on them either. There is a happy medium that upper management ignore. As I progressed in Agency X, I was promoted again to Regional Director and was responsible for services all 16 counties in Southwest Oklahoma. This was my first and only experience with upper management and I have no desire to â€Å"go there† again.

Inner Circle English Definition and Examples

The Inner Circle is made up of countries in which English is the first or the dominant language. These countries include Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Also called the core English-speaking countries. The inner circle is one of the three concentric circles of World English  identified by linguist Braj Kachru in Standards, Codification and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle (1985). Kachru describes the inner circle as  Ã¢â‚¬Å"the traditional bases of English, dominated by the mother tongue varieties of the language.† The labels inner, outer, and expanding  circles represent the type of spread, the patterns of acquisition, and the functional allocation of the English language in diverse cultural contexts. These labels remain controversial. Inner Circle Annabelle Mooney and Betsy Evans: Inner circle nations are countries where English is spoken as a first language (mother tongue or L1). They are very often nations to which very large numbers of people migrated from the U.K. For example, the U.S. and Australia are inner circle nations... Whether a country is in the inner, outer, or expanding circle ... has little to do with geography but more to do with history, migration patterns and language policy... [W]hile Kachrus model does not suggest that one variety is better than any other, inner circle nations are, in fact, perceived as having greater ownership over the language, in that they have inherited English as their L1. Even among inner circle nations, not all nations can claim authenticity of the English language. The U.K. is widely perceived as being the origin of the English language and is seen as the authority on what counts as standard English; inner circle nations tend to be regarded as authentic speakers of English (Evans 2 005)... the English used even in inner circle nations is not homogenous. Language Norms Mike Gould and Marilyn Rankin: The most generally held view is that the Inner Circle (eg. UK, US) is norm-providing; this means that English language norms are developed in these countries and spread outwards. The Outer Circle (mainly New Commonwealth countries)  is norm-developing, easily adopting and perhaps developing its own norms. The Expanding Circle (which includes much of the rest of the world) is norm-dependent, because it relies on the standards set by native speakers in the Inner Circle. This is a one-directional flow and learners of English as a foreign language in the Expanding Circle look to the standards set in the Inner and Outer Circles. Suzanne Romaine: In the so-called inner circle English is multifunctional, transmitted through the family and maintained by governmental or quasi-governmental agencies (e.g. media, school, etc.), and is the language of the dominant culture. The outer circle contains countries (usually multilingual) colonized by English-speaking powers. English is typically not the language of the home, but transmitted through the school, and has become part of the countrys chief institutions. Norms come officially from the inner circle, but local norms also play a powerful role in dictating everyday usage. Hugh Stretton: [W]hile inner circle nations are now well in the minority among users of English, they still exert strong proprietary rights over the language in terms of norms. This applies far more to discourse patterns than to grammatical rules or pronunciation norms (the latter varying considerably between the inner circle countries in any case). By discourse patterns, I mean the way spoken and written discourse is organised. In many fields of scholarship, the major international journals are now published entirely in English... At present, English speakers from inner circle countries still hold a great deal of control in terms of assessing contributions and reviewing books in English. Problems With the World Englishes Model Robert M. McKenzie: [W]ith regard to inner circle Englishes in particular, the model ignores the fact that although there is relatively little differentiation between written norms, this is not the case between spoken norms. The model, thus, in its broad categorisation of varieties according to large geographical areas, does not take into account the considerable spoken dialectal variation within each of the varieties identified (e.g., American English, British English, Australian English)... Secondly, a problem exists with the World Englishes model because of its reliance on a fundamental distinction between native speakers of English (i.e., from the inner circle) and non-native speakers of English (i.e., from the outer and expanding circles). There is a problem with this distinction because attempts so far at precise definitions of the terms native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) have proved highly controversial... Thirdly, Singh et al. (1995:284) believe that the labelli ng of inner circle (old) English and outer circle (new) English is overly value-laden since it suggests that older Englishes are more truly English than those historically younger varieties in the outer circle. Such a distinction seems even more problematic because, . . . historically, all varieties of English other than English English are transpalnted.