Narrative Essay Example Essay Example for Free

Narrative Essay Example Essay Have you ever been in one of those never ending conversations? The ones where the speaker goes on and on for ages about a topic that you do not understand and could care even less about? Have you ever felt like a joke went straight over your head or that you were missing something as you struggled to find the context in a conversation? That is an everyday occurrence for people like me, affectionately called Aspies: people who have what is known as Asperger’s Syndrome. Since being diagnosed with this, everyone who has been aware of it has felt the need to make some sort of accommodation for my ‘disability. ’ A diagnosis that society feels I need because I think differently than the rest. How does society define you? I have spent my entire life trying to prove that our labels do not matter in comparison to our contributions to society. Aspies are very socially awkward. We cannot read non-verbal cues, societal niceties are often thought strange and hard to grasp, and we tend to be more than a little introverted. I have a very ‘mild’ case. No, I cannot read social cues. Yes, society’s unwritten rules drive me crazy. Absolutely, I would prefer to be alone or with a small select group of people. However, none of these characteristics define me. One characteristic of Aspies is that we often have a specialized and intense interest in something. My obsession is Star Trek, particularly the alternate reality movie series starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, and Karl Urban. I once heard someone equate people with Asperger’s to the Vulcan race from Star Trek. It is quite a fitting description. Vulcans are typically calm, rational, and even keeled people, but lord help you if you manage to anger one. They do not like to be touched and have a ‘muted’ sense of their own, and others, emotions (although in truth both are so sensitive that we have to shut off our empathy in order to function). Spock, the most commonly known Vulcan, exhibits this range of emotions in the JJ Abrams 2009 Star Trek remake movie. He is coolly rational, even as his planet is destroyed, but becomes near homicidal after Kirk starts throwing disparaging comments about his mother. Even so Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are two-thirds of a trio that has gone down in pop culture legend along with the ever snarky Dr. McCoy. The Freudian trio that everyone so loves shows that there needs to be a balance of personalities which in the case of Star Trek, as in so many others, is the cold and logical (Spock), the emotional and humanistic (McCoy), and the rational and intuitive (Kirk). There are so many labels that get thrown on people throughout their lifetime; jarhead, slut, and geek just to name a few. Not many people strictly fit in to just the one singular box to which society relegates us. Really, who wants to fit in just one category? Every person is, as my friend Marilyn would say, a unique and beautiful snowflake. Having Asperger’s certainly qualifies me as a ‘special snowflake’, but there are some drawbacks. One of those is that we find it incredibly difficult to discuss our personal lives and often the only people who are aware of our personal thoughts and feelings are those who are in our close inner circle. One of my inner circle in high school was a girl named Jules. She was, without a doubt, the poster child for the school. She was beautiful, the head cheerleader who competed in beauty pageants and was the prom princess. It would have been so easy for her to have been content with being well loved by the community just because she was pretty and popular. Jules was not like that though. She was the vice president of our class three years running. She graduated a mere . 0002 from being the salutatorian. She was involved in the student community service club and the school’s religious advocacy team. Jules could have been content with her place as a cheerleader in the status quo, but she chose to defy society’s expectations of her. Within those societal labels is one of the most interesting phenomena; the labels are so generalized. Take for instance the geek or nerd box. It is a label that I accept as one of the closest fit for identifying me because I love to read, can quote passages of Harry Potter on a whim, and spend entirely too much of my time on FanFiction, just to name of few of my personal quirks. There are so many different ways that people are relegated to this outlier corner. Trekkies, Whovians, people who like anime and manga, movie nerds, and people who love working with technology are just small portion of the different kinds of people that are defined as a nerd. The labels that limit us so much do not even completely define us. They do not fully describe who we are as people or give full insight into our personalities. In my lifetime some of the most extroverted, party-hard people were nerds and some of the quietest and shy were cheerleaders. Bringing us full circle, I am an Aspie. However, I have gotten better with time and a little coaching at understanding social cues. I understand that the rant that I have been going on for the last three pages probably does not interest you. You have done the exact same things before. You have gone on and on about something that you are passionate about without regard for the interest level of those around you. I could go on for hours, yet sometimes being concise is better. I doubt there are many people who have not at least heard of The Breakfast Club. Its last remarks so poignantly drives the concept home: Brian Johnson: You see us as you want to see us In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain Andrew Clark: and an athlete Allison Reynolds: and a basket case Claire Standish: a princess John Bender: and a criminal Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club. To you, who, whatever box you may have been stuck in or maybe even embraced all on your own, remember labels are just for cans of soup. The Breakfast Club. Dir. John Hughes. Perf. Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald. 1985. Universal, 2003. DVD.

The Creation of Encyclopedia :: History Philosophy Philosophers essays

The Creation of Encyclopedia Webster's New World Dictionary defines the Enlightenment as "an 18th-century European philosophical movement characterized by rationalism, an impetus toward learning, and a spirit of skepticism and empiricism in social and political thought." During this period of enlightenment, the way the world was viewed changed in a large part because of the group of philosophers known as the philosophes. During the Enlightenment the greatest philosophical movement of the philosophes was the creation of the Encylopedie ou Dicionnaire raisonne des sciences des arts et des mà ©tiers, or in English; the rational dictionary of the sciences, the arts and the crafts, otherwise known as the Encyclopedia. The philosophe's encyclopedia is regarded so highly because it brought about a new way of thinking, an enlightened way of thinking. The encyclopedia, according to the Electric Library, dates back to Aristotle and his attempts at compiling large amounts of information. Other encyclopedia's were written after Aristotle's attempt, including one that was published just a few years before the philosophe's Encyclopedia, the Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia. (1) According to the Denis Diderot History web page, the Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia was the inspiration for the philosophe's Encyclopedia. The intention was to create a French translation of the Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia, but when Denis Diderot was hired as editor, the outlook of the Encyclopedia changed. Diderot did not want a mere translation; instead he wanted an encyclopedia that would "enlighten and explain every aspect of existence." (1) Denis Diderot and another editor, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, a noted scientist and mathematician, started working on the Encyclopedia in 1745. Among the many responsibilities of creating such a big compilation of knowledge, was finding authors to write the Encyclopedia. To accomplish this task, Diderot and d'Alembert employed the services of some of the greatest minds of the time: people like Voltaire, Turgot, Quesnay, d'Holbach, Montesquieu, Buffon, and Rousseau. Robert Morrissey summed up the philosophes efforts by saying that, "these great minds (and some lesser ones) collaborated in the goal of assembling and disseminating in clear, accessible prose the fruits of accumulated knowledge and learning." (2) The Encyclopedia itself consists of seventeen volumes with a total of roughly 72,000 articles and 16,500 pages. According to Morrisey, "the typical article includes the head word, its part of speech and gender, the category of knowledge to which the article belongs (e.

Management and Leadership Essay

Management and leadership are considered synonymous, but actually they are two different words. Management is defined as, â€Å"The art, manner or practice of managing, handling supervision or control whereas leadership is defined as, â€Å"The ability to: â€Å"express a vision, influence others to achieve results, encourage team cooperation, and be an example.† Leadership is â€Å"getting others to want to do things.† Leadership is intimately tied up with motivating and influencing others. Managers are administrators who write business plans, set budgets, monitor progress, solve problems and facilitate meetings. A manager achieves authority and position through experience, understanding, time and loyalty. Managers have subordinates but a leader has followers. A leader can be a manager, but a manager is not necessarily a leader. The leader of the work group may emerge informally as the choice of the group. If a manager is able to influence people to achieve the goals of the organization, without using his or her formal authority to do so, then the manager is demonstrating leadership. As put by Faye Wattle ton, â€Å"The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.†Organizational CultureAccording to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary — â€Å"culture is the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action, and artifacts and depends on man’s capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.†Organization culture is a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its memebers .It includes routine, behaviors, norms, dominant values and a feeling or climate conveyed..The pupose and function of this culture is to help foster internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization much closer together and enhance their performance. A company’s culture determines a lot of the organization’s behavior. A culture may be strong (having a dramatic influence over an individual’s behavior) or weak (having a relatively low impact on behavior).A strong culture is a coherent set of beliefs, values, assumptions, and practices embraced by most members of the organization. It fosters motivation, commitment, identity, solidarity, and sameness, which, in turn, facilitates internal integration and coordination. An understanding of organizational culture and how to transform it is crucially important for managers and leaders to achieve strategic outcomes. The position of strategic leaders in an organization assists them to see the dynamics of their organizational culture and attain the essence of strategic success through positive transformation. â€Å"Effective managers recognize that replacing a long term culture of traditional values with one that embodies the competitive values needed in the future can take years. But the rewards of that effort will be an organization much more effective and responsive to its environmental challenges and opportunities.†(Bateman & Snell, 2007)Organizational Culture at Southwest AirlinesSouthwest Airlines was founded in 1971 as a low-cost regional air carrier. The company’s mission stated on its website truly reflects its positive and healthy organizational culture. â€Å"We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.†Southwest Airlines has consistently been successful in terms of profitability, good employee and union relations, and customer satisfaction – at a time when most airline carriers are struggling in all these areas. Central to the company’s success is a culture of flexibility, family-orientation, and fun. They believe in, â€Å"The way you treat and reward employees is one part of your company’s culture†. Culture is the company’s way of life. It is how the business functions, operates, handles stress and reinforces its staff. It is the company’s general attitude toward the world. Southwest has built a reputation as a fun, light-hearted and irreverent airline with a happy staff. It is said that Southwest’s biggest hiring criterion is whether an applicant smiles during his or her interview. Southwest feels it can train anyone to do the job, but it cannot teach a person to have a positive attitude. Southwest Airlines has recognized that smiling staff members can  handle negative issues skillfully and still satisfy their customers. Southwest is also identified as the early leader of worker responsibility. The company limits emphasis on the formal organizational structure. At Southwest, decision making is the process which is done by management/worker committees. Leadership meetings are taped and shared with employees. The researchers learned that productivity could be maximized when employees felt as though their needs were being considered by receiving attention for their work. This phenomenon became known as the Hawthorne Effect. It is as true today as it was during the last century that paying attention to our human assets produces tremendous results. Southwest Airlines has learned to capitalize on the principles of the Hawthorne Effect. Southwest Airlines has consistently remained at the top of its industry, while placing a rigorous focus on employees’ feedback and needs. Southwest seeks to share the company’s success with its employees. The airline achieved high levels of employee satisfaction and was included in the Fortune magazine’s list of the â€Å"100 Best Companies to Work for in America† for three years in a row. â€Å"Southwest’s no-layoff response to September 11 was a reminder to its employees of the organization’s tradition of caring for its people. When asked to comment on this, an official explained, â€Å"Its part of our culture. We’ve always said we’ll do whatever we can to take care of our people. So that’s what we’ve tried to do.† Many analysts feel that the remarkable performance of Southwest is because of its ability to build and sustain relationships characterized by shared goals, shared knowledge and mutual respect between employees. Southwest’s organizational culture was shaped by Kelleher’s leadership. Kelleher’s personality had a strong influence on the culture of Southwest, which symbolizes his spontaneity, energy and competitiveness. Southwest’s culture had three themes: love, fun and efficiency. Kelleher treated all the employees as a â€Å"lovely and loving family†. Southwest attempts to promote a close-knit, supportive and enduring family-like culture. The Company initiated various measures to foster intimacy and informality among employees. Southwest encouraged its people to  conduct business in a loving manner. Employees are expected to care about people and act in ways that affirm their dignity and worth. Instead of decorating the wall of its headquarters with paintings, the company hung photographs of its employees taking part at company events, news clippings, letters, articles and advertisements. Southwest’s organizational culture encourages employees to be innovative, to communicate, understand and care, be devoted to customer service and most importantly to be an Individual. It maintains its success due to employee education, much of which takes place in Southwest Airlines’ festive learning center: the University for People. Southwest sees learning as a never-ending process. University for People trainers, known as facilitators, build a foundation for an ongoing learning environment through a supervisory leadership class called â€Å"Leadership Southwest Style,† which utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® (MBTI ®) assessment for self discovery. At Southwest Airlines, management wants employees to feel comfortable, reflecting its philosophy that an employee who is comfortable can think more freely and creatively. Regular celebrations bring employees together. These include â€Å"Spirit Parties,† Culture parties, and weekly Deck Parties at headquarters. Activities at these events include talent shows, dance contests, limbo contests, karaoke, and famous person look-alike themes. The Culture Committee welcomes new employees with a New Hire Welcome Kit, which includes a bag, tee-shirt, badge holder, pen, and welcome letter. Southwest Airlines is an excellent example of social invention that helps people discover their true capabilities. The social environment combines humor with responsibility. Employees work in teams without outside supervision. At job interviews, along with other self-development attitude, the prospective employee must show a sense of humor. The company recognizes the key to its culture is â€Å"The Spirit of LUV.† Their commitment to hire people with the capacity to love and serve others has yielded a bountiful harvest of loyalty and money. Hence it shows a very well combination of management and leadership. Key concepts of organizational culture at Southwest Airlines †¢Encourage to assume ownership †¢Hire for life †¢Trust their decisions†¢Give employees  immediate access to critical information. †¢They have the power to make adjustments and to fix significant problems quickly. Results achieved through these concepts†¢On-time arrivals, proper baggage handling, and customer complaints are communicated on a weekly basis. †¢Everyone is focused on customer service and making Southwest a success which allows them to expand outside of â€Å"assigned† responsibilitiesStrategies that organizational managers and leaders can use to create and maintain healthy organizational cultureMotivation Management – Leaders must have coaching skills, not control skills. Motivated people have goals and seek ways to achieve them. Efficiency is the result of motivated employees. The self motivated employees assume responsibility for their tasks. It creates an environment where workers trust management and management trust workers. Continuous Learning Opportunity – Motivation is associated with the desire to learn. Without it, motivation dies. Most businesses operate with a wide knowledge gap between worker and management. All through history this has been the policy, it is job security for leadership. Today, efficiency requires workers to assume responsibility and this requires the narrowing of the knowledge gap. This is achieved by empowering workers. A strong organizational culture and an approach to learning that encompasses more than just training classes can create an organization that learns and improves upon its past successes. When change occurs, organizations with a learning culture and a focus on organizational development can surpass even their own expectations. ConclusionTo sum up, leadership is essentially related to a person’s skills, abilities and scope of influence and management is a theory and a way of doing business. The managers who truly exercise the four functions of management; planning, organizing, leading and controlling, to accomplish their organizational goals are also true leadersAs time and requirements of  an organization change, there is always a need to change managerial functions. Managers at all levels must anticipate and adapt to changes. In any ordinary but expanding organization the next future change might be to restructure the organization. Technology is bringing a change in leadership styles. The command-and-control leadership methods of the last century are extremely inefficient in the fast changing technology world. Motivating environments are needed on the front-line with people who assume responsibility and exercise leadership. To attract and keep this type of person, the work environment must inspire and exploit employee capabilities. References Bateman, Thomas S. & Snell Scott A. (2007). Management: Leading and collaborating in acompetitive world. (Seventh edition), Ch-2 & 12 pgs 66- 69 & 393-383Southwest Airline webpage. Retrieved on April 20, 2007 from www.southwestairlines.comSouthwest Airlines. Retrieved on April 19, 2007 from www.caseplace.orgFrazee, Bonnie (Nov, 2006).Organizational Behavior and the Learning Process. Retrieved onApril19, 2007 from www.innovativelearning.com

An Investigation into the Effects of Race on the...

An Investigation into the Effects of Race on the Perception of Guilt Abstract The aim is the see whether people are more likely to find a black man guilty of a crime. Having found both a black man and a white man of middle attractiveness out of a choice of 10 photos picked from magazines, subjects were read a short account of a crime and rated the guilt of the offender on a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 being not guilty). I used subjects aged between 11 and 18, all were Caucasian and attended Sevenoaks School. I used 75 subjects in total. They were shown either the picture of the black man, the picture of the white man or no picture as a control. The results showed that the black man was†¦show more content†¦This physical appearance generates other judgements about a persons personality. In 1933 Katz and Braly conducted an experiment into ethnic stereotypes. They asked Princeton University students to indicate which 5 words out of 84 they would associate with 10 different ethnic groups. If more than 75% of students associated a characteristic with one g roup it was considered a stereotype. Blacks were stereotyped as lazy, immoral, dishonest and given to crimes of violence. This experiment is criticised because it lacks reliability and relevance to modern society. It was conducted in 1933 in America, we live in another century and society has developed enormously. Gilbert repeated the experiment in 1951 and Karlins in 1969 and in each subsequent experiment the stereotypes were significantly weaker. When this experiment is repeated it produces different results and so is unreliable. Subjects showed increasing reluctance to participate because they were less willing to express stereotypes. This is relevant in my experiment because I want to see if whites consider blacks as more likely criminals. I believe that certain social stereotypes still exist at a subconscious level but that people are less willing to express these stereotypes. The Howard League, a prison reform group, published an article in the London Metro on the 22nd of March 2000 titled Justice isShow MoreRelatedWhat Factors Influence Jury Decision Making?1326 Words   |  6 Pagespersonally relevant reason to confirm a hypothesis, people seem to favor confirmation as the default testing strategy. Further hypothesized that the preference for confirming evidence is influenced by two main factors, Facts v. Perception. Let’s begin with the perception, a study of 24 students in favor of the death penalty and another 24 against were selected, these participants were asked a short amount of research reports. 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