...Assignment of General Management on the Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement Joseph NGENZI MPAM/3020/11 This Term Paper is Submitted in partial fulfillment of UNIT MBA 603 grades of the School of Business and Public Management for the award of Master of Public Administration and Management. Mt. Kenya University July, 2011 INTRODUCTION Four adults are sitting on a porch in 104-degree heat in the small town of Coleman, Texas, some 53 miles from Abilene. They are engaging in as little motion as possible, drinking lemonade, watching the fan spin lazily, and occasionally playing the odd game of dominoes. The characters are a married couple and the wife’s parents. At some point, the wife’s father suggests they drive to Abilene to eat at a cafeteria there. The son in-law thinks this is a crazy idea but doesn’t see any need to upset the apple cart, so he goes along with it, as do the two women. They get in their unaired-conditioned Buick and drive through a dust storm to Abilene. They eat a mediocre lunch at the cafeteria and return to Coleman exhausted, hot, and generally unhappy with the experience. It is not until they return home that it is revealed that none of them really wanted to go to Abilene–they were just going along because they thought the others were eager to go. Naturally, everyone sees this miss in communication as someone else’s problem. Dr. Harvey used this wonderfully simple parable to illustrate what he believes is a major symptom of organizational...
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...The Abilene Paradox in an organization It was a day like all the others in a banks’ branch, when the manager realised that in the strong room was not enough money to serve the clients for a whole day because it happened to be the end of the month, and lots of funds were going out. The problem was that if he ordered money that actual moment, the security could only bring them to the branch the next day. So he suggested, that the assistant branch manager goes to the nearest branch of the bank to bring money. The assistant branch manager agreed and he went to bring the money. The other employees at the branch that were hearing the conversation did not say anything so one would suppose that silently they were agreeing. Main purpose of these team members was to serve the clients as best as they could and not seem unprepared to the CEO and have troubles of not ordering the money on time. When the assistant branch manager returned with the money a phone call from the main offices upset the group. The CEO of the bank called, really frustrated for the initiative the branch employees took because they weren’t following the policies of the bank and the action they took was not at all secured. He was really angry of the situation and the high risk the employees took of losing the money and he threatened with punishment. The end of the telephone conversation was the starting point for the blaming and faulting behaviour between the members of the group, a basic symptom of an organization...
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...Critique of The Abilene Paradox: The Management Of Agreement Section (3) Article (7) By ROHINI GANDHOTRA Dr. Frear MBA 500: Business and Leadership January 31, 2009 BIOGRAPHY Jerry B. Harvey, a management expert and pioneer of The Abilene Paradox is a Professor of Management at The George Washington University. During his career, he has served as a consultant to a wide variety of industrial, governmental, religious, military, educational, and voluntary organizations. He is the author of approximately fifty professional articles and has written two books: The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management and How Come Every Time I Get stabbed in the Back, My Fingerprints Are on the Knife? He is also featured in several videos focusing on organizational behavior including, "The Asoh Defense," "The Gunsmoke Phenomenon," and "The Abilene Paradox". In addition, he has published articles such as, "It's Not My Dog," "Eichmann in the Boardroom," "Organizations as Phrog Farms," "Interrupted Prayers and Organizational Un*Learning." Many years ago Professor Jerry B. Harvey discovered that the fundamental problem of contemporary organizations is the inability to cope with agreement—not conflict. He finds that most agreement in organizations is actually false consensus. It occurs because many people feel they might be isolated, censured or ridiculed if they voice objections. This often leads groups to act on inappropriate goals and is a setup for organizational...
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...Case Study Name and Page #: Abilene Paradox Information, Page 115 Student Name: Tony Colon | |Leading Ideas: Revisiting the Abilene Paradox: | | |Is Management of Agreement Still an Issue? | by Kathryn J. Deiss, ARL Office of Leadership and Management Services Program Manager In 1974, Professor Jerry Harvey of George Washington University developed a parable from a real-life experience to describe the issues surrounding how individuals reach agreement, or, more specifically, believe they have reached agreement. Twenty-five years later the lessons and insights his parable generates are still valid and provocative for organizations and the individuals who work together in those organizations. The Parable of the Abilene Paradox1 Four adults are sitting on a porch in 104-degree heat in the small town of Coleman, Texas, some 53 miles from Abilene. They are engaging in as little motion as possible, drinking lemonade, watching the fan spin lazily, and occasionally playing the odd game of dominoes. The characters are a married couple and the wife’s parents. At some point, the wife’s father suggests they drive to Abilene to eat at a cafeteria there. The son-in-law thinks this is a crazy idea but doesn’t see any need to upset the apple cart, so he goes along with it, as do the two women. They get in their unair-conditioned Buick and drive through a...
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...Kevin Daly Philosophy Paper Zeno’s Paradox I will be examining two of Zeno’s paradoxes in this paper that we have talked about in class. Zeno was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher in Italy from 490 BC until 430 BS. Zeno is mostly known for his paradoxes. He offered forty different paradoxes, which show support towards his mentor’s beliefs. These paradoxes have challenged the conceptions of plurality, space, and motion. But, all of them except four have been lost. These four have stayed because they were important enough for Aristotle to address. Zeno tries to argue that the belief n plurality and change is wrong. Zeno argues these points in two of his paradoxes that we discussed in class. The first is the Arrow Paradox and the second is the Achilles/Tortoise Paradox. Zeno’s main argument conveys that motion is just an illusion and there is no such thing. The Arrow Paradox attacks the idea of motion. Arrows move from one point to another and motion can be defined as a change in place for a piece of time. Zeno argues that at any time, the arrow is at one position. He says that it is at only one position at all times, it does not move from point to point. Zeno believes that the arrow moving is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it is not. He says that the arrow cannot move where it is because it is already there. Also, Zeno states that the arrow cannot move where it is not because no time is elapsed during this. Zeno believes that time is composed...
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...Do You Think English is Easy? 1) The bandage was wound around the wound. 2) The farm was used to produce produce. 3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. 4) We must polish the Polish furniture. 5) He could lead if he would get the lead out. 6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. 7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present. 8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. 9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. 10) I did not object to the object. 11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. 13) They were too close to the door to close it. 14) The buck does funny things when the does are present. 15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. 16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. 17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail 18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear. 19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests. 20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend? Let's face it - English is an illogical language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore...
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...History of English Literature Overview Anglo-Saxon Literature (500-1100) The Angles and Saxon conquered what is now called England in the 5th and 6th centuries. Christian missionaries taught the English to write. Northumbria soon produced Caedmon and Bede. Heroic poetry of a Christian kind is the chief legacy of Old English literature, notably Beowulf and the Elegies. A considerable prose literature grew up after King Alfred. Middle English Literature (1100-1500) Literature in England in this period was not just in English and Latin but in French as well and developed in directions set largely in France. Epic and Elegy gave way to romance and Lyric. English writing revived fully in English after 1360 and flowered in the reign of Richard II (1372-99). It gained a literary standard in London English after 1425 and developed modern forms of verse, prose and of Drama. The conquest of England in 1066 by William of Normandy displaced English as medium of literature. The language of new rulers was French. Saxons dealing with the King had to learn French and French was the language of court and the law for three centuries. Four genres of Middle English are: i. 1. Fabliau 2. Lyric 3. Dream Allegory 4. Ballad Geoffrey Chaucer Chaucer is the best story teller and the narrative poet. Chaucer tells his stories in a most effective way. He has the knack of transforming an old tale into a new one in such a manner that its appeal increases manifold and its human...
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...30/04/2013 In Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, the protagonist Karim states: “Yeah, sometimes we were French, Jammie and I, and other times we went black Americans. The thing was, we were supposed to be English, but the English we were always wogs and nigs and Pakis and the rest of it”. Write an essay exploring how Kureishi’s novel maps Englishness as a contested terrain of identities, politics and performance. Your discussion should refer to Stuart Hall’s work on ethnicities and on Judith Butler’s writing on performance as identity. Much of the Kureishi’s early work is grounded primarily in racial and cultural conflict between British mainstream culture and ethnic minority communities; the conflict between the cultural claims that the first-generation immigrants were prone to clinging onto and the sense of belonging, which they their children aspired to develop in mainstream British society. To the children of immigrants, particularly those who had migrated from British Commonwealth or ex-colonized countries, any reflection on Britain, or their parents’ homeland, in terms of “home” may differ significantly from that perceived by their parents. As a writer born and bred in Britain of a Pakistani father and an English mother, Kureishi reflects upon his own identity, affirming in an interview his own sense of identity be seeing himself as British: “Critics have written that I’m caught between two cultures. I’m not. I’m British; I’ve made it in England. It’s...
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...Students Chapter 3 Learner Diversity: Differences in Today’s Students Chapter 4 Changes in American Society: Their Influences on Today’s Schools ISBN: 0-536-29980-3 Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional, Second Edition, by Donald Kauchak and Paul Eggen Published by Prentice-Hall/Merrill. Copyright © 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN: 0-536-29980-3 Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional, Second Edition, by Donald Kauchak and Paul Eggen Published by Prentice-Hall/Merrill. Copyright © 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc. Learner Diversity Differences in Today’s Students T eachers begin their careers expecting to find classrooms like the ones they experienced when they were students. In some ways classrooms are the same. Students go to school to learn, but they also want to have fun and be with their friends. They expect to work but often need encouragement from their teachers. They’re typical kids. Classrooms are changing, however; the population of our schools is becoming increasingly diverse. Students come from different cultures and speak many different languages at home; they possess a range of abilities and talents; and issues involving differences between boys and girls are receiving increased attention. In this chapter we examine this diversity as we try to answer the following questions: ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ What is cultural diversity, and how does it influence student learning? How are the educational experiences of boys and girls different...
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...1998(2), 18-23 APPROACHES TO DIGLOSSIA IN THE CLASSROOM: THE MIDDLE WAY David Deterding INTRODUCTION The concept of diglossia was developed by Ferguson (1959). It describes a situation where two languages or language varieties occur side by side in a community, and each has a clear range of functions. One of these varieties, the Hvariety (standing for 'High'), is adopted as the standard variety and is used in official situations, such as government broadcasts, religious services, and teaching; and the other, the L-variety (for 'Low'), is used in informal situations, such as local markets and conversations between friends. The focus of this article is to discuss how the concept of diglossia might be appropriate to describe the Singapore English-speaking community, and to consider what approaches can be adopted by teachers towards the use of the L-variety in schools. Examples of diglossia that have been widely quoted are: the Arabic community, where each region has its own colloquial variety, but classical Arabic is still taught in schools and is regarded by many as “more beautiful” and therefore more appropriate for written texts; the Swiss-German community, where all children learn Standard German in schools, and most books and newspapers are in Standard German, but the people continue to use the local Swiss-German dialect on an everyday basis; the Tamil community, where the language taught in classrooms and used in literature is sharply different from the colloquial variety...
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...OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE DURING THE DARK AGES ABSTRACT This period extends from about 450 to 1066 A.D. The sources of Old English literature, as we know it, are rooted in their Teutonic origins and were evolved by the spirit that drove the times. In addition to reflecting the violence of the age, however, Old English literature also provides insight into the hearts and souls of a culture that had a strong attachment to nature; where loyalty and honor were more important than life. And for a culture that did not believe in the immortality of the human soul. Beowulf is the oldest and longest known poem of the Old English period. The passionate struggle between Beowulf and the sea monster Grendel is a reflection of the struggle between man and the forces of nature. INTRODUCTION The Medieval Times encompass one of the most turbulent periods in the History of England and scatter the Medieval History books and other historical documents. Middle Ages embraced two quite different periods of literary history, the Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) and the Middle English, sharply divided from each other by the Norman duke William´s conquest of the island in 1066. Both English culture and the English language changed radically in the years following this event, and English literature was given a new spirit. (The Norton Anthology of English Literature) Old English was the West Germanic language spoken in the area now known as England between the 5th and 11th centuries. Anglo-Saxon...
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...Aljazeera and the logo of the network is at the left side of the word, it's noticeable because it's written in a big font size and a special font style. A big network like Aljazeera need for sure to be updated frequently add on the argent news happening must be included in the website, the website has allot of parts and each part talks about a special kind of news for example the wither, sports, and watch live, those areas are a sensitive information's and must be updated as soon as an information is received to the network responsible employees, looking at the website Aljazeera didn’t miss that point at all, the information's are being updated frequently. At first the audience of Aljazeera was just Arab world, but at November 2006 Aljazeera English has been lunched the target audience after that is all the world with its deferent Taste and backgrounds Aljazeera nowadays gives almost all the news that each one around the world would need, it's almost nothing there you are not interested in. Aljazeera has no any obvious bias or slant to the information it has been always with the truth and human rights and it's taking it as a lead to its perfection, actually Aljazeera has an awards proofing that, and it's giving both sides Opinions which is fair enough. There are allot of information's are available in the websites and it could satisfy almost all the videos of the website, actually the website is sectioned in to the type of the news are provided there, and they are news(internationally...
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...English 1020-L22 November 3, 2013 Cultural Analysis-“From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle” “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle” is an essay written by Min-Zhan Lu, in which she describes the effects, both positive and negative, she experienced while trying to obtain somewhat of a balance, between the learning techniques and language forced on to her and her sisters by their parents, and the education and language taught and enforced by their country, China. Lu describes the emotional strain, confusion, and the political persecution she experienced, beginning at the young, tender age of four years old, the year after the Communist Revolution of 1949. For many years, the only memories Lu had were of the many hardships she faced during the years of getting her education, which made it difficult to recall the benefits of her education. While writing this essay, Lu was forced to reflect over these particular years of her life and the effects it had on her, both good and bad. She finally realized that as hard as it was to endure these hardships, personal benefits resulted from these difficult times as well. Lu explains her revelation by stating, “My understanding of my education was so dominated by memories of confusion and frustration that I was unable to reflect on what I could have gained from it” (148). One of the benefits Lu gained was growth, in both her reading and writing skills, by persevering through the confusion and frustration during that time. ...
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...NEGATIVE LANGUAGE TRANSFER W H E N L E A R N I N G SPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE NURIA CALVO CORTÉS Universidad Complutense de Madrid RESUMEN. Este trabajo se centra en la influencia negativa de la transferencia lingüística en el aprendizaje del español como segunda lengua. Está dividido en dos partes: una teórica y un análisis práctico. La primera incluye los distintos aspectos que se tienen que tener en cuanta a la hora de considerar la transferencia lingüística. La segunda analiza distintos ejemplos de transferencia negativa que se han extraído de textos escritos por varios estudiantes británicos que están aprendiendo español. La conclusión mostrará que el análisis de estos errores puede ayudar a predecir algunos de estos errores. PALABRAS CLAVE. Influencia negativa, transferencia lingüística, español como segunda lengua, dos partes: una teórica y un análisis práctico, transferencia negativa, predecir errores. ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on the negative influence of Language Transfer on the learning process Spanish as an L2. It is divided into two main parts; a theoretical one and a practical analysis. The former includes the different aspects considering language transfer, whereas the latter analyses different mistakes due to negative transfer, which have been taken form texts written by several British students when learning Spanish. The conclusion will show that the analysis of these mistakes may help predict some of these mistakes. KEY WORDS. negative influence,...
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...ADVANTAGES OF THE TRIBUNAL SPEED-tribunal cases are highly regarded and most times initially attended to in court, and are frequently arranged on, within a day or two. They are constantly defined on how long can a person wait before their case can be heard and decided upon so that the person do not have to be going back and forth. COST-in the tribunal system cost are quite reasonable as fined can be divided into halves so that the defendant do not have to pay the whole sum of money. and sometimes one can always represent themselves without the aid of authorised officials. INFORMALITY-it is a bit different from law courts as in law courts wigs and gowns are worn but in this system judiciary dresses as normal everyday worker so it does not create an intimidating atmosphere for people without legal advisors. flexibility SPECIALISATION-tribunal members have all got a speciality in a specific subject area, and through sitting on tribunals are able to build up depth of knowledge of that area that judges in ordinary court could not hope to match. RELIEF WORK OVERLOAD FROM COURT-it reduces the number of cases sent to the main court as they deal with also important cases and the courts are not overloaded. AWARENESS OF POLICY-the tribunal members because of their expertise are likely to understand the policy behind legislation in their area, and often have large discretionary power in their to use. PRIVACY-members of the tribunal most times meets in privacy so that they do not...
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