Know Thyself Essay -- essays research papers

Consider the ancient imperative â€Å"know thyself†. How can different ways of knowing help us as individuals and communities to achieve this goal? Shakespeare once said, â€Å"Life is but a stage and men merely players on it.† In order for us to become main characters on this stage, instead of mere extras, we must be able to truly identify who we are as individuals first. After this has been accomplished we can find out how we can benefit our society. When complete self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-confidence, and self-respect are reached, than you can truly â€Å"know thyself.† In all of the Natural Sciences, be it physics, chemistry, or biology, the physical world is dissected and analyzed. Using a language of their own, the Natural Sciences go about defining and declaring what we are. In biology the human brain is analyzed and studied; in fact when my parents were in medical school and were studying neurology, they were given actual brains to dissect. However these studies merely identify what is there physically, not the soul or the identity. Sant Kirpal Singh explains, â€Å"Man is composed of body, mind (intellect) and soul. We are extremely careful to develop ourselves physically and mentally, but understand very little about the soul, which is the Power ruling both the body and the mind.† I have a sixth grade sister named Nora, and she is going through what most young adults go through at her age, self-discovery. She is neither an adult nor a child and is feeling lost and angry at ...

Infosys Case Analysis Essay

? Case analysis – infosys document structure We have approached the case by first analyzing the identified issues, and then associate root causes to those issues. Further to it we have used two frameworks, â€Å"Web of Change† and â€Å"Hewitt Best Employer Characteristics†, to theoretically assess the weaknesses in Infosys Human Resource and Change Management policies. These frameworks can be used by organizations to better plan their change management and human resource management initiatives. We have used â€Å"Hewitt’s Best Employer Survey†, to identify the key initiatives which Infosys should undertake to enable it to reach its target of â€Å"Best Employer† by 2011. Further to it we believe that â€Å"Best Employer† and â€Å"Best Performer† are complementary goals, and it’s difficult to achieve one without the other, and hence we have identified the key initiatives which can help Infosys to achieve â€Å"Best Performer† target without compromising on its â€Å"Best Employer† objective. about infosys Infosys is the second largest Indian IT software services company. Infosys has reached pinnacles of success in short span of 20 years, through innovative business strategies and human resource practices. Currently it is facing challenges around balancing between business growth and employee satisfaction. About its business Model Infosys delivers IT services to its clients globally in a model called GDM (Global Delivery Model). The main characteristic of this model is that it decouples client location and project execution. Project is executed in locations which provide best combination of cost and talent. Project teams are spread across client site and offshore development centers in countries like India, China, and Mexico etc which provide rich availability of talent at competitive cost. Usually teams at client site document requirements and manage client relationship and offshore team manages delivery. This is a human resource intensive industry and the challenge is exacerbated by the fact that most of the resources are highly skilled professionals (engineers, MBAs, computer scientists etc). Being an industry where human resource is your only asset and your only competitive advantage, managing, ssues and Root Cause analysis In this section we’ll analyze the issues identified in the case and will attempt to identify root causes which led to employee dissatisfaction. After our analysis we believe that issues mentioned in the case is symptomatic of gaps in general principles of leadership, change management and HRM. Policies are not written in blood and stone, and they change ov er the lifetime of organizations. What should not change are basic organizations principles around human resource management. Our assessment is that policy changes in Infosys were reflective of external environment and business imperatives. However, diverging from the basic principles of Change management, leadership, communication and employee development in implementing new policies is what led to its fall in Best Employer ratings. â€Å"Stock Options started lacking luster to the new employees and created equity imbalance among employees† Stakeholders involved New Employees Discontentment Impact Inequity of income/wealth effect in the company which created tension between employees. New employees who had seen Infosys from outside as an organization committed to fairness, equity, and employee wealth creation got disenchanted. Root Cause Failure to Manage Expectations This issue primarily arose because of incorrect expectation setting of new employees. Infosys kept on using stock options and the millionaires’ stories as branding activity, even when stock options were no more an incentive to new recruits. Company should have made it very clear about its new compensation philosophy when it discontinued ESOPS. 1. Managing scale and attrition risk Stakeholders involved Employees Managers Discontentment Impact Infosys was growing at a speed where it was doubling its organizational strength every 1-2 years. However organization was plagued by high attrition rate. Employees felt lack of motivation, due to repetitive process tasks, which the business model demanded. Due to high growth, a lot of employees moved up the managerial ladder, but lacked proper training and orientation and hence couldn’t connect to employees Root Cause Lack of Employee fulfillment ( from the job ) Detached Lleaderships To stress on the need for the above two, we’ll give two examples from Indian public sector. Indian Railways Indian railways has recently transformed itself into a highly profitable organization, and according to the officer on special with Railways, single most critical factor which contributed to this success is involvement and commitment of employees of railways despite having a poor compensation structure. Employees of Indian railways take great pride in their work, since they believe they are contributing to the running of the country’s biggest infrastructure and are responsible for transporting of 2 crore customers every days. This association with organizational goal and pride in your organization is what makes an organization for perpetuity. Due to changing business needs, Iinfosys couldn’t connect to its employees in motivating them. Indian Army A unit commander in the army is able to inspire its soldiers to give up their life, compensation etc notwithstanding. The only reasons soldiers are so committed, is their immediate leader. It depends on the unit commander’s ability to connect to his soldiers, motivate them and show a genuine concern for their wellbeing, is what motivates the soldiers to do the unthinkable for their leader. According to research in human resources field, people leave managers and not companies. The leadership skills of managers are the greatest source of employee fulfillment at work. Lack of engagement and commitment of managers towards their subordinates, was probably the single biggest reason for high attrition rate at Infosys. 2. Strong formalization and process orientation, which came as part of growth, took away bandwidth to innovate from employees. Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Employees who were used to getting the thrill and satisfaction from using their skill on technical challenges were feeling cocooned because of new process driven and re-use methodology. Similar impact was observed in people policy issues. All personal policies were getting more and more formalized. Root Cause Lack of employee Motivation Resistance to change One of the basic principles of organization design is that you don’t use strong formalization from highly skilled agents (employees). Formalization is for low skilled repeatable tasks. Infosys should have come up with business models aimed at high end, value added services much earlier. This would have kept its inherent talent not only motivated but better utilized for higher margins. In 1990s moving away from body shopping to GDM provide this opportunity, but in early to middle 2000s, Iinfosys couldn’t reinvent itself. Formalization in organizational policies when it grows out from entrepreneurial stage is inevitable. It’s actually needed to ensure consistent implementation of policies and create a sense of equity and fairness among employee. Dissatisfaction on this front could be attributed to resistance to change, and hence effective change management principles should be employed for disruptive changes. 3. Introduction of variable pay Stakeholders involved Employees Senior Management HR Department Discontentment Impact Variable pay was received with a lot of skepticism by the employees, fearing that it was introduced to reduce their compensation Root Cause/s Change Management Failure Lack of Leadership engagement Communication Failure This was probably one of the most disruptive changes introduced by Infosys. The amount of skepticism and distrust displayed by employees was a first in Infosys. Immediate reaction of employees was that this policy has been introduced to cut employee costs to satisfy shareholders demand for higher and higher profitability. The fact that a vast majority of senior management were shareholders in the company added to employee distrust. There was no clarity among employees how this policy will pan out. A lot of employees were not comfortable in linking their performance to factors outside their control (market conditions, decision taken by management etc). Also since the amount of variable component was high (more than 50% for project managers and above), employees could not understand how much their monthly take home were. This is a classic case of failure in change management and involvement of leadership at every level. Infosys data on variable payout shows that most of the time company has delivered 100% payout and even higher percentage to high performers. So employee skepticism bore from lack of clarity and communication on this policy. Lack of clarity, communication and involvement of employees was to such an extent that even middle management was taken by surprise by this policy. Many managers, who couldn’t appreciate the policy implementation, were reluctant in communicating the changes to the employees. For an employee first point of contact for clarification is his/her immediate line manager, hence it’s important to fully equip leadership at every level with information. To understand the role what leadership plays in motivating, retaining employees, we should look at armed forces. Unit commanders are able to motivate their employees to give their life, despite the fact that compensation package of soldiers is one of the lowest. This commitment in subordinates comes because of total commitment of their leader in engaging with them and motivating with them. Immediate line managers are the biggest reason employees leave an organization and are also the main reason employees go beyond their capabilities to outperform. 4. Retaining Organizational Culture with fast track growth Stakeholders involved HR Department Employees Discontentment Impact Due to business growth imperatives, and its business model, Infosys was doubling its employee strength every 1-2 years. To accommodate this type of growth, it had to lower its hiring standards and quality and culture was a victim of this. Root Cause/s Lack of Employee on boarding ( orientation) planning This issue had an impact on multiple facets. It led to a feeling disenchantment in existing employees, as they felt their brand equity in the market was getting diluted. New employees, who were not able to appreciate infosys inherent culture, didn’t felt comfortable and had a feeling that the organization is biased toward old employees. Root cause of this issue was that although organization had changed its selection criteria, it didn’t change its employee orientation strategy, or training methodology. Infosys should have changed its orientation program to be more customized offering for similar group of employees and using existing employees as mentor to help develop organizational culture and values in new employees. Similarly if you are hiring for quantity and not quality, it should have modified its training plan to be more exhaustive. 5. Broad Banding and promotions Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Lack of faith in the organization Chaos and confusion in employees minds Root Cause/s Change Management Communication Leadership This policy again created a lot of employee discomfort since they didn’t knew the details of change. It’s again a classic change management failure. Although the policy was designed to bring more clarity in role structure and bring equity amongst similar roles, across the organization, poor communications created fear and scientism in minds of people. We can observe from the reinvention of Indian Railways, one of the reasons organization could progress on the growth trajectory, was employee commitment to the cause of Indian Railways, despite of low compensation. Employees felt proud to be part of the world’s biggest railways and were motivated to excel. Some of the senior managers lacked clarity about policies, hence they were apprehensive of clarifying the policy. This shows a major organizational failure in terms of change management and engagement of leadership with people. Similarly as discussed above, since employee appraisal parameters were not clearly defined, an employee could not appreciate how his/her appraisal going to impact promotions? Web Of Change – Change Management Framework To do substantiate our above understanding of issues at Iinfosys, we used â€Å"Web of Change†, a change management framework to understand the change management issues at Infosys. â€Å"Web of change: is the framework proposed by Stephen Thomas. This model defines 8 change elements as shown below and the web of change helps us to see how the values of each element changed during the Organization Change process in Infosys. The baseline score is the value of the Change elements in Infosys during the glory years of 1990’s and the re-assessment scores the value of the same change elements in the 2000’s when Infosys was going through the â€Å"Growth pangs†.

All Contracts Are Agreements but Not All Agreements

According to section 2(a) of Indian Contract Act states that, â€Å"every promise on every set of promises forming the consideration for each other an agreement. An agreement is a form of cross reference between different parties, which may be written, oral and lies upon the honor of the parties for its fulfillment rather than being in any way enforceable. It is also a fact that an agreement is a proposal and its acceptance, by which two or more person or parties promises to do abstain from doing an act. But a contract according to section 2(h) of the Indian Contract Act, â€Å"An agreement enforceable by law is a contract.It is clear these definitions that the two elements of a contract are: (a) Agreement Contractual Obligation (b) Enforceability by Law. For Example: X invites his friend to coffee and the latter accepts the invitation. This is a social agreement not a contract because it does not imply any legal obligation. We can say that: (a) All contracts are agreements, (b) Bu t all agreements are not contracts. (a) All Contracts are Agreements For a Contract to be there an agreement is essential; without an agreement, there can be no contract.As the saying goes, â€Å"where there is smoke, there is fire; for without fire, there can be no smoke†. It could be said, â€Å"Where there is contract, there is agreement without an agreement there can be no contract†. Just as a fire gives birth to smoke, in the same way, an agreement gives birth to a contract. Another essential element of a contract is the legal obligation for the parties to the contract; there are many agreements that do not entail any legal obligations. As such, these agreements cannot be called contracts. For Example:A gives his car to B for repair and B asks for Ksh. 2000 for the repair works. A agrees to pay the price and B agrees to repair the car. The agreement imposes an obligation on both. The third element of a contract is that the agreement must be enforceable by Law. If one party fails to keep his promise, the other has the right to go the court and force the defaulter to keep his promises. There are other elements are: 1. Offer and acceptance, 2. Legal obligation, 3. Lawful consideration, 4. Valid object, 5. Agreement not being declared void by Law, 6. Free consent, 7.Agreement being written and registered, 8. Capacity to contract, 9. Possibility of performance from what has been discussed. It is clear that all contracts are agreements. (b) All Agreements are not Contracts: An agreement is termed a contract only when it is enforceable by law. All agreements are not necessarily legally enforceable. It can rightly be said that an agreement has a much wider scope than a contract. For example that agreements are not legally binding are an invitation to dinner or to go for a walk and its acceptance. These are agreements not contracts.An agreement does not necessarily imply a legal obligation on the parties to the agreement. It is import here to clarify what exactly is an obligation. Obligation is a legal tie which imposes upon a person or persons the necessity of doing or abstaining from doing definite act or acts. An agreement need not necessarily be within the framework of law and be legally enforceable. If it is, then it is a contract. A promises B to do physical harm to C whom, the latter does not like and B promises to pay A Ksh. 1000 to do that, it cannot be termed as a contract because such an act would be against the law.Any agreement of which the object or consideration is unlawful is void and cannot be called a contract. It would be clear from what has been said so far that an agreement has a much wider scope than a contract. An Agreement implies fulfilling some agreed condition. It does not necessarily imply that the stipulated conditions conform to the law and are enforceable by it. It may be said that an agreement is the genus of which contract is the species. It also makes it clear that all agreements are not contra cts but all contracts are agreements.

Henrietta edwards

Henrietta edwards HENRIETTA MUIR EDWARDS Born in Montreal on December 18, 1849, Henrietta Muir Edwards was one of Alberta's "Famous Five Women". She began her fight for woman's rights at her home in Montreal with her sister. Here she founded the Working Girls' Club, which offered meals, reading rooms and study classes, in 1875. Henrietta and her sister then published the periodical, known as the "Working Women of Canada". They paid the costs of publishing the paper by depriving themselves of all personal luxuries. Henrietta also made money by selling miniature paintings.In 1886 Henrietta Muir became Henrietta Muir Edwards when she married Dr. Oliver Cromwell Edwards. Her husband soon took a job at Fort McCloed. Here she met the other four women involved in Alberta's "Famous Five Women". The group included Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby and Louise McKinny. With their help Mrs. Edwards began her fight to change the law on Woman's rights.A statue of Henrietta Edwards, part of a monument ...

Civil Action Plan Paper Teen Drinking †Health Essay

Civil Action Plan Paper Teen Drinking – Health Essay Free Online Research Papers Hi, my name is Marshall Mathers, I’m an alcoholic†-eminem, â€Å"I sip a Heiniken brew, for my deceased crew†- Nas. These are just two of thousands of quotes in songs referring to alcohol. This can be very influential towards teens who listen to this music to drink at a young age. But then again, what does not? Alcohol is in movies, songs, advertisemnts, pictures, tv shows, and at home used by parents, or other teens. So, with all of these influences, why do 75% of parents believe that their teen does not drink, when over 80% of high school students have at least once had alcohol? Also, why has the government not stepped in to specifically help out teen drinkers through AA type meetings? There are also no non-profit orgainizations geared specifically towards teen drinkers. The most common and perhaps only influential anti-teen drinking addressing would be a brief lesson in heath class. This is not enough. This then leads to many problems, and my groups civil action plan. Parents, and even the government, seem to be ignorant to the fact that children are drinking which is why my group had come up with a support group for teen drinkers. It is first best to hear the teen drinking statitics before anything. Beware, because these first few facts are shocking. The average age for boys to first try alcohol is 11, and is 13 for girls. The average age at which Americans begin drinking regularly is 16 years old. 60% of high-schoolers drink weekly. 11% of alcohol that is consumed by America is consumed by teenagers. Drinking such large amounts at such young ages can lead to serious problem; both mentally and physically. Teenagers, as everybody knows, can be and are very irresponsible. They think not of the consequences, because they only think of the short term benfits. This is why teens are three times more likely to drive drunk then adults. One leading cause of this is because a designated driver, better know as DD, is never established before hand. When that 12:00 am call from the house arrives, by this point, the een and his friends are all unablke to drive. The most important thing to the teen is making it home on time without getting in truoble; not about driving drunk or making it home ALIVE. This is why in our teen drinking anonymous program a DD will be a big topic. The three leading causes of death for 15- to 24-year-olds are automobile crashes, homicides and suicides alcohol is a leading factor in all three. If teens see the consequenes of drining impaired and the importance of a DD, lives will be saved. It is a proven fact that children that have been informed about alcohol and warned of the dangers by their parents are less likely to drink. This will be another part of our civil action plan. Informing parents to tell their children is very crutial. Sending out fliers to homes stating things such as how many American teens/ high school students drink, how many are in drunk driving accidents, and the statistical benefit of teaching your child, young or old, the harms of drinking will have a great impact.if parents preach at home their dissatisfaction of underaged drinker will make young children less likely to drink, and make already drinking teens think twice about what they are doing. Behavioral and drug problems also come hand in hand with teen drinking. Teens age 12 to 17 who use alcohol are more likely to report behavioral problems, especially aggressive, delinquent and criminal behaviors, according to findings of a new study released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The study further revealed that teen alcohol users wether they are heavy or light drinkers report they are more likely to use illicit drugs than non-drinkers. Teens who were current heavy drinkers were 16 times more likely than non-drinkers to have used an illicit drug in the past month. Light drinkers were eight times more likely to have used an illicit drug in the past month than non-drinking adolescents. This is another big problem with take drinking. Many people believe that marijiuana is a gateway drug; once one uses weed enough times theyb want to move on to more â€Å"hardcore† drugs to get a better ad more lasting high, or just for fun. Th is concept can then be applied to alcohol. If alcohol, as it is statistically shown, is in a way a stepping stone to use gateway drugs such a marijiuana, why is alcohol not taken as seriously for teens as marijiuana? The CAP orgainzed group, Teenage Drinker Anonymous or TDA, will show the connection between drugs and alcohol. The task of the Civil Action Plan is to develop solution to a particular issue, and the issue had to be a social issue. Teens who drink are a group in society who suffer from an injustice, because they are unaware of the facts and consequences of drinking. The expert briefly interviwed, Peter Rupert, volunteers a few times a month to work at AA meetings. He agrees that alcohol should be talked about in homes at a young age to prevent teen drinking. He also stated that teens who drink are a group of people who â€Å"suffer from a lack of knowledge†. Setting up the TDA groups will be open to both drinkers, and non-drinkers who would jut like to hear the facts. Fliers will be sent out at school and to homes regarding the amount of teens statistically drinking and what can lead from teen drinking. The fliers and posters will raise a physical awareness. The meetings will be very welcoming and non-judgemental. Hopefully with the TDA orgainization and all the fliers and post ers, awareness of this social injustice will be raised. 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Example Sentences of the Verb Leave in English

Example Sentences of the Verb Leave in English This page provides example sentences of the verb leave in all tenses including active and passive forms, as well as conditional and modal forms. Base Form leave / Past Simple left / Past Participle left / Gerund leaving Present Simple I usually leave for work at seven in the morning. Present Simple Passive Books are left on the desk at the front of the room. Present Continuous Mary is leaving for London today. Present Continuous Passive The city is being left by thousands this week. Present Perfect She hasnt left for the meeting yet. Present Perfect Passive The city hasnt been left by everybody yet. Present Perfect Continuous She has been leaving reminders around the house for years. Past Simple I left for work early yesterday morning. Past Simple Passive The magazine was left on the table yesterday afternoon. Past Continuous We were leaving for our vacation when they arrived. Past Continuous Passive The tourists were being left behind when the tour guide noticed they were missing. Past Perfect They had already left home when we got there. Past Perfect Passive The ticket had been left behind so he couldnt come. Past Perfect Continuous She had been leaving him reminders for a while before he remembered to take out the trash. Future (Will) Alice will leave soon. Future (Will) Passive The book will be left by the student. Future (Going To) We are going to leave on Friday. Future (Going To) Passive The house is going to be left by the visitors next week. Future Continuous This time next week we will be leaving on vacation. Future Perfect She will have left him by the end of next month. Future Possibility She might leave at the end of the week. Real Conditional If she leaves him, he will be very unhappy. Unreal Conditional If she left him, he would be very unhappy. Past Unreal Conditional If she had left him, he would have been very unhappy. Present Modal You can leave at any time. Past Modal They must have left early.

Muslim jesus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Muslim jesus - Essay Example In Islam, however, while Jesus is not divine, he certainly existed and was regarded a great teacher of his day. Upon examining various accounts of Jesus and his time spent on earth, it is prudent to conclude that the Muslim account of Jesus is more similar to the true account of the historical Jesus as compared to the Jesus of the Christian faith. This report will, therefore, reflect the reality that the historical Jesus can be seen as more of a zealot or criminal as opposed to a divine being, as recounted in the varied accounts of the Christian gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. While Islamic teaching does regard Jesus as having been a human being who was a messenger of God, the Muslim faith rejects the idea that he was God, nor was he the begotten son of God. In fact, Islamic scripture teaches that anyone who believes that Jesus either God or the Son of God is Shirk. This is to mean that the individual has committed the sin of idolatry, as Islam teaching comes form the express point of view that there is only one true God, and that His prophet is Muhammed. To attach any status approaching divinity to the personhood of Jesus is simply wrong and cannot be accepted under the Islamic faith1. Muslims simply cannot reject the notion of God’s divine oneness, as that is a fundamental tenant of their faith. As such, to make the claim that the Muslim Jesus is divine would be equatable to committing an unpardonable sin. One of the arguments in the Christian faith is that Jesus is divine as represented by the concept of the Trinity. This is to say that God, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Sprit (the Essence of Jesus that has remained after His ascension to Heaven) are all divine and the same person. As such, since Jesus is part of the Trinity, Christians argue that He was and still is divine in his own right. This, again, rejected by Islamic teaching2. The Muslim perception