Review Your Role, Responsibilities and Boundaries as a Teacher

| Review your role, responsibilities and boundaries as a teacher would be in terms of the teaching/training cycle. | 631 words| | Alan Marshall| | 28/01/2012 | L. Walklin (1990) â€Å"The roles and responsibilities of a teacher evolve with time and circumstance. It is impossible to give a rigid definition of either as they change constantly, though there are some roles and responsibilities that are common to all teachers throughout the education system. It is hard to know where the roles and responsibilities of a teacher should stop and I feel is each teacher’s responsibility to know the boundaries. There exists a misconception that the only skill required to be a teacher is the ability to teach, but it goes far beyond this. A teacher must be multi-faceted. † It is important to identify the difference between roles, responsibilities and boundaries. In order to do this the teacher should look at the dictionary definitions. Collins Dictionaries(1999) â€Å"Role: Usual function, capacity, duty, function, job, part, position, post, task: what is his role in the organisation? † â€Å"Responsibility: A person or thing for which one is responsible. In authority, in charge, in control, accountable, answerable, duty bound. A thing which one is required to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation† â€Å"Boundary: Something that indicates the farthest limit. A limit of something abstract, especially a subject or sphere of activity† Therefore responsibilities fit within roles and boundaries would include things such as maintaining professional relationships and taking care with communication methods (and increasingly social media use). To deal with each in order, the role of a teacher is primarily creating and facilitating opportunities for learning and will include: Schemes of work, lesson planning, finding and preparing materials, subject research. Record keeping is also an important role to ensure compliance with awarding and funding body regulation and legislation. This would include: Attendance registers, learner and teacher assessment and of course, reports. Some of the responsibilities of a teacher are: Health and safety. An example of this would be fire regulations and the pointing out of fire exits, and assembly points. Teachers are individually and collectively responsible for the safety of everyone whilst at the place of learning. Equal opportunities, promoting equality of all, regardless of age, gender and culture. Teachers need to examine their own behaviour to ensure they are not discriminatory and politically correct. Special needs. A teacher should also be aware of students with special needs and advocate conditions for their success. Continuous professional development; keeping yourself up to date in both teaching and your field of expertise. Maintaining high standards in your work and conduct, both in and out of the workplace. Complying with the rules of the organisation you are part of as well as legislation and codes of practice. The boundaries for any teaching role will include: Professional behaviour. A teachers professional values, rights, and responsibilities are more important than any sense of needing to be liked by others, needing to please others, or needing to make a good impression. As a teacher, discretion is required regarding what, where, and to whom personal information is disclosed. A teacher should both model and teach appropriate boundaries. The teaching environment such as the type of student and the subject will influence whether or not touching is appropriate. In short, the teacher is responsible for eliminating any possible misunderstanding. The teaching/training cycle is about identifying needs, planning and designing, delivering and facilitating, assessing and finally evaluating before it all starts again. Becoming a professional is an on-going process. A teacher should allow time each day for self-examination and reflection. Teachers need to continually assess their own personal behaviour, learn from their experiences, and realize that they will always be faced with unpredictable challenges. This system of continual improvement is known in industry as â€Å"Kaisen† but is equally applicable to the teaching profession. Reference List: Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus (1999) Teaching and Learning in Further and Adult Education. L. Walklin (1990)

My Favorite Restaurant

I don’t like homemade food too much so I often tend to go out to have lunch or dinner; I’m not talking about fast food, in fact I don’t like fast food that much. So the first place that always popped to my mind is the Ponto Alto restaurant; it is my favorite restaurant in town for many reasons. I visit this restaurant 2 to 3 per week; it is located on a hill in the Bahsass area in front of the sea, so you can imagine how beautiful the view is up there. This is the biggest reason why I like this restaurant the view is amazing especially during the sunset!One can sit-down and have their food while looking to its beautiful view, it is so relieving. Of course since I go there a lot the food must be great. It serves Italian food such as pasta and pizza and also large varieties of chicken and beef with its remarkable sauce. It’s not like fast-food it much closer to home food but more delicious and very healthy also. The dà ©cor and design inside are very creati ve; it has a large painting on the ceiling with cheerful colors that draws a smile on your face every time you look up and see it.Moreover, the restaurant also play many classical English and French music, which make you relax and comfortable! Lastly all the servants in the restaurant are both warm and hospitable they make you feel like at home. In conclusion, I think that Ponto Alto is the perfect place to eat and have a quite time especially if you are out with the wife or girl friend. I don’t hesitate for a second to recommend anyone to visit and try this unique restaurant.

John Woo as a film auteur Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

John Woo as a film auteur - Essay Example In addition to that, John Woo is a very popular and fashionable film director. His actions films are working and bringing money. John Woo is a global iconic figure who has mastered the art of choreographing action sequences, Mexican standoffs and the use of slow motion technology. He used also these techniques in the course of creating his films what helped this person to create a highly alluring cinema that kept audience glued to the screen till the very last second of the film. His main achievement is his ability to incorporate his own unique style. John Woo simply controlled all stages of film production what enabled him to give his films a personal and a distinctive touch. John Woo is known for his constant effort aimed at resurfacing Hong Kong cinema of the 1980’s and 1990’s. The choice of this approach helped John Woo to acquire status of a cult director in Hollywood. Renowned American film theorist and film critic, David Bordwell, has reviewed a number of Wooâ₠¬â„¢s films. After reviewing John Woo’s films he gave the following evaluation to this person: â€Å"Personally, I do like the idea of giving Woo films a new rush of life, however, the man was, and still in many ways is (although it can be debated as to what extent) an auteur, in the truest sense of the word". (South Korean Remake Of John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow Meets Cold Response From Hong Kong Moviegoers) David claims that Woo uses a variety of skills in his films. The choice of this strategy makes John Woo the most remarkable and unique director in his area. David Bordwell also mentioned the fact that while watching Woo’s films in a theatre, you would be so engrossed that your focus would keep shifting from the background to what’s happening in the foreground as well as from left to right. Woo is well known for his habitual action sequences what gives his movie a highly fascinating yet a disciplined style. He is also known for re-inventing action seq uences. This measure helped to improve the quality of his films and to increase the number of people watching the movies of this film director. Regarding the issue of Woo’s technique, I can definitely say that Woo refined the techniques that his predecessors introduced to cinema during the initial stages of its development. The heightened standards of cinema, that he has set is still seen as a goal for modern films. After reviewing John Woo’s film, â€Å"A Better Tomorrow†, Stephen Teo, a filmmaker, critic and film historian, stated that, John Woo â€Å"reintroduced themes of brotherhood, honor and vengeance in the movie, making it boldly appealing for the audience to watch.† (South Korean Remake of John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow Meets Cold Response From Hong Kong Moviegoers) Further he stated that â€Å"Woo borrowed from the theatrical choreography seen in the Wuxia films of the 1960s and 1970s, by incorporating the same style into his shootout sce nes.† (John Woo and the Art of the Action Movie) While critics argue whether or not Woo’s participation in filmmaking should be placed under the Hong Kong new wave or if it falls under the Hong Kong studio system, one cannot deny the fact that Woo has made a big contribution into the development of modern cinema and has made an enormous impact on the manner in which filmmakers produce their films across the world. Hong Kong new wave was a brief period of experimentation for Hong Kong cinema. During this period filmmakers got a chance to

Strategic Management Analysis assignement Assignment

Strategic Management Analysis assignement - Assignment Example Unique Resources / Capabilities 25 10.0 Sustainable Competitive Advantage 26 11.0 Summary of the Strengths and Weaknesses 27 Task C 28 12.0 Strategic Direction 28 12.1 Market Penetration 29 12.2 Product Development 29 12.3 Market Development 29 12.4 Diversification 30 13.0 Strategic Fit 30 14.0 Summary on Strategic Fit 33 References 34 1.0 Introduction The aim of the study has been to conduct a strategic analysis of an UK based airline company offering package holiday. Therefore, in this context, the company that has been chosen for the study is British Airways. British Airways is based in the UK and is the biggest scheduled airline that runs internationally (Scribd, 2009). It offers flight services of low fares for customers availing its holiday packages and carries the passengers to and from the centrally located airports. The company also offers holiday packages that consist of super value packages for hotels as well (The Telegraph, 2011). A person can enjoy both the flight facili ty as well as hotel facility and thus visit numerous destinations with British Airways which can save time as well as cost (British Airways, n.d.). Tour operators tend to put the numerous elements of the holidays and thus sell them as a package. The packages are sold either to the public directly or through travel agents. There are innumerable tour operators offering enormous ranges of the holidays as well as destinations (Holiday Bargains, n.d.). The term ‘package’ generally is defined as a set combination of two services at minimum. They must be offered at inclusive prices and must include components such as transports, accommodations or other services that are important for the tourists. The holiday market of the UK seems to be quite competitive and the industry tends to operate at quite low margins (BIS Department for Business Innovation & Skills, n.d.). The main rationale for choosing the company is that it is the leader in airline industry that offers both the fli ght as well as the holiday package services. The company chosen will assist in comprehending the trends of the airline company offering the package holiday in the UK. Task A 2.0 PESTEL Analysis The PESTEL analysis tends to classify the environmental components into political, socio cultural, economical, technological, environmental as well as legal. It assists in comprehending the main drivers leading to change as well as the external factors affecting an organization. Political Factors The political environment of the UK is quite stable. However, the terror attack had a major impact upon the package holiday industry of the UK. Such terror attacks led to tight security as well as strict immigration laws. The package holiday industry suffers in the long-term if such turmoil keeps on continuing. This tends to affect the perception of the tourists. In recent times, strikes called by the staffs of the British Airways had an impact upon its holiday business. In future, such scenario can occur which might have an impact

Women and careers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Women and careers - Essay Example Literature does not only show their differences in ideologies but it also reflects the similarities of such ideas among men and women in the past and present times. Today, the interest in the subject is becoming more and more intense as people seek to pursue all the happiness they can have in this world. One movie series that speaks about such especially concerning women is â€Å"Sex and the City†. It portrays the lives of four female friends who openly talk about sex and their relationship. It presents the concerns of women that men often ignore and disregard. Moreover, it also pictures how modern women value work and their womanhood in the pursuit of their happiness. The main characters, Carrie Bradshaw played by Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones, Kristin Davies as Charlotte York and Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes, in the movie series mentioned earlier perhaps reflects the modern women’s struggles that they often experience as they express themselves and assert their worth in the world. The four women who are all past the age of thirty try to live normal lives as all the others around them do. They work as professionals and compete with men in their work places but they also struggle with them when it comes to their relationships. They have different ideas about love and sex which portrays the different ideas of modern women. For instance, Miranda is presented as a successful corporate lawyer who worked so hard that she has forgotten all about marriage. In her mid-thirty, she was still unmarried. Jones on the other hand is an executive who tries to act like men do, having sex with them like the relationship is not about feelings and emotions or treating each other as lovers. In the first episode of season 1, the character of Jones is presented as the most liberated among the four friends and perhaps reflects many women in modern times who really think that they are competitive with men not only in terms of profession and achievemen ts but also in terms of sex. If men perceive women as sex objects, she believes that women could also do the same as evidenced by her advice to her friends. She even gives an example about how she goes about her relationships, mentioning Drew, an ex-lover whom she slept with for a time in her past and then left him matter-of-factly, forgetting about him just like when one changes her clothes and disposes them (youtube.com). On the other hand, York plays the romantic kind of character who thinks that sex should be expressed with love. She is quite the emotional kind among the friends and often brings about the other concerns, about the more important matters in the issues being raised among their discussions. In the example given above, she reacts with Bradshaw in clear bewilderment saying that they should consider love and romance also. Perhaps the attitude of women acting like men, thinking that they can be as unemotional when it comes to sex is just a facade to show their competit iveness. Although deep inside, women are hurting because they are treated like objects, they tend not to accept it but rather deny that they are really emotionally affected. In effect, they try to act as the men do and show that they can also hurt men. However, along the process, men are also hurt because they are also human beings who have feelings. Bradshaw verbally expressed her being a human being and asserted that she should be treated as such by her lovers like her long time lover, Big and still another lover, Alexander Petrovsky (youtube.com). Although men never show such concern or verbally express such feelings, they are not devoid of feelings so that they also need such attention. However, probably, what makes things

Strategic Planning Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Strategic Planning - Case Study Example In the next part of the report I will be highlighting the areas on which the company needs to stress more and will also make some necessary recommendations. The first thing that GIFC needs to accomplish is that it should define its business, goods and services and also the target customers. Also defining a clear vision for the organization which clearly expresses the intentions of the company and where it wants to be in the future will also help to serve the purpose. Defining their thoughts on social responsibility, culture and ethics will further strengthen the standings of the organization. The company can think of commencing operations in the global market by using effective expansion strategies. This will not only help the company to earn more revenue, but will also allow them to cater to a number of segments around the world. However the growth is directly related with the quality of their service, level of customer service and also the location of the outlets. In order to develop core competencies for itself the company must focus on various aspects. Some of the evident factors are variety of dishes, authenticity of the ingredients, and ambience of the outlets. Furthermore the company should also develop a strong customer relationship management tool, which will ensure highest level of customer satisfaction and they could even become a word of mouth promoter for the company. One of the important suggestions for the company is that while getting into any new kind of activity, the company should perform an analysis of the macro environment. This will help them to make decisions purely based upon the external situations and can sustain with it for a longer period of time. Strategic planning is defined as the process by which the management personnel of the company decides about the objectives of the company and also defines the proper courses of action required to achieve the objectives (â€Å"Strategic Planning†). It is also referred to as a

Defining perfomance measures in Saudi Aramco Medical Services Essay

Defining perfomance measures in Saudi Aramco Medical Services Organization - Essay Example Action Plan 18 Saudi Aramco 18 5.2. Gantt Chart of the Action Plan 19 6.Analysis and Recommendations 20 Conclusion 23 Works Cited 24 Introduction The performance measures of an organization quantitatively display the important facets of the products and/or services rendered by the organization to its customer(s). Performance measures of an organization are one of the effective tools to identify its role and importance in the marketplace. Moreover, the process also helps the organization to recognize its present performance, customer satisfaction level to identify the prospects of achievement of the organizational objectives. Furthermore, performance measurement is a statistical control of the organization which initiates future initiatives for developing the products/services for its customers. Hence, it can be affirmed that measuring the performances of an organization fundamentally concentrates on the process of collecting and accounting the information about the productivity of it s workforce along with the quality of services rendered (â€Å"What are Performance Measures†). The performance measures of an organization should classify the risks to be determined by the process along with the information source and required time for the measurement. Subsequently, all measurements should be accomplished in an objective-oriented way being convenient to reduce outside influences over the employee performances. This particular strategy is quite likely to motivate the usage of more efficient cost effective methods towards augmenting the productivity of the overall organization (â€Å"Performance Measures†). Thesis Statement The paper intends to focus on the performance measures of Saudi Aramco Medical Service Organization (SAMSO). The paper also reflects the organizational profile with its various values, mission and vision. Moreover, the study also intends to highlight the key strategies and accomplishments with regard to develop suggestions for the en hancement of the performance of SAMSO. With this concern, the detail organizational profile has been discussed along with its value, mission and vision statements. The performance measurement method and the key strategies of SAMSO have also been critically analyzed with rational recommendations throughout the study of the paper. 1. Organization Profile a. Name of the Organisation SAMSO is a multifaceted medical service provider which is operated as a privately owned health-care division that serves the large number of Saudi Aramco Global Oil Enterprise’s employees (around 54000) and their families (â€Å"Corporate Citizenship Report 2010†). b. Operations of the Organization Saudi Aramco commenced its medical hospitality unit in the year 1933 and constructed its first separate health-care center in Dhahran in 1955 known as ‘Dhahran Health Centre’. In the present day context, Saudi Aramco operates to serve as one of the modernized health service providing or ganizations among the Middle East Countries. The health care unit of the organization provides its services throughout the city of Dhahran as well as other neighboring cities of the Eastern Saudi Arabia region (Al-Ghamdi). c. Number of Employees of the Organization Currently the organization provides its health-care service with the assistance of around 7334 employees (â€Å"Corporate Citizenship Report 2010†). d. Department My department is the Medical Support Services Department in SAMSO of which Medical Patient Processing & Records Division is part of. SAMSO operates with a total of five

Agrument against lowering the drinking age to 18 in the United States Essay

Agrument against lowering the drinking age to 18 in the United States - Essay Example A behavioral argument in favor of lowering the drinking age cited the Prohibition experience and Engs (1998), for instance, has this to say: As a nation we have tried prohibition legislation twice in the past for controlling irresponsible drinking problems†¦ These laws were finally repealed because they were unenforceable and because the backlash towards them caused other social problems. Today we are repeating history and making the same mistakes. Intentions behind the above arguments vary and some maybe legitimate as well but the issues raised by those in favor of restricting the age limit for alcohol access to 21 has so far succeeded in presenting a stronger case. The reason for this is simple: the empirical evidences and the statistics point to the fact that lowering the drinking age would have adverse effects on individuals and the society in general. In the United States, the current legal use for alcohol consumption is 21. The statutes covering this prohibition can be considered as those intended to influence individuals in regards to health-related behavior. A short review of its history will reveal that the minimum drinking age was implemented immediately after the Prohibition when all of the US states adopted a stringent policy against youth alcohol consumption. When the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution was introduced, lowering the voting age to 18, a number of states have also lowered the drinking age. But by 1984, the federal government implemented a drive to standardize the minimum drinking age to 21 through a congressional initiative. This has been supported by numerous governmental agencies, organizations and individuals such as the National Transportation Safety Board, the National Council on Alcoholism, the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving and the American Medical Association. Specifically, according to Wallander and Siegel

CRJ 422 Week 3 assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

CRJ 422 Week 3 assignment - Essay Example ls to fight terrorism, the United States Congress passed the Patriot Act in October 2001 as a mitigation measure to strengthen the security situation in the country. Following the implementation of the Patriot and the homeland security acts, there have been divergent opinions on the implication of the acts on the rights of the citizens. In an attempt to understand the operational modalities of the patriot act and the homeland security act, this paper will explore them with reference to their impact on social justice (Ebenger, 2008). Following an attack on the world trade center and the anthrax attack of 2001, the Congress passed the Patriot Act to control the security situation in the country. Application of the patriot act authorized the detention of immigrants indefinitely, the act at the same time gives the law enforcement officers permission to search a person’s home or business without the individual’s permission. The act allows the FBI to search emails, telephone records, and financial records of suspects without a court order (Ebenger, 2008). The Homeland Security Act was signed into law in 2002 by President George Bush, creating the position level to cabinet under the title of secretary of homeland security. The establishment of the department of homeland security was for the core purposes of preventing terrorist attack within the United States, to reduce the vulnerability of the country to terrorist attack and to minimize damage as well as enhance recovery in instances of a terrorist attack. The act provides the law enforcement agencies with the authority to direct and control information that is needed to prevent a terrorist attack. The authority extends to where the law enforcement agencies can request for a person’s personal health information without the patient or the guardians consent (Mccreight, 2010). In support of the patriot and the homeland security acts, the proponents of the two Acts point out to the desperate situation of the

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS LAW Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS LAW - Research Paper Example Alongside this matter is the important consideration of the costs entailed in doing business in the Russian Federation. Possible Legal Risks Involved There are several legal issues, some of which take the form of risks, involved when entering a foreign market. Legal issues involved laws that affect the conduct of a particular business in a particular place. Laws that will be involved in conducting a business in Russia will be, necessarily, Russian commercial laws, international trade laws and international sales transactions and regulations. The risk, however, in conducting a business in a foreign state can be categorised into the following: effectiveness of the judiciary; rule of law; risk of contract repudiation; corruption, and; risk of expropriation.1 It is best to conduct business in a country that has a stable political condition and is known as business friendly. Although there is always risk, political risks of countries vary in degrees. Political risk is defined as â€Å"ri sk of loss when investing in a given country caused by changes in a country’s political structure or policies such as tax laws, tariffs, expropriation of assets or restriction in repatriation of assets.†2 Relevant to this discussion is the case of RosInvestCo UK Ltd v Russian Federation3 where a UK company has brought arbitration proceedings against the Russian Federation for invalid expropriation, which is contrary to the UK-Russian BIT. This case is thoroughly discussed on the UK-Russian BIT paragraph. In weighing the political stability of a country, its history might provide a good indicator of such a risk as countries with a history of stability and consistency are more likely to be less risky than those with opposing history.4 Unfortunately, Russia does not have a history of stability and consistency considering the number of political disarray it had in the past. The Best Form of Corporate Entity to Take There are, at least, four ways by which the Ultra-Educators Software Limited may engage in the business of selling chocolates in Russia. One is by selling directly by establishing its own branch or subsidiary; two, through retailers; three, through an intermediary or distributor, and; four, through a representative or agent company.5 Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. In making decisions about this matter, the following must be considered: the financial strength of Ultra-Educators; its connections; extent of its business commitments, and; the present state of its personnel, equipment, and status.6 If the Company intends to sell directly, it must set up an entity in Russia that will directly take charge of the business of selling the chocolates that the Company will be exporting to that country. It can either set up a branch or a subsidiary. A branch is a part or division of a company whilst a subsidiary is a separate entity independent from the company. Thus, the liability of a branch is that also of the main co mpany, but not that of the subsidiary because it is deemed separate from the company.7 Moreover, if the branch has taxes owing to it by virtue of the business it is conducting in the foreign state, the main company is liable for such taxes. This is not so in the case of the subsidiary.8

Ethical Leadership in Organizations Essay Example for Free

Ethical Leadership in Organizations Essay Ethical leadership is leadership that is involved in leading in a manner that respects the rights and dignity of others. As leaders are by nature in a position of social power, ethical leadership focuses on how leaders use their social power in the decisions they make, actions they engage in and ways they influence others. Leaders who are ethical demonstrate a level of integrity that is important for stimulating a sense of leader trustworthiness, which is important for followers to accept the vision of the leader. Leaders who are ethical are people-oriented, and also aware of how their decisions impact others, and use their social power to serve the greater good instead of self-serving interests. Motivating followers to put the needs or interests of the group ahead of their own is another quality of ethical leaders. Motivating involves engaging others in an intellectual and emotional commitment between leaders and followers that makes both parties equally responsible in the pursuit of a common goal. Ethical leadership falls within the nexus of inspiring, stimulating, and visionary leader behaviours that make up transformational and charismatic leadership. Ethical leaders assist followers in gaining a sense of personal competence that allows them to be self-sufficient by encouraging and empowering them. What is Ethical Leadership? One typical response to the â€Å"ethics crisis† in business is a clarion call for more â€Å"ethical leadership,† yet there are few explanations of what exactly is meant by the term. Many executives and business thinkers believe that ethical leadership is simply a matter of leaders having good character. By having â€Å"the right values† or being a person of â€Å"strong character,† the ethical leader can set the example for others and withstand any temptations that may occur along the way. Without denying the importance of good character and the right values, the reality of ethical leadership is far more complex and the stakes are much higher. Over the past 25 years, in talking to executives in a number of industries about the problems of how to lead in a world of great change—globalization, democratization, and incredible technological advances—we have identified a number of touchstones for the idea of â€Å"ethical leadership.† Our experience is often contrary to the picture of business executives one finds in public discussion where they are often seen as greedy, competitive, and only concerned with compensation. In fact most executives want to be effective in their jobs and to leave their companies and the world a better place, creating value on both fronts for those whose lives they affect. Our view of ethical leadership takes into account not only the leader but also his constituents (followers and key stakeholders), the context or situation that the leader and constituents face, the leader’s processes and skills, and the outcomes that result. Leaders are first and foremost members of their own organizations and stakeholder groups. As such, their purpose, vision, and values are for the benefit of the entire organization and its key stakeholders. â€Å"Leaders see their constituents as not just followers, but rather as stakeholders striving to achieve that same common purpose, vision, and values. These follower and stakeholder constituents have their own individuality and autonomy which must be respected to maintain a moral community.† Ethical leaders embody the purpose, vision, and values of the organization and of the constituents, within an understanding of ethical ideals. They connect the goals of the organization with that of the internal employees and external stakeholders. Leaders work to create an open, two-way conversation, thereby maintaining a charitable understanding of different views, values, and constituents’ opinions. They are open to others’ opinions and ideas because they know those ideas make the organization they are leading better. Characteristics of Ethical Leaders In today’s turbulent world, ethics and values are present at a number of levels for executives and managers—leaders who devote their time and energy to leading the process of value creation. This broader concept of ethical leadership empowers leaders to incorporate and be explicit about their own values and ethics. The following list provides a framework for developing ethical leadership. It is based on the observations of and conversations with a host of executives and students over the past 25 years, and on readings of both popular and scholarly business literature. Written from the perspective of the leader, these ten facets of ethical leaders offer a way to understand ethical leadership that is more complex and more useful than just a matter of â€Å"good character and values.† â€Å"It is important for leaders to tell a compelling and morally rich story, but ethical leaders must also embody and live the story. This is a difficult task in today’s business environment where everyone lives in a fishbowl—on public display. So many political leaders fail to embody the high-minded stories they tell at election time, and more recently, business leaders have become the focus of similar criticism through the revelations of numerous scandals and bad behaviours. CEOs in today’s corporations are really ethical role models for all of society.† 1. Articulate and embody the purpose and values of the organization. Following a series of unethical activities by Citigroup employees in Japan in 2004, new CEO Chuck Prince fired several executives, publicly accepted responsibility and bowed apologetically to Japanese officials. Not only did Prince’s message resonate within Japan, but it also signalled a new era of â€Å"shared responsibility† within the culture of Citigroup where every employee was expected to take ownership for their decisions that affected the enterprise. 2. Focus on organizational success rather than on personal ego. Ethical leaders understand their place within the larger network of constituents and stakeholders. It is not about the leader as an individual, it is about something bigger—the goals and dreams of the organization. Ethical leaders also recognize that value is in the success of people in the organization. In 1998, in a bold gesture demonstrating how he valued the company’s line employees, Roger Enrico, former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, chose to forego all but $1 of his salary, requesting that PepsiCo, in turn, contribute $1 million to a scholarship fund for employees’ children. In a similar manner, the founders of JetBlue began a process of matching, from their salaries, employee donations to a charity. Today, their entire salaries go to the JetBlue Crewmember Catastrophic Plan charity, to assist staff with crises not covered by insurance. The point of these examples is not that ethical leaders donate their salaries to charities, but rather that ethical leaders identify and act on levers, such as employee loyalty, that drive organizational success. 3. Find the best people and develop them. This task is fairly standard in different models of leadership. Ethical leaders pay special attention to finding and developing the best people precisely because they see it as a moral imperative—helping them to lead better lives that create more value for themselves and for others. Finding the best people involves taking ethics and character into account in the selection process. â€Å"Ethical leaders pay special attention to finding and developing the best people† Many CEOs have said to us that judging someone’s integrity is far more important than evaluating their experience and skills. Yet, in many organizations, employees are hired to fill a particular skill need with little regard to issues of integrity. 4. Create a living conversation about ethics, values and the creation of value for stakeholders. Too often business executives think that having a laminated â€Å"values card† in their wallet or having a purely compliance approach to ethics has solved the â€Å"ethics problem.† Suffice it to say that Enron and other troubled companies had these systems in place. What they didn’t have was a conversation across all levels of the business where the basics of value creation, stakeholder principles and societal expectations were routinely discussed and debated. There is a fallacy that values and ethics are the â€Å"soft, squishy† part of management. Nothing could be further from the truth. In organizations that have a live conversation about ethics and values, people hold each other responsible and accountable about whether they are really living the values. And, they expect the leaders of the organization to do the same. Bringing such a conversation to life means that people must have knowledge of alternatives, must choose every day to stay with the organization and its purpose because it is important and inspires them. Making a strong commitment to bringing this conversation to life is essential to do if one is to lead ethically. Most people know the story of Johnson and Johnson’s former CEO Jim Burke and the Tylenol product recall in the 1980s in which, at a great short-term financial cost, he pulled all potentially tampered-with products off the shelves, thereby keeping the public’s trust intact. The less well-known background to this story, however, is critical to understanding the final outcome. Well before the Tylenol crisis hit, Johnson Johnson had held a series of â€Å"challenge meetings† all around the world, where managers sat and debated their â€Å"Credo,† a statement of their purpose and principles of who they wanted to be as a company. The conversation about ethics at Johnson Johnson was alive, and in many ways made Jim Burke’s choice about handling the situation clearer than it otherwise would have been. 5. Create mechanisms of dispute. This needs to be made part of the organizational culture, not just a line item in a compliance program document. Some companies have used anonymous e-mail and telephone processes to give employees a way around the levels of management that inevitably spring up as barriers in large organizations. Many executives also have used â€Å"skip level† meetings where they go down multiple levels in the organization to get a more realistic view of what is actually going on. General Electric’s famous â€Å"workout† process—where workers meet to decide how to fix problems and make the company better—was a way for front line employees to push back against the established policies and authority of management. All of these processes lead to better decisions, more engaged employees, and an increased likelihood of avoiding damaging mistakes. In a company that takes its purpose or values seriously, there must be mechanisms of pushing back to avoid the values becoming stale and dead. Indeed, many of the current corporate scandals could have been prevented if only there were more creative ways for people to express their dissatisfaction with the actions of some of their leaders and others in the companies. The process of developing these mechanisms of dissent will vary by company, by leadership style, and by culture, but it is a crucial leadership task for value creation in today’s business world. 6. Take a charitable understanding of others’ values. Ethical leaders can understand why different people make different choices, but still have a strong grasp on what they would do and why. Following twenty-seven years in South African prisons, Nelson Mandela was still able to see the good in his jailers. After one particularly vicious jailer was being transferred away from Robbins Island because of Mandela’s protest and push back, the jailer turned to Mandela and stated â€Å"I just want to wish you people good luck.† Mandela interpreted this statement charitably as a sign that all people had some good within them, even those caught up in an evil system. Mandela felt that it was his responsibility to see this good in people and to try and bring it out. One CEO suggested that instead of seeing ethical leadership as preventing people from doing the wrong thing, we need to view it as enabling people to do the right thing. 7. Make tough calls while being imaginative. Ethical leaders inevitably have to make a lot of difficult decisions, from reorienting the company’s strategy and basic value proposition to making individual personnel decisions such as working with employees exiting the organization. Ethical leaders do not attempt to avoid difficult decisions by using an excuse of â€Å"I’m doing this for the business.† The ethical leader consistently unites â€Å"doing the right thing† and â€Å"doing the right thing for the business.† The idea that â€Å"ethical leadership† is just â€Å"being nice† is far from the truth. Often, exercising â€Å"moral imagination† is the most important task. Mohammed Yunus founded the Grameen Bank on such moral imagination. By taking the standard banking practice of only lending to people with collateral, and turning it on its head, Yunus spawned an industry of micro-lending to the poor. The Grameen Bank’s motto is that poverty belongs in a museum. In addition to having one of the highest loan repayment rates in the banking industry, the bank’s program of lending to poor women in Bangladesh to start businesses has helped millions of them to be able to feed themselves. 8. Know the limits of the values and ethical principles they live. All values have limits, particular spheres in which they do not work as well as others. The limits for certain values, for instance, may be related to the context or the audience in which they are being used. Ethical leaders have an acute sense of the limits of the values they live and are prepared with solid reasons to defend their chosen course of action. Problems can arise when managers do not understand the limits of certain values. As an example, one issue common to the recent business scandals was that managers and executives did not understand the limits of â€Å"putting shareholders first.† Attempts to artificially keep stock prices high—without creating any lasting value for customers and other stakeholders—can border on fanaticism rather than good judgment. Ethics is no different from any other part of our lives: there is no substitute for good judgment, sound advice, practical sense, and conversations with those affected by our actions. 9. Frame actions in ethical terms. Ethical leaders see their leadership as a fully ethical task. This entails taking seriously the rights claims of others, considering the effects of one’s actions on others (stakeholders), and understanding how acting or leading in a certain way will have effects on one’s character and the character of others. There is nothing amoral about ethical leaders, and they recognize that their own values may sometimes turn out to be a poor guidepost. The ethical leader takes responsibility for using sound moral judgment. But, there is a caution here. It is easy to frame actions in ethical terms and be perceived as â€Å"righteous.† Many have the view that ethics is about universal, inviolable principles that are carved into stone. We need to start with principles and values, and then work hard to figure out how they can be applied in today’s complex global business environment. Principles, values, cultures, and individual differences often conflict. Ethical leadership requires an attitude of humility rather than righteousness: a commitment to one’s own principles, and at the same time, openness to learning and to having conversations with others who may have a different way of seeing the world. Ethics is best viewed as an open conversation about those values and issues that are most important to us and to our business. It is a continual discovery and reaffirmation of our own principles and values, and a realization that we can improve through encountering new ideas.

Coca Cola: Changing marketing environment

Coca Cola: Changing marketing environment Marketing environment are the actors and forces that affect a companys capability to operate effectively in providing products and services to its customers. The marketing environment consists of microenvironment (customer, competitors, distributors, and suppliers) and the macroenvironment (economic, social, political, legal, physical and technological forces). These shape the character of the opportunities and the threats facing a company and yet are largely uncontrollable. The major microenvironment that Coca-Cola is facing is its competitor, PepsiCo. Competitors have a major bearing on the performance of a company. It affects a companys capabilities to operate effectively in its chosen markets. For example, Coca-Cola was once successful and was the Wall Street favourite. It created a global brand and outperformed its arch-rival PepsiCo. However, by December 2005, its competitor, PepsiCo, for the first time in the history of the two companies, was valued more highly with a market capitalization of $98.4 billion against Coca-Colas $97.9 billion. Coca-colas number one status was starting to look vulnerable. It was losing market share to PepsiCo. The major macroenvironment that Coca-Cola is facing is Social/cultural forces. Social/cultural forces can have an impact on marketing decisions by changing demand patterns and creating new opportunities and threats. With the increasing numbers of health-conscious consumers, attitudes towards the demand for beverages are changing. The changes need to be monitored and understood so that marketing management is aware of the changing tastes and behaviour of consumers. Such changes can create demand shifts that can act as either opportunities or threats. In contrast to Coca-cola, PepsiCo considered the change an opportunity for business expansion. For example, PepsiCo diversified away from sugary fizzy drinks into a powerful portfolio of non-carbonated products. It bought the fruit juice business Tropicana and Quaker Oats. With these new businesses, the company has experienced double-digit growth, where as Coca-cola cherish the status quo and resist change. There are various ways companies can respond to the change in marketing environment, which are: ignorance, delay, retrenchment, gradual strategic repositioning and radical strategic repositioning. The first response of Coca-Cola to the changing marketing environment before the arrival of Mr Isdell to that of PepsiCo, is where Coca-Cola made no change to its strategy at the beginning after the death of Roberto Goizueta. It continued as normal, ignore its competitor, PepsiCo, which was threatening their existence. During that time, Coca-Cola was facing bungled takeovers, disastrous product launches, contamination scares, and constant feuding between factions within the management and boardroom. It still stayed put to Goizuetas philosophy, that is, it was that nothing could beat the low cost, high-profit -margin business of producing syrupy concentrate for bottlers, under licence. Between the competitions of the two companies, it had made consumers more cola-conscious. However, Coca-Cola rarely saw it like that due to the poor environment scanning. Coca-Cola appears to be internally orientated business, as it did not monitor and seek to understand customers, research competitor a nd their brands to understand theirs strengths, weaknesses, strategies and response patterns. Coca-Cola did not realize that salient forces are affecting their future prospects. Apart from the ignorant, Coca-Cola has delayed in their response to the marketing environment change. This can be caused by bureaucratic nature of their decision-making. Marketing myopia can slow response through management being product rather than customer focused. For example, despite the change in consumer tastes, lifestyle and expectations, Coca-cola is still focused on soft drinks where PepsiCo has already well diversified and even enter into snack food business. The result is that PepsiCo generates about 23 per cent of its worldwide profits from the stagnant carbonated drinks sector, while Coca-Cola relies on fizzy drinks for 80 per cent of profits. PepsiCos diversification programme and its branding-building expertise have made it the worlds fourth largest food and beverage company, ranking behind Nestle, Kraft and Unilever. Its sales were more than $43 billion compared with Coca-colas $32 billion in 2008. Slowly, Coca-cola has looked into gradual strategic repositioning. This involves a gradual, planned and continuous adaptation to the changing marketing environment. Coca-Cola has slowly and continually repositioned itself in response to its strong competition and the changing marketing environment. It has in fact gradually challenge its competitor by having launched Minute Maid fruit juice to challenge Tropicana, Dasani to take on Aquafina and so on, even though it seems to be playing catch-up. Compare to Coca-Cola, PepsiCo has adopted the radical strategic repositioning where it took part and involved by changing the direction of the business according to the change in marketing environment. For example, PepsiCo developed and marketed better alternative, more varieties and healthier beverages.

Predicting Individual differences in Mindfulness

Predicting Individual differences in Mindfulness Predicting Individual differences in Mindfulness: The role of Trait Anxiety, Openness and Parental Nurturance  ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­ Abstract Mindfulness is a way of paying attention, intentionally and without judgement to the present moment. Mindfulness training has shown impressive outcomes in a number of areas such as depression and pain reduction; however, the literature has failed to account for natural, individual differences in levels of mindfulness. This research provides an exploration of the variables: Trait Anxiety, Openness to Experience and Parental Nurturance and their ability to predict individual differences in Mindfulness. 123 participants each completed four questionnaires: The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used to assess Trait Anxiety, the NEO-FFI was used to measure Openness to Experience, the Parental Nurturance Inventory was used to measure Parental Nurturance, and Mindfulness was assessed using the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI). Partially consistent with the predictions, Trait Anxiety was shown to negatively predict Mindfulness, Openness to Experience and Parental Nurturance where n ot as strong predictors of Mindfulness. Key Terms: Mindfulness, Trait Anxiety, Openness, Parental Nurturance. Introduction Mindfulness is a way of paying attention, intentionally and without judgement to the present moment. The practice of Mindfulness originated in East India and is at the heart of Buddhist meditation. According to Kabat-Zinn (1994, 4) ‘This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality’. A lack of or reduced awareness to the present-moment, however, has the opposite affect which results in fear driven ‘unconscious and automatic actions and behaviours’. Continuing in this pattern of diminished awareness results in erosion to ones confidence and hinders the possibility of a life of satisfaction, health and happiness (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). Traditionally, Mindfulness was viewed as a spiritual practice, heavily steeped in Buddhism; however, more recently this practice has been widely encouraged in the western society (Baer, 2003). According to Baer (2003) there are two main Mindfulness training programmes namely the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Programme and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Other therapies such as Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relapse Prevention incorporate principles of Mindfulness into the programme. Most Mindfulness training programmes run for a serious of 8-10 weeks, with a one day a week group meeting which is held for approximately 2 hours. Clients are also required to do homework session including 45 minutes per day, 6 days a week. Evidence suggests that Mindfulness-based training intervention is effective. Research indicates that Mindfulness-based training is effective in working with borderline personality disorder, mood disorders, pain, generalised anxiety disorder, stress, alcohol and substance abuse, and eating disorders (Baer, 2003; Roemer, 2002; Williams, Teasdale, Segal, Soulsby, 2000; Witkiewitz, Marlatt, Walker, 2005; Woodman, Noyes, Black, Schlosser, Yagia, 1999; Zettle Rains, 1989). Without any way of accurately, and objectively measuring levels of Mindfulness, positive findings were attributed to the training alone. Brown and Ryan (2003), however, proposed that individual differences may account for differences in levels of Mindfulness. The introduction of a measure for Mindfulness has made room for researchers to explore this proposal in greater depth. The present study attempts to explore a question: to what extent do individual differences influence levels of Mindfulness. The literature highlights three such individual differences that may be of interest: Trait Anxiety, Openness to Experience and Parental Nurturance. The experience of anxiety is one that is familiar to most people; and Kaplan and Sadock (1998) describe the related symptoms as including an uneasy feeling followed by automatic responses such as headaches, perspiring and tightness in the chest. Trait anxiety, as apposed to state anxiety, is a persistent and does not wane in less stressful times. These researchers identify anxiety as having two components, namely awareness to the physiological sensations and awareness to being afraid. These experiences often lead to feelings of embarrassment, and in order to feel justified for the anxiety, people tend to focus on certain, conforming aspects of the environment and overlooking others. As a result of this bias to attention, a person is unable to experience the presence as a whole. Trait Anxiety is therefore expected to have an inverse relationship with Mindfulness. Openness to Experience is one of the five main personality domains and is described by McCrae and John (1992) as encompassing such things as imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, awareness of inner feelings, an inclination towards variety, and intellectual curiosity. Individuals who score high on this scale tend to be motivated to discover their environment, ask questions and have a readiness to question authority. As such, it is hypothesized that a high level of Openness to Experience would be a positive predictor of Mindfulness, since these individuals approach their environment with awareness, which is not clouded by judgment. The manner in which a parent responds to their child in the first years of his or her life has a far reaching impact on their adult life, affecting their relationships, both intimate, social and professional, how they interpret information given to them from the environment and whether or not they view the world as a safe place, and whether or not people are trust worthy (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, Target, 2005). According to this theory of attachment, Parental Nurturance is also an important factor in determining an individual’s ability to contain his or her own emotions. From this, it is hypothesised that positive Parental Nurturance will be a good predictor of Mindfulness as individuals are able to be present in their environment in a trusting, non-judgmental way. The present study explores the predictive value of these variables for increased levels of Mindfulness. In light of the literature, it is thought that a low level of Trait Anxiety will have an inverse relationship with Mindfulness, and that Openness to Experience and Parental Nurturance will be positive predictors of Mindfulness. Method Design and Measures For the purpose of the present research study, a cross-sectional, correlational design was adopted. Information was thereby elicited from people in a number of different conditions, namely Trait Anxiety, Openness to Experience and Parental Nurturance (independent variables), and the dependent variable of Mindfulness. The following measures where used: Spielberger’s (1983) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used to assess Trait component of Anxiety. The STAI is designed to measure and distinguish between anxiety as a trait or as a state. Trait anxiety is a relatively stable personality trait and is marked by feelings of apprehension and tension, which is heightened in times of perceived threat. State anxiety, however, fluctuates and is heightened at times of stress and low in less stressful periods. This is a self-report, four-point rating scale, including 20 statements that ask people to describe how they feel at a particular moment. A high score is indicative of a high level of Trait Anxiety. Costa and McCrae’s (1991) NEO-FFI was used to assess Openness to Experience. This is a 60-item version of the NEO PI-R, which measures only the five factors of adult personality, however for the purpose of this study, only the twelve-item scale assessing Openness was employed. This is measure makes use of a five-point rating scale, where participants demonstrated the degree of agreement with given statements. A high score on this scale is indicative of a high level of Openness. Buri’s (1989) Parental Nurturance scale was used to assess this component of the study. This is a self-report, five-point Likert scale, where participants are required to describe positive and negative aspects of the parental nurturance they received. This is repeated twice, once for information pertaining to the mother and the second time for information relating to the father’s nurturance. An average of these combined scores is used as a final result, with a high score indicative of elevated levels of Parental Nurturance. Mindfulness was measured using the FMI (Walach, Buchheld, Buttenmuller, Kleinknecht, Schmidt, 2006). This is a short scale, 14-item, self-report measure, requiring participants to indicate their degree of agreement with a given, mindfulness direct statement. A high score on this measure is indicative of elevated levels of Mindfulness. Procedures, Participants and Ethics Participants were purposively sampled and personally invited by written invitation to participate in this study. Of the initial 153 participants, 123 were included in the present study. A detailed outline of the nature and details of the study, including a description of what would be required of them was provided in the initial invitation. Participants were assigned to one of three separated testing groups. On receiving consent, participants were handed a package of four questionnaires (STAI, NEO-FFI, Parental-Nurturance Inventory, FMI). Each questionnaire was marked with separate instructions for completion. Each participant completed the pack of questionnaires in the same order. Results Reliability of Measures A reliability analysis of the questionnaires was conducted, yielding satisfactory results indicating that the participants responded in a consistent manner to the questionnaires. The reliability coefficients were as follows: Mindfulness (ÃŽ ± = .78); Trait Anxiety (ÃŽ ± = .88); Openness (ÃŽ ± = .73); Parental Nurturance – mother (ÃŽ ± = .96); Parental Nurturance – father (ÃŽ ± = .96). Descriptive Statistics A descriptive analysis of the data obtained across the variables of Mindfulness, Trait Anxiety, Openness and Parental Nurturance is given in Table 1. As shown, the mean score for openness was 3.62, with a standard deviation (SD) of .55. The total results on the measure of Trait Anxiety yielded a mean score of 2.19, with a SD of .59. The mean score for Parental Nurturance was 3.71, with a SD of .79, and the Mindfulness mean is indicated at 2.69, with a SD of .46. Table 1: Presentation of Mean Scores and Standard Deviations from the Measures Employed to assess Openness to Experience, Trait Anxiety, Parental Nurturance and Mindfulness. Inferential Statistics The correlational analysis undertaken to explore the relationship between the dependent variable, Mindfulness, and the independent variables, Openness, Trait Anxiety and Parental Nurturance. These results are presented in Table 2. A significant, positive correlation was found between Mindfulness and Openness (r = .02, df = 3, p Table 2. Correlational Analysis Presenting the Relationship between Mindfulness and the Variables: Openness, Trait Anxiety and Parental Nurturance. * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (1-tailed). ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed). An analysis of the degree of variance (ANOVA) yielded F=19.496, which is indicative of a statistically insignificant effect. Therefore, there is no relationship between the constant and the independent variables as a group. With this information in hand, a regression was undertaken to see what differences exist in each group. These results are given in Table 3. Table 3. Presentation of the Individual Differences between Variables. From this it is clear that Trait Anxiety has the strongest, inverse relationship with Mindfulness, which is a negative relationship. Therefore, lower levels of Trait Anxiety are a strong predictor for Mindfulness. Openness is shown to be an insignificant predictor of Mindfulness, and Parental Nurturance is approaching significance. 4. Discussion The results of this study partially meet the predictions made. Openness to Experience and Parental Nurturance were not demonstrated as positive predictors of Mindfulness, although Parental Nurturance bordered on significance. Trait Anxiety was found to be a negative predictor of Mindfulness, where the lower the level of Trait Anxiety, the higher the level of Mindfulness. These results can be explained in terms of awareness to the environment. Individuals having a high level of Trait Anxiety are unable to be present in the moment since they are subject to cognitive bias, which inhibits the information they are able to process. According to Harvey, Watkins, Mansell and Shafran (2004) individuals with high levels of anxiety have explicit memory bias for concern-relative information. These authors make further reference to the Cognitive Avoidance Theory of Worry, and describe how people who worry excessively have, as a result reduced their awareness of aversive imagery, as well as physio logical and emotional responses, which inhibits emotional processes. Since individuals with high levels of Trait Anxiety are working hard at suppressing unpleasant experiences in terms of physiological, emotional and psychological responses, they are reducing their ability to be Mindful. A key component of Mindfulness is the ability to absorb the environment as a whole, without judgement and being completely present in the moment. Individuals with low levels of Trait Anxiety are able to process their environment without bias, they are not fearful and ashamed, and are not required to be vigilant and suspicious of the environment and others. The qualities are similar to those describe in the description of Mindfulness, and should therefore yield similar outcomes of ‘greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality’ Kabat-Zinn (1994, 4). From this study, it can be said that the variable of Trait Anxiety is a good predictor of the individual differences in Mindfulness. Further research into the predictive value of other personality variables may aid in the understanding of this phenomenon. Bibliography Baer, R.A. (2003). Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(2), 125-143. Brown, K.W. Ryan, R.M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 822-848. Buri, J. R. (1989). Self-esteem and appraisals of parental behavior. Journal of Adolescent Research, 4, 33-49. ** Costa, P. McCrae, R. (1991). The NEO-Five Factor Inventory – Form S. Odessa, Florida: Psychological Assessment Resources. Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E.L. Targer, M. (2005). Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self. London: Karnac. Harvey, A., Watkins, E., Mansell, W. Shafran, R. (2004). Cognitive Behavioural Processes Across Psychological Disorders: A transdiagnostic approach to research and treatment. Oxford University Press. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness meditation for everyday life. NY: Piatkus. McCrae, R.R. John, O.P. (1992). An introduction to the five-factor model and its implications. Journal of Personality, 60, 175-215. Roemer, L. (2002). Expanding our conceptualization of and treatment for generalized anxiety disorder: Integrating mindfulness/acceptance-based approaches with existing cognitive-behavioral models. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 9(1), 54-68. ** Spielberger, C. (1983). State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for adults. Redwood City, California: Mind Garden Walach, H., Buchheld, N., Buttenmuller V., Kleinknecht, N. Schmidt, S. (2006). Measuring mindfulness – the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI). Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 1543-1555. Williams, J.M.G., Teasdale, J.D., Segal, Z.V. Soulsby, J. (2000). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduces over-general autobiographical memory in formerly depressed patients. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 150-155. Witkiewitz, K., Marlatt, G.A. Walker, D. (2005). Mindfulness-Based relapse prevention for alcohol and substance use disorders. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 19(3), 211-228. Woodman, C.L., Noyes, R., Black, D.W., Schlosser, S. Yagia, S.J. (1999). A five year follow-up study of generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 187, 3-9. Zeattle, R.D. Rains, J.C. (1989). Group cognitive and contextual therapies in treatment for depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 45, 436-445. ** References borrowed from given notes.

The idea of facades across a range of texts Essay -- essays research p

The poem ‘The Ballad of Calvary Street’ by James Baxter, the film ‘American Beauty’ (directed by Sam Mendes and released in 1999), and the play ‘An Inspector Calls’ written by J.B. Priestley and performed at Circa Theatre in 2005, are all texts that share a similar theme. Although these three texts are different in terms of authorship and the medium through which the significant messages are communicated, what the texts do have in common is that they all convey ideas about how facades and superficial images of family life only lead to soullessness and domestic disorder. The unique approach that each text takes to this issue heightens the impact of the texts in every case, and allows the discussion of facades to become more pertinent in a time when domestic problems still mar our society. Baxter’s poem, ‘The Ballad of Calvary Street’, satirises the concept of facades and fake family life by ironically using religious imagery, and by utilising figurative language and clever diction to develop a rounded depiction of the sad characters at the heart of the poem. The poem discusses firstly the trellises that line Calvary Street (an image which conventionally would symbolise happy domestic life), and mentions the flowers that bloom â€Å"as bright as blood†. In addition to being an insidious suggestion that there is violence beneath the veneer of this seemingly respectable society, this phrase also alludes to the crucifixion of Christ. This is confirmed by the line that later describes the house as â€Å"an empty tomb†. This evocative metaphor hints that the house is a place of depression and emotional soullessness, and again links this home to the story of Christ; however, Baxter is comparing this house to Christ’s story only ironic ally. Through the use of religious language, Baxter is able to sardonically indicate that the values of forgiveness and compassion so often connected to The Bible and religion are nowhere to be found in this unhappy home. To emphasise that religion plays no role in this distorted version of family life, Baxter intersperses the religious language with mundane descriptions (for instance, he writes, â€Å"the afternoon goes, goes by, while angels harp above a cloud †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ) to show that spirituality – and indeed, all ideas of ethics and morality – are forsaken in this barren location. Baxter tells in the poem of how â€Å"two old souls go slowly mad†, and const... ...ley play ‘An Inspector Calls’ all scrutinise the nature of domestic life, and the facades that are developed to hide the true problems of our society. ‘The Ballad of Calvary Street’ looks at the manner in which individuality and excitement are suppressed by the maintenance of such a faà §ade, and emphasises that domestic relationships are devoid of any spirituality or ethical framework. ‘American Beauty’ focuses on the advantages of breaking free from the constraints of the faà §ade, and emphasises the freedom and openness that can be achieved once the duties of the faà §ade are forgone. ‘An Inspector Calls’ analyses the way a faà §ade can crumble when there is pressure and confusion to reveal people who are not as respectable as they seem. The issue of facades is very relevant to our society, at a time when, in New Zealand at least, domestic abuse and divorce are still pernicious problems. The issue is often explored across a range of texts and could even be argued to be a clichà © in current times. However, the uncompromising and honest manner in which these texts address the issue makes the concept of facades so intriguing and fresh, and causes these texts to gain added power and impact.

triggering an eating disorder :: essays research papers

* Triggers If people are vulnerable to eating disorders, sometimes all it takes to put the ball in motion is a trigger event that they do not know how to handle. A trigger could be something as seemingly innocuous as teasing or as devastating as rape or incest. Triggers often happen at times of transition, shock, or loss where increased demands are made on people who already are unsure of their ability to meet expectations. Such triggers might include puberty starting a new school, beginning a new job, death, divorce, marriage, family problems, breakup of an important relationship, critical comments from someone important, graduation into a chaotic, competitive world, and so forth. There is some evidence to suggest that girls who achieve sexual maturity ahead of peers, with the associated development of breasts, hips, and other physical signs of womanhood, are at increased risk of becoming eating disordered. They may wrongly interpret their new curves as "being fat" and feel uncomfortable because they no longer look like peers who still have childish bodies. Wanting to take control and fix things, but not really knowing how, and under the influence of a culture that equates success and happiness with thinness, the person tackles her/his body instead of the problem at hand. Dieting, bingeing, purging, exercising, and other strange behaviors are not random craziness. They are heroic, but misguided and ineffective, attempts to take charge in a world that seems overwhelming. Sometimes people such as diabetics who must pay meticulous attention to what they eat become vulnerable to eating disorders. A certain amount of obsessiveness is necessary for health, but when the fine line is crossed, healthy obsessiveness can quickly become pathological. Perhaps the most common trigger of disordered eating is dieting. It is a bit simplistic, but nonetheless true, to say that if there were no dieting, there would be no anorexia nervosa. Neither would there be the bulimia that people create when they diet, make themselves chronically hungry, overeat in response to that hunger, and then, panicky about weight gain, vomit or otherwise purge to get rid of the calories. Feeling guilty and perhaps horrified at what they have done, they swear to "be good.

Essay --

Connie is the prime illustration of a "fancy girl on the boulevard flagging down all of the flashy cars. She is beautiful as she fixes her nail cuticles; her lipstick is suitable to make one fiend for more. However, she soon realizes that she'll never escape the allure of a pervert yelling at her door. In the short story â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been†? By Joyce Carol Oats, the main character Connie possesses the features of a woman, but is only fifteen. Surprisingly, she is searching for freedom from her dysfunctional and unsupportive family. The absence of a father figure and the ongoing conflict with her mother and sister can be regarded as the cause of Connie's emptiness that directed her search for independence. The relationship that Connie has with her mother is one that involves verbal assault. Connie’s mother never speaks well of Connie and is unkind to her. In comparison, Connie is disrespectful towards her mother and doesn’t view her as a noble mother. The primary cause for this contentious relationship is because her mother is envious that "her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie† (25). The relationship with her Sister June is also spiteful because their mother praises June much more than Connie. June contributes to the household while Connie does not and only cares about her daydreams, music, and appearance. June represents everything Connie despises such as responsibility, professionalism, and dullness. June serves as the opposing character to which Connie is continuously compared to. Nonetheless, their sibling rivalry causes a great deal of hostility. On top of the quarrelsome relationships, the household lacks a father figure since he wo rks during the day, arrives home late each e... ...d the narrow circle of her consciousness and allows the story to transition into a general allegorical level. Using the narrative point of view establishes credibility in what we read and allows the reader to come up with their own perception of the story Family plays a pivotal role in everybody's life. However, a vast majority of adolescents do not realize the importance of family until they are adults and reach a level of maturity. Unfortunately for Connie it was too late, and she never cherished things of little value until her life or family's was on the line. Although she didn't have the ideal family and had constant conflicts with them, she truly loved them as she sacrificed her life for theirs. One can only ask the question of how the outcome would have turned out if Connie’s family would have shown her the love that she was in the wrong places searching for.

Writing Sentences and Paragraphs

The Journey to Medicine I want to be a Medical Administrative Assistant at Vanderbilt hospital to honor my late sister and my parents. When I was 18 years old my sister Debbie died from cancer. The majority of my childhood and teenage years were spent in hospitals and the majority of my parent's money went to paying the doctors. During this period of my life I thought medicine was doing more harm than good. Because I was older at the time of Debbie's death my perception about medicine changed and I became motivated to find out why medicine costs so much and why some procedures cost more than others?So I studied hard, became Valedictorian of my class, earning a full scholarship to Vanderbilt University and now I'm ready to become a member of the Vanderbilt hospital community. It would be a great honor to secure one of the three Medical Administrative Assistants positions. The Perfect Fit. Megan you are an excellent organizer, you can flexible in your assignments, you work well with ot her people and you always find creative ways to get the work done. Mr. Braxton, the boss of PhreeRide, is looking for an assistant and you would be perfect.The company employees several hundred writers of all types and it also distributes magazines like Kaptur, the one you like so much. The boss is a work oriented gentleman but he will allow for creative solutions as long as the projects are completed on time. He would love to know about your multitasking abilities with Late Eats and how you always treated customers with respect when you worked at Diamonds. Megan, I will mention you to my boss and when you apply for the position don't be afraid to tell the interviewer that I recommended you.

Bereavement and Grief: Counsellling and Therapy

Bereavement and grief impacts people on many levels: emotionally, biologically, sexually, economically, socially, and spiritually. In essence, all aspects of a bereaved person’s life are affected by grief. The lack of emphasis on the personal toll of therapy may lead to unprepared therapists; conversely, having a personal preparedness for dealing with death issues, rather than simply being trained in tactics, seems to predict more effective work with grieving persons and improved self-efficacy on the part of therapists.This paper provides extensive research on the bereavement and grief therapies. First, it examines various definitions of grief and bereavement and differences between them. Then a variety of theories related to these processes are scrutinised and presented. Then different therapeutical approaches coping with bereavement and grief are explored. After that subject of this study is examined through lenses of two classical psychotherapy theories: Person-Centred and Cognitive Therapy. Finally, an integrated approach based on previous ones is presented.Some conclusive remarks are also added. Definition of Bereavement and Grief Morgan (2000) and traced the words bereavement and grief back to the French word ravir and even further, to its root, the old Frisian word reva, which means to steal or to rob. Thus, in experiencing loss, one feels an acute sense of deprivation of a significant person in one’s life. Morgan (2000) stated that grief is the price we pay for love; it is the price we pay for security; it is the price we pay for a sense of warmth and for a sense that our lives have meaning (p.1). Simply expressed, â€Å"grief is the little kid inside of us protesting. Grief is that little kid inside of us thinking that if I yell loudly enough, if I scream loudly enough maybe my loved one will come back† (p. 1). While the terms grief and bereavement may be viewed as synonymous, some authors make a distinction between them, generally defining bereavement as â€Å"the objective situation of having lost someone significant† (Stroebe, Hansson, Stroebe, & Schut 2001, p. 6).Grief is defined as the reaction to bereavement, the â€Å"severe and prolonged distress that is a response to the loss of an emotionally important figure† (Weiss 2001, p. 47). Parkes (1970) offers a more detailed definition: Grief, it seems, is a complex and time-consuming process in which a person gradually changes his view of the world and the places and habits by means of which he orientates and relates to it. It is a process of realization, of making psychologically real an external event which is not desired and for which coping plans do not exist (p.465). While grief is the internal experience of thoughts and feelings in response to the loss, bereavement can be described as the loss itself, and the process that expresses the internal experience of grief (Worden 2002). Thus, a person may be bereaved in having experienced a los s, but not directly experiencing grief, as in the stage of denial (Worden 2002). Bereavement is characterized most often by emotions of sadness, anger, guilt, loneliness and insecurity (Kubler-Ross 1969). Becker (1973) asserted his belief in three possible responses to death.The first response is to deny the reality of death, to act as though it will not happen or is not important. The second response is to become mentally ill, to engage with death in a way that disregards societal and legal boundaries. The third response is to be heroic, to live life fully and to leave a legacy that upholds life and that honours one’s existence (Becker, 1973). Original Theories of Bereavement Morgan (2000) stated that grief impacts people on many levels: emotionally, biologically, sexually, economically, socially, and spiritually. In essence, all aspects of a bereaved person’s life are affected by grief.Freud's (1917) seminal bereavement paper, â€Å"Mourning and Melancholia,† was the first to propose the necessity of doing grief work, which he defined as a cathartic process of reviewing and then severing the psychological bonds to the deceased, in order to create room for a new attachment to a live person; â€Å"a withdrawal of the libido from this object and a displacement of it on to a new one† (p. 249). Stroebe (1992) more recently defined grief work as â€Å"a cognitive process of confronting a loss, of going over the events before and at the time of death, of focusing on memories and working towards detachment from the deceased† (pp. 19-20).Freud (1917) compared melancholia, which he considered pathological, to the normal process of mourning; he argued that while both share the same features of dejection, loss of interest, inhibition, and loss of capacity to love, melancholia was distinguished by its punitive and painful view of the self, during which the grieving person expects punishment (a belief which may reach delusional proportio ns). â€Å"In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself (p. 246). The pathology becomes the conflict within the ego, as opposed to the normal struggle to reconcile the loss of the object.Freud introduced ambivalence as a necessary precursor to melancholia, implying that the quality of one's prior relationship to the deceased was an important factor. The ambivalence toward the lost object created a maelstrom in the grieving individual, who struggles to both detach and remain attached simultaneously. His assumption was that all people need to do the â€Å"work† of grieving, where â€Å"every single one of the memories and situations of expectancy which demonstrate the libido's attachment to the lost object is met by the reality that the object no longer exists† (Freud 1917, p. 255).Freud believed that the ego then became â€Å"free and uninhibited† (p. 245) once the grief work was completed, and ready to form a new attachment. While these were theoretical constructs, based on Freud's observations of grieving persons, they were assumed to be representative of the process of grieving and had implications for the bereavement field for many decades afterward. Freud himself even stressed that further study was needed to identify those who may be predisposed to develop melancholia, and that his paper was actually not addressing grieving, per se; he was exploring dimensions of depression.The distinction between normal and pathological grieving was further explicated by Lindemann (1944), who interviewed 101 bereaved individuals from both an inpatient and outpatient population. Lindemann described the trajectory of normal grief as a fairly comparable phenomenon across patients, characterized by â€Å"(1) somatic distress, (2) preoccupation with the image of the deceased, (3) guilt, (4) hostile reactions, and (5) loss of patterns of conduct† (p. 142).Lindemann observed that it was not unusual for people experiencing a normal grief reaction to resolve the immediate symptoms within four to six weeks with the care of a psychiatrist. Lindemann (1944) viewed morbid grief reactions as a distortion of the normal grieving process. These pathological responses included a delay or distorted reaction to the loss (i. e. , overactivity, or no observable change in affect), somatic reactions that mimic the illness of the deceased, hostility against those perceived as responsible (i.e. , the loved one's physician), prolonged isolation from social supports, and intense self-persecution and desire to punish oneself, including suicidal ideation. Lindemann (1944) defined grief work as â€Å"emancipation from the bondage to the deceased, readjustment to the environment in which the deceased is missing, and the formation of new relationships† (p. 143). He believed that an obstacle to the successful resolution of grief was the avoidance of expressed emotional distress.Lindemann seemed perhaps overly optimistic by stating that a person could be assisted through a morbid grief reaction in eight to ten interview sessions, yet this may have been seen as a welcome departure from Freud's (1917) statement that mourning is â€Å"long-drawn-out and gradual† (p. 256). Furthermore, this could have been a precursor to the studies supporting the profile of the resilient individual (discussed in greater detail below). Anderson (1949) described the symptomology of 100 hospitalised bereaved patients under his care, who exhibited anxiety, hysteria, agitated and anergic depression, and hypomania.Anderson clearly endorsed the pathology of a delayed grief reaction, stating, â€Å"It is obvious that such states of mind will pervert, distort and prolong the natural process of grief in reference to patients who were unable to cry or who appeared elated. Anderson (1949) also believed the necessity of understanding the bereaved patient's relationship to the deceased, and endorsed that an ambivalent attachment would produce a conflicted and prolonged bereavement process.

Planning Function within the Different Levels of Management in Organizations Essay

Management of a business involves the four general functions of making plans, organizing, exercising leadership, and fostering coordination. Planning constitutes the process of determining goals and objectives, identifying strategies and techniques, and accessing or allocating the necessary resources to support implementation. Plans integrate the competencies and resources of the organization relative to the map of the actions designed and intended to achieve goals and objectives. Daft, 2000) As a fundamental management process, planning occurs at the different levels of the business organization. Planning at Different Levels of Management Management levels can be hierarchical or functional. Hierarchical levels of management refer to the chain of command in the organizational structure reflecting the designation of decision-making, reporting and accountability. Functional levels of management pertain to management roles according to function. Daft, 2000) Generally, there are two hierarchical levels of management, the senior management and front line management. Senior management takes charge of strategic planning since the focus is conceptual, directional and visionary plans encompassing the direction of future actions, the expected outcomes, the availability and utilization of resources, and contingency ideas for issues likely to emerge. The thrust of planning at this level is long-term outcomes. Front line management handles operational planning because the focus is specific, measurable, tactical, and applicable plans covering daily activities and issues such as task assignments, quotas, deadlines, funding, and other day-to-day issues requiring planning. The focus of front line management planning is short-term expectations and outcomes. Although differing in the nature of planning functions, strategic plans provide guidance to operations plan while operational plans influence future strategic planning. Daft, 2000) Functional management involves a wide network of horizontal and vertical levels usually designated into departments and sub-departments or working teams distinguished according to functions. There could be a number of departments in an organization including sales or marketing departments, purchasing department, accounting department, human resources department, and other departments depending on the nature, scope and scale of operation of the business organizatio n. Planning at the department level depends on the respective functions so that the scope of planning covers the designated functions. The sales or marketing department focuses on marketing planning and advertising planning covering goals such as brand equity building, value creation for consumers, distribution, promotional plans, and pricing. The human resource department engages in leadership development, management development, career development, performance, staffing, and training and development planning. The other departments take charge of planning on other function areas. Daft, 2000) The functions of these departments are interconnected since planning done by the marketing department has a link to the competence of human resources especially leadership. Within the departments is a hierarchy, with department managers or directors handling strategic planning and the managers of the different sub-departments or working teams handling operational planning with the plans focusing on functions. Integration of Various Kinds of Plans The overlap between hierarchical and functional management planning reflects the interconnections of various plans. There are also a number of practical reasons for integrating different plans. One is the need to translate a vision and goal into action to support fulfillment (Griffin & Thomas, 1999). In the case of strategic and operational plans, strategic plans are conceptual in nature providing a guide or picture of the expected outcome while operational plans are practical by focusing on particular actions and techniques that support movement towards the achievement of envisioned concepts (Daft, 2000). As such, integrating strategic and operational plans ensure that action finds guidance from the vision and goals translate into specific actions directed towards actualization. Another is the likely interconnectedness of plans. With regard to functional management, a plan requires alignment with other plans to ensure successful realization. (Griffin & Thomas, 1999). Customer service forms part of marketing planning and human resource planning so that training plans under the HR department should coincide with marketing plans for value creation. Last is the essence of organizations as a single unit made up of different parts that need to work together to sustain the body. Successful organizations are those with aligned or integrated plans. Real Life Application Successful planning doe not only require integration but also relevance to changing market conditions. Strategic plans could change in order to make the organization more responsive to issues. An example is the shift in the strategic plan of Wal-Mart from the vision of a retail store offering the lowest prices to consumers to a store providing employment to thousands of people in impoverished areas (Wal-Mart, 2008). This came as a response to the corporate social responsibility issue of its payment of wages below the minimum wage and resistance to the call of worker groups for unionization. By shifting its strategic plan, Wal-Mart reaffirms its commitment to corporate social responsibility by helping impoverished families with jobs created by establishing stores in these communities. By focusing strategic plans towards communities, the company is able to express its concern not only towards consumers but also to its present and future employees who are members of the community. Conclusion Planning is an important aspect of organizational management. To succeed in planning, it is important to understand how planning occurs at the different management levels of the organization, the importance of integrative planning, and the consideration relevant and responsive planning by adjusting to changes in business context.

How effective an adaptation of the play Macbeth is the film ‘Macbeth on the Estate’?

Macbeth on the Estate is a modern adaptation of Macbeth. It is set on a modern, run-down housing estate in Birmingham. The major changes from the play are the setting and the characters. There are much fewer noble qualities about the people and places shown. Instead, the setting is very run-down and poor. The characters are also corrupt and indulgent. A lot of the blame for the bad things that happen in the play seems to be given to characters. For example, the possibility that the witches control Macbeth, and he is not in control is implied to be untrue by suggesting that the effects that seem to be supernatural are simply caused by drugs and the poor conditions. There are also some things done that cannot be done in a theatre, such as camerawork to direct the audience. I believe that the film is a reasonable good conversion of the play into a modern film. I believe that it managed to portray the meaning of the original in a modern way that is easy to understand for modern people, as well as making suggestions about the story. I like how every aspect of Shakespearean world was converted into something of the modern world, for example the castle being converted into a social club. What I don't like about it is the fact that the language wasn't changed from the original text. Although it is quite important to keep the film similar to the original, so as not to forget that it is the same play, I think it made the film too much like the original play. I believe that if the setting is changed, the modernisation should be completed by making the language more modern. The point of the film is, after all, to give a modern slant. The language is the most out-of-date part and the most difficult-to-understand part of the play, and I believe that modern language should have been included. I will answer the question of how the ideas have been modernised mainly by giving various examples and explanation of what has been shown in their modernisation. I will answer the question of how the beginning and ending of the play have been changed by describing both beginnings and endings, explaining the changes made and also by giving reasons for changes. I will discuss the change in theatricality by first describing the differences between what can be done in film compared with theatre, and then describing and explaining the particular changes. I will discuss the characters by giving a description of the general change in the characters, and why this is, and then by analysing the change in each character individually, with possible reasons for these changes. I will then discuss how and why the adaptation loses its social and historical meaning and adds a meaning of its own. Shakespeare plays are often modernised to make them more accessible to modern people. This is so that people now can understand the plays, and can understand the meanings behind the plays, because they have been put into a modern context that we can relate to. Some ideas are not actually just translated; they are completed changed, or some are added. For example, the idea of Macbeth being totally evil is changed. Because this modernisation is a film, which means that it has certain ways to direct the audience in a certain way, a select few of the ideas from the original play are translated. An example of these is the idea that Macduff is a complete hero. Although I do not like the fact that only a few ideas are translated, I believe that on the whole, the few that have been translated have been translated well. The beginning and ending of a play or film can be very important for the meaning behind it. Beginnings give the audience a place to start from, to understand the story. They introduce the story and characters, and give the producers a place to start the story from. Endings are useful to round off the story, and give the producers a place to end the story. They are also useful to round off the story for the audience, whether it is a resolved ending or a cliffhanger. The very beginning scene of the play involves the three witches discussing Macbeth. This gives and impression of them controlling the plot, and makes this scene seem like the original source of Macbeth's evil. The beginning of the film is very different to that of the play. Macduff says an invented dialogue, although the audience does not know who he is at the time. The beginning has a lot of subtle references to the setting and the meanings. Macduff recites the new speech on a large wasteland. When the camera first shows this setting, before Macduff enters the scene, there is nothing restricting the view, and the whole of the frame is used, including the very extremities, so there is no particular focus point. This makes suggestions about the idea of confusion and the lack of focus in the story. The fact that the camera fades in re-enforces this with a feeling of fog. This barren landscape could be a battlefield, possibly like one in the play, reflecting the war-like culture. The fact that we don't know what it is re-enforces the idea of confusion, and also the idea about the audience deciding themselves about the true meaning of the play. The shot of Macduff is very close to him, and he looks right into the camera. This gives the impression that he is talking directly to the audience. This and the fact that Macduff is in the very first scene, rather than the witches, give an impression that Macduff is controlling the whole story, instead of the supernatural. I believe that Macduff is used as part of the way that the director makes him a larger part of the story, to ask questions about his true character. There are many differences between a play and a film. The main one is that with a play, the audience can interact much more, and can decide the story for themselves. This mainly comes from lack of direction, and the ability to imagine elements of the story. One way in which this is done is by not directing the audience's view. In a film, because there is a camera, the audience's view can be directed onto a particular character or object. This means that the audience's view can also be sub-consciously directed towards a particular meaning to the film. In a play, on the other hand, the audience is free to look at whichever characters they wish, to watch their actions and reactions to other events. This adds an element of the audience being able to decide what really happens in the play, and being able to decide which ideas are true, as well as the director being able to direct the audience to parts which show their own feelings. Another way in which is this is achieved is the difference in how the setting is portrayed. A film can be shot in different locations, making the setting much more believable, and making it seem much more like the characters are in the place where they are supposed to be. One again, this allows the audience to be directed, and shown exactly what the director believes the setting is, leaving no room for imagining it. A play has a much less vivid, defined setting. It is demonstrated by symbolic references to the actual things, meaning that the audience has to imagine them more. This means that a film is better if the director wants to deliberately highlight a particular idea to the audience, and wants to tell them something that they believe in. A play is better for giving a more open story, in which the audience is independent, and decides what is true about the story. Although the setting and characters are updated in the film, the language is not. As I have already mentioned, personally, I do not believe that this is very effective, because I think that if some parts are modernised, all the parts should be, although it is quite important to keep the conversion similar to the original. Tension can be shown very well in film, by using particular camera angles or special effects. This means that the tension in the film is shown much better, which is good, but only some elements of tension are properly shown, because the director has chosen to use only certain ideas. Because of the differences between film and theatre, the audience can also be directed towards certain elements of tension. In film, visual images can be used very well, because it is a visual medium, by using special effects. I do not believe that visual effects are used to a great extent in Macbeth on the Estate. The images used are not particularly used much more than they would be in a play. I do not believe that the potential for visual effects is used fully. Instead, the film loses some of the quality of the language from the play, which is an oral medium, making the film a less effective adaptation. It may be true, though, that the director has chosen to do this because what she wants to tell us is done much more subtly by using changes in the characters and setting. The soliloquies in the film are not adapted from the play very much. No elements that are exclusive to film are used, such as visual effects, making the soliloquies very similar to the originals. This is again because the director only wanted to make subtle changes. The actor can change their character by showing different body language, for example facial expression, and can use different tones to change the meaning of what the character is saying. The way that an actor can change the character is subtle, by changing subtle things not mentioned in the script. The part can be changed in many different ways. Some of these are quite significant, such as changing the original lines, adding soliloquies and changing things that are described directly in the original script. Others are less significant, and only involve changing parts that are not directly expressed in the original script, for example set locations and body language for the actors to use to help slightly change the emotions and related things, which make up the characters. The main alteration to the characters was to make them seem corrupt and not noble, to put them and society partly to blame for everything. It is mainly the characters that are very noble in the play who are changed, to make them seem less so. The major of these is King Duncan. In the play, he was known as a good and much-loved king. In the film, although he is liked a lot by the main characters, he has lost his nobility and kingliness. Instead of his castle, he has a social club, and he is very indulgent. Although all of the characters drink and smoke, he does these to more extent, and he almost never seen without a pint of beer. As well as having un-noble habits, he is also quite a sleazy character. For example, he hassles Lady Macbeth and is unpleasant to some of his servants. He is the main element in the way that the new director shows the environment around Macbeth as being corrupt and his character is changed more extremely than the others, in this way, because he is seen as the figurehead of the nobility in the play, being the most noble. Duncan's son, Malcolm, seems to be changed to also reflect the corrupt environment, but not as much. As in the play, he does what his father does, and copies him, but this is different in the film. He joins in with the indulgence, but this could just be the result of the world around him. Like in the play, he is quite good-natured, and a good person. The director could have used this to make suggestions about young people, not just now, but always, compared to adults. I believe that the fact that she shows the young people joining in with what the adults are doing, implies that they copy what the people around them do, and they quickly become just like the rest of society. The fact that he is a good person, and is not like his father suggests that people are born good and not corrupt, though, and are not like their environment until it indoctrinates them, and it becomes normality to them. This is one of the suggestions that the director makes about society that is true about today and Shakespeare's day. Donaldbain rarely appears in the film, and he is only slightly changed, in the same way as Malcolm. Banquo is changed much in the same way as the other people around the royalty; he has also lost nobility and is part of the corrupt society. Fleance remains more or less the same as in the play, but he has more of an element of innocence. He is younger than he seems to be in the film, and he has a very close relationship with his father, relying on him heavily. He seems to be very distressed by the events in the story, and there is strange thing at the end of the film: he points his hand at the camera as if it is a gun, and fires. This could be to show that he has been indoctrinated by the corrupt society, and he is no longer fearful of firing a gun, and killing someone, because Macduff shot Macbeth. I think that he could symbolise the pure good in the story which struggles to survive in the terrible environment, and then in the end has to give up and be lost into the corruption. Macduff is changed the most in relation to the other characters. In the play, he is Scottish, like most of the other characters, meaning that his background does not make him stand out from the others. On the other hand, in the film, all of the other characters are changed into English people from Birmingham. He, on the contrary, is from the West Indies, and so stands out from the other characters due to his background. This is to make him more obviously a very significant character in the story. The director has done this because she wants to portray Macduff as more of a main character than in the film, and wants to ask us about whether or not he is really as heroic as he is shown as in the play. This was because the film explores the good and evil in all of the characters more than in the play. In the play, Macduff was very blatantly shown as a purely good character, though in the film, we are made to question ourselves about whether Macduff is really as honourable as he might seem. The director probably did this because she wanted to show that there can be evil in everyone, and no one is either pure good or pure evil. Making Macduff stand out more helps illuminate what she wanted to convey to the audience. Lady Macduff is one of the characters who has been changed relatively little: in the play, she is quite a good person, and does not have too much character that is shown; also in the film she has little character shown, other than her kindness and motherliness. Although she joins in with the corrupt society a bit, she only does to moderation, and seems quite innocent. I believe that this was because the director did not want to dilute her messages, and the characters that could not help her portray her messages and did not have much significance were kept quite bland, so as not to take away the focal point from the more important characters. The innocence may have slightly helped a suggestion of feminism. The three witches are changed a lot from the film: they have become three children. I believe that the director chose to do this to help her argument about the corrupt society; she implies that they may not really have any powers, and they just cause the characters to believe in the supernatural, and so carry out the predictions themselves. This implication can be valid to show that today's society is corrupt, and may have changed since Shakespeare's time, but it could also be used to disagree with Shakespeare, and accuse the supposed supernatural occurrences of his day on the general nature of people. Lady Macbeth is one of the few characters that have had less blame put on her than in the play for the events in the story. The audience is made to feel sympathy for her, unlike in the play, which is done in a number of ways, for example by inventing something about some lost child. The changes to her are all part of the general trend that the characters' personalities are diluted into being partially good and partially bad, to make everyone, and our society, to blame for the events. I believe that the director very strongly and effectively puts across this message, and makes Lady Macbeth seem more innocent very well. This also suggests a hint of feminism. There seems to be a hint of feminism in the conversion because the female characters are shown as much more innocent that the male characters, but it is not a very strong hint. Macbeth is also relieved of some blame. In the play, he was portrayed as a thoroughly evil man, and his evil deeds were blamed solely him or the witches controlling him. He is also part of the suggestion that society creates evil, and just does what he does because of his society. The characters are mainly changed to help put across the message that the director wants to give the audience about the story. She wants to imply certain things about the individual characters, but she also uses this to give a new impression about society. Although she wants to make implications about how today's society, and how it would change the situation in the story, she may also want to make implications about timeless aspects of society that have always existed, and possibly to disagree with Shakespeare about how society was then. Although Shakespeare made a great deal of suggestions about society, I think the new director has taken the story further, and made new ones, as well as making alterations and her own touches to the original ones. Although the film seems quite bland and without many of these meanings at first, and it is difficult for the audience to realise these subtle messages when first seen, I think that she has been very successful in showing us her personal feelings about the play and in making suggestions to us about society, as long as the audience can pick them up. Any modernisation of the play inevitably results in the loss of some of its social and historical significance. This is because to understand what is meant by the play, people would need to know what the world was like at the time, and what was happening. When a play is modernised, it stops being about that world, and is about the modern world. There are a lot of modern issues in the film. Some of these are similar to those found in the original play and are only modified, and some are completely new, and are just relevant to modern life. An example of one which is only modified is the violence. The film shows that violence still exists, but in compliance with the idea of there being no nobility, the fighting is changed into dishonourable gang warfare. The modernisation is equally as much about the original play and modern society. Most of the messages behind it concern both in different ways. The best example of an idea, which complies with both, is the idea of no nobility. It works to do with the modern world because it could imply that the nobility is lost, but it could also imply that it never existed, and the people in Shakespeare's time were just as bad as now. My argument is mainly about how the director has used lots of minor alterations to tell us of her opinion of the original story. I believe that she has used the modernisation to make it easier for modern people to understand, but also as a tool to suggest that what Macbeth does is not entirely the fault of the people who were seen as completely evil before. I think she was very successful in taking Shakespeare's meanings on further, and developing new, separate ideas, as well as some contrasting with him, for example, not showing the main characters as completely good or evil, which I believe adds a very good personal touch to it, and shows very subtly, yet effectively, her personal beliefs. The main ideas I believe she wanted to put across are: nobody is completely to blame; everyone has no evil and some good; a hint of feminism; the world of Shakespeare's time exists with us today; there could be other possibilities of why the events in Macbeth happened, that Shakespeare did not include. I think that the film can be appreciated on many different levels: as a simple modernisation for easy understanding, and also as a subtly constructed message about the personal feelings of one person, which can be enjoyed by the observant audience, and can also prompt us to think about what we think about the story, and to wonder what it is really about.