Frankenstein and Dorian Gray Essay Example

Frankenstein and Dorian Gray Paper The nineteenth century was a time of fantastic development and change, both scientifically and psychologically, which would have placed a dramatic effect on the writing of Mary Shelley and Oscar Wilde. The new science suggested that we do not know the universe, that what we know suggests a struggle, and that human beings take part in that struggle because their minds are clouded by unconscious motivations. In a period when the distinctions between the disciplines were less rigid, especially in science art and philosophy; science was considered to hold the key to social progress. Incredible discoveries were occurring; in 1802 Galvani showed that running a current through a frog produces a twitch-endanger life, and in 1803, Aldani attached a battery to the corpse of a criminal which led to it moving and one of its eyes moving. These breakthroughs would have inspired Shelley enormously. Shelley was brought up by wealthy, middle-class parents and had a respectable, almost idyllic childhood. Her father, William Godwin was both a philosopher and a novelist. He had a passion for science and Marys childhood was dominated by her love to roam around her fathers extensive library. Shelley wanted to speak of the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror, and so created a gothic novel. Mary Shelley was influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), a poet and critic, who deemed it important to address scientific issues in his work. Shelleys biggest inspiration was her husband, Percy Shelley, who had an intensive excitement for nature, the supernatural and science, all themes that vividly run through Frankenstein. He was interested in live matter emerging from dead matter. We will write a custom essay sample on Frankenstein and Dorian Gray specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Frankenstein and Dorian Gray specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Frankenstein and Dorian Gray specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Critic Mario Praz expresses that All Mrs Shelley did was to provide a passive reflection of some of the wild fantasies which, as it were, hung in the air about her. Oscar Wilde, the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, was mainly influenced by the psychological development in the nineteenth century. Until the 1880s, psychology was widely regarded as a branch of philosophy, before it developed as an independent scientific discipline. Psychology borders on various other fields including neuroscience and artificial intelligence; factors of which Mary Shelley also bases her writing upon. The progress of psychology, and most prominently Sigmund Freuds psychoanalysis would have been a huge influence on Wildes writing. Oscar Wildes tutor, Reverend JP Mahaffy, was a huge inspiration to him, along with his parents who were noted authors. The imprisonment of Wilde had a huge affect on his writing and could possibly have led him to develop the sinister character of Dorian Gray. Victor Frankenstein could be described as too impatient, ambitious and self-centred to accept the slow pace of science and evolution, which could explain his despair before the creation of the monster. By using chemicals to put together his creature, he short-circuits the natural cycle required for the creation of new life, and the result of his experiment is, in effect, an evolutionary step backwards. The Modern Prometheus, as Frankenstein is sometimes referred, originates from the Latin Prometheus, who makes an unnatural man from clay and water to directly repel against the laws of nature. The figure of Prometheus was the subject of a poem published by Lord Byron in 1816 who explored and harnessed the secrets of nature. Shelley immensely uses the theme of Prometheus throughout Frankenstein, and Victors creation of the monster is almost identical to that. These two aspects of the Prometheus story, creation and transgression, complicate the image of the scientist represented by Victor Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein could be compared with Dr Faustus, a man who desires to know the secrets of the universe, and sells his soul to Satan. He becomes power-hungry but does not know how to handle the power. The Faust legend raises the question of eternal damnation due to the unpardonable sin of despair. Victor relinquishes his family for the pursuit of secret knowledge, and, working in isolation, creates a creature that he abandons. This can also be compared to Oscar Wildes Dorian Gray. Wilde was very familiar with the Faust legend through popular culture and so incorporated its themes into his writing. Lord Henry can be associated with the devil, or at least the devils advocate, and Dorian Gray the innocent, unwitting, insecure boy who has his flaws manipulated by Lord Henry. He persuades nai ve Dorian, to exchange his soul for eternal youth which in turn leads him to become greedy and out of control. Mary Shelley was reading the book Emile previous to writing Frankenstein. The novel argues that mans nature is harmless, but is made evil by societys perception. The monster, although visually distorted and horrendous, was not born a bad person. A parents, or creators job is to support and care for their creation, which Victor failed to do. Inspiration for this storyline may have originated from Marys home life. Both Percys and her father simultaneously disowned them for falling in love with one another, similar to Victor and the monster, on their departure she began to write Frankenstein. The theme of the monster in man is very apparent in both Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In Shelleys novel, the monster is used as a symbol for our own inner ugliness. Although it appears to be the cause of fear and prejudice, it could stand for a hideous and violent reaction to something unknown and different. This is similarly obvious in Wildes Dorian Gray, as Dorian is an envied, beautiful man, but on discovery that he will one day lose his assets and look different, his personality significantly alters and he transforms into a monster. Another theme that is present in both novels is that of discovery. Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein and the monster all begin by expressing their desires to discover. The monster has humble aims to discover motives, but the others have lofty ambitions and are prepared to sacrifice human relationships to fulfil them. Dorian Grays only motive is to sustain his youth, but by doing this embarks on an incredible journey which enables him to discover himself, and release the monstrous characteristics he possess inside him.

Meniscus Definition and Examples (Science)

Meniscus Definition and Examples (Science) A meniscus is a phase boundary that has been curved because of  surface tension.  In the case of water and most  liquids, the meniscus is concave. Mercury produces a convex meniscus. Meniscus in Chemistry A concave meniscus forms when the liquid molecules are more attracted to the container via adhesion than to each other via cohesion. A convex meniscus occurs when the liquid particles are more attracted to each other than to the walls of the container. Measure the meniscus at eye level from the center of the meniscus. For a concave meniscus, this it the lowest point or bottom of the meniscus. For a convex meniscus, this is the uppermost or top point of the liquid. A meniscus is seen between the air and water in a glass of water. The water is seen to curve up the edge of the glass. Meniscus in Physics In physics, the term meniscus can either apply to the boundary between a liquid and its container or to a type of lens used in optics. A meniscus lens is a convex-concave lens in which one face curves outward, while the other face curves inward. The outward curve is greater than the inward curve, the lens acts as a magnifier and has a positive focal length. Meniscus in Anatomy In anatomy and medicine, a meniscus is a crescents in humans are found in the wrist, knee, temporomandibular, and sternoclavicular joints. In contrast, an articular disk is a structure that completely divides a joint cavity.

Radio Frequency Identification Tags Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Radio Frequency Identification Tags - Essay Example They proved that the once-thought virus-safe RFID tags are prone to virus attack even if the memory seems too small to contain all the information needed by the virus to ruin the technology. This research is a call for the RFID designers to take extra care in engineering the chips' code. Since the databases vary about their built in security, the designers should focus on the details of the lines of source code which numbers up to millions. Around 6 to 16 mistakes out of a thousand lines of code mean less security and vulnerability to virus attack. This is important because RFID tags have promising uses in industries such as groceries and airports, wherein important information are all stored in databases. The uses include tracking and inventories, storage of information about personal and financial matters, and property monitoring. Interference of the RFID tags using the viruses does not affect only the system, but the larger scale of the industries concerned. False tags can be used on an item to deliver a virus in a properly working system. This virus can then replicate its illegal code on the databases and corrupt the files. (Kirk, 2006). Privacy of information stored in RFID tags should start at the design and engineering stage. The RFID tags must be designed in such a way that it holds the minimum amount of information possible, without compromising its function and performance. Manufacturers must find a way to decrease the linkability of the tags with confidential data (Cavoukian, 2006). Since RFID tags carry important information, it is very usefule not only in identification but for access into different databases as well. The Senate of the California State had passed a legislation which bans RFID tags in government transactions and documentations. Integration of RFID in any form of identification card, license, and document issued by the state. This prohibition is applicable also in the use of RFID by the employees for security access. (Hook, 2005). The University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Science created a website called the RFID Guardian. The site aims to help RFID users secure their privacy. The website, www.rfidguardian.org, offers a free video about the function of RFID Guardian and how its system works (Faculty of Science). Data and identity theft The RFID tag user should be responsible for the information covered by his tag. He should definitely be in control of the information his RFID tag carries. The same goes for institutions and organizations. They, therefore, should allot resources for training their employees so that the organization as a whole would be able to comply with privacy and security guidelines. They should limit the use of RFID in the disclosure of information by assessing their files and classifying them according to their relevance and confidentiality. Data including those of personal and confidential nature, and those data containing dispersible information, should be updated and accurate. This could prevent subsequent transfer of information using RFID tags from one system to another, which makes the information vulnerable to illegal attacks. There should also be consent from an individual concerned whether or not certain information about him can be disclosed from his RFID tag (Cavoukian, 2006). Due to the important data stored in RFID tags, the technology attracts unauthorized individuals to invade somebody else's privacy. These illegally involved people can

Managing the marketing process of Jims Cleaning Essay

Managing the marketing process of Jims Cleaning - Essay Example According to the study conducted an organisation orientation consists of production, product, selling, and marketing. If these four segments are not available, an organisation does not exist. Therefore, the marketing process is managed by the top marketing professionals. The top marketing professionals manage the marketing process by analyzing the market trends and market structure, absorbing the opportunities from the environment, developing the effective strategies, planning, implementing and controlling the marketing strategies and functions, and finally measuring the business efficacy to evaluate on how well the marketing process is managed by the top marketers. Jim’s Cleaning is the leading organisation that has been used in this assignment for analyzing its business effectiveness, marketing approaches, marketing strategies, and its business and market metric in which it operates. The effectiveness of the business can be measured by evaluating the performance of an organi sation. The effectiveness of business is measured in terms of business profitability and business performance increased or decreased due to marketing activities. Marketing mix and customers are the two tools that must be accurately managed by the top marketers for managing and aligning the marketing activities together to achieve productive results. Marketing activities need to be according to the market segment and also according to the lifestyles of the market segment. A marketer must ensure that the goods and services must be available to the customers and a clear message should be communicated to them. Jim’s Cleaning is a well known company in Australia that has a numbers of franchises in various countries. It is regarded as the most profitable company that provides wide range of cleaning services to customers (Jim’s Cleaning Group). Following are some of the significant tools that measure the business effectiveness of Jim’s Cleaning. Managing 7 P’s t hrough 4 C’s for Business Profitability It is commonly known that marketing is a game and there are 7 P’s of marketing; product, price, placement, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. These 7 P’s are the tools that are needed for playing the game between the buyers and the sellers. Customers need to be catered in terms of all marketing aspects so that they prove to be highly profitable for the business. Buyers and sellers exchange values for satisfaction that results in profitability. Product, price, placement, and promotion are the traditional P’s used for goods, whereas, people, process, and physical evidence are the extensions used for services. If these 7 P’s are properly managed by the marketers through the use of 4 C’s, it means an organisation is working and managing the marketing activities effectively that results in the increased profitability, growth, and market value of an organisation. Customer Solution: Customer s olution is related with the first P that is product. The top marketers search for the problem of the customers, identifies the problem, create solutions (goods or services) for the solving the problem, communicate the message to the customers about the goods or services, and finally delivers the value to the customers for satisfying their needs (Armstrong and Kotler, 82). Jim’s Cleaning provides cleaning solutions for homes and offices. It provides wide ra

Half the Sky Movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Half the Sky Movement - Essay Example Breakthrough is an organization that is committed to deal with violence against women in the society. The organization defines sexual violence as all acts ranging from assault from partners, early marriages, â€Å"honor† killings and rape. Sexual Violence is viewed as a violation of human rights to a safe environment. It is seen as an issue that causes women to be insecure while living on earth. The organization views sexual violence as an act that keeps women from contributing fully to the economy of the community. The organization states that the key reason as to why women are faced with such traumatizing issues is simply because they are women. They are seen as less of a value compared to men. Research also shows that the level of education in women is less than that in women and thus, the gender difference. Thus, the organization states that the only way in which women can stop sexual abuse is self-empowerment. Women should equip themselves with education and skills such t hat; the community will realize that they are of value to the economy. This way, they will be able to earn respect from members of the opposite sex and be able to reduce cases of sexual violence.Equality Now is an organization that is based in New York which mainly deals with social issues affecting the lives of women. The organization also has a branch in Kenya that mainly targets at helping women who suffer from gender-based issues in Africa. Equality Now classifies a number of practices as sexual violence.... The organization defines sexual violence as all acts ranging from assault from partners, early marriages, â€Å"honor† killings and rape. Sexual Violence is viewed as a violation of human rights to a safe environment. It is seen as an issue that causes women to be insecure while living on earth. The organization views sexual violence as an act that keeps women form contributing fully to the economy of the community. The organization states that the key reason as to why women are faced with such traumatizing issues is simply because they are women. They are seen as less of a value compared to men. Research also shows that the level of education in women is less than that in women and thus, the gender difference (CIA, 2012). Thus, the organization states that the only way in which women can stop sexual abuse is self-empowerment. Women should equip themselves with education and skills such that; the community will realize that they are of value to the economy. This way, they will be able to earn respect from members of the opposite sex and be able to reduce cases of sexual violence (Breakthrough Organization, 1). Equality Now is an organization that is based in New York which mainly deals with social issues affecting the lives of women. The organization also has a branch in Kenya that mainly targets at helping women who suffer from gender based issues in Africa. Equality Now, classifies a number of practices as sexual violence. For instance, gang raping, sexual assault, child marriages and bride kidnapping. The organization views sexual violence as being a result of inequality in women. Therefore, the organization mainly works to end such acts through promotion of equality among women. According to the organization, equality between

Harley Davidsons Process Of Change

Harley Davidsons Process Of Change Harley Davidson celebrates their 107 years anniversary this year. In their long journey, they have faced many bumps. One of the biggest challenges was in 1980s where Japanese motor cycle company joins the competition in United States. It gaves a huge impact to Harley. The Harley almost becomes history that day. Until some important person came and initiated change of every single aspect.. Rich Teerlink and Lee Ozley were two of the key person behind the change. Rich Teerlink was CEO of Harley Davidson, Inc and Lee Ozley was consultant for the company. In the year 2000, they wrote a book called More than a motorcycle: the leadership journey at Harley. The book tells stories about more than 12 years journey of change. How they analyze the problems, failure they made, challenge to change, until they succeed in changing Harley Davidson become better company. In this research paper, the authors try to see their journey from knowledge management perspective. The authors will draw importan t components that could affect implementation of knowledge management initiative. Leadership, business process, organizational structure, lifelong learning, culture and employee participation, are some components that lead successfulness of Harley Davidson s journey. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Leadership Introduction On the edge of bankruptcy, Harley was acquired by American Machine and Foundry (AMF) in1969, but still not revolving well until 1980. Worse is that the independence of Harley, Inc. put Harley people from honeymoon to hard times because of capital deficit. The arrival of crisis in the early 1980s, when many of Harleys employees lost their jobs or opportunities for career advancement, turned into a driving force of adopting the traditional command-and control hierarchies to remove the crunch. It seemed safe and steady after the crisis, nevertheless, the tree leaders, Rich, Tom Gelb, vice president of manufacturing, and John Campbell, vice president of human resources, started to take into account the survival and prosperity of the company in the long run. Decisive, top-down leadership style no longer could afford the future with limited effectiveness and durability. Commitment, rather than compliance, together with appropriate leadership were put on the agenda in view of Employee involvement (EI). This revolution started with information flow for knowledge sharing within the organization, supported by strategy thrust in stair-step. Leadership played a vital role in articulating a vision of collaboration during the whole business process while emphasis on human capital through awareness expansion, commitment extension and two-way communication helped building the life-long learning culture of the company. Best Practices originated from the Operational Committee the behavior model, also contributed to one of the core advantages of Harleyworld class system. Preparation of Journey Getting There from Here Strategic thrust (Figure 1) for change rises from comparison between where we are today and vision of ideal future with power derives from the stair-step idea (Figure 2), which stimulated the forward information flow in that a shared vision help people on the stair to tolerate the near-term unknowns. Making Change Popular The conceptual framework (Teerlink, 2000) Lee outlined was based on the mathematics of change, providing an approach to making change welcome. Change = (E*M*P) > Resistance E=Engagement, M=Model, P=Process The need to do things differently drives peoples engagement.(E) The Vision of ideal future provides a clear goal with the proper model giving the reality-transformation.(M) Approaches to make change welcome ,stepping toward the clear goal.(P) Structure for Information Flow With the fact that Harley could not afford another three years of only incremental change, management team agreed to adopt the one-year contract that afterwards proved to be beneficial for both the union and management to take the risk. Demanding for establishing the appropriate relationship among the unions, between the union and the company together with feedbacks from the stakeholder, customer, shop floor worker along the tree dimensions: quality, financial performance, interpersonal relations turned into the catalyst of producing the Joint Vision Process. The information flow unfold the process by combining the two perspectives from both union and nonunion together, with negative and positive pressures, limited time but also stimulus to the process, brought by the one-year contract. Joint Vision Process Joint Vision Process (Figure 3) was the first step in the journey. The purpose is to jointly create the company s vision between the Union and Management. Individuals from the two groups formed their own perspectives toward vision for the company and the union-management relationship which then combined into a joint vision. In producing a final Joint Vision, a three-day session called the May Big One was held at the Ramada Inn in May 1988. There is one and only rule that nothing would be included in the final vision statement that wasnt the product of complete consensus. This rewarding process carried out through a continuing dialogue, with participants showing a sense of personal ownership in company matters, enabled this switch, rather than change from Point A (my ideas) to point B(my companys ideas) through a series of steps (my institutions ideas, my sites ideas). The proxy is community since local and specific cannot be generally accepted. The conference committees, set up by ROI with members including the most senior managers and labor leaders from both union and nonunion, aimed to address apparent disagreement. What continued was the setup of the Joint Leadership Group, which was created as a network of temporary structures, composing union and management leaders, to help move the Joint Vision Process forward. And Local Site Committees, responsible for the identification of barriers had three guidelines to decide the work of problem solving, which are 1. Problems and issues would be dealt with by the people most directly affected and knowledgeable. 2. Only the top-level joint group could identify issues as off limits to the Joint Vision Process. 3. Any joint group could form task forces to do pieces of work within the charter of that joint group. Temporary governance structure (Figure 4) of the process was then seated to hunt down barriers, giving fairness to those people who have not yet been directly involved by reaching a numerical balance between unions and management. Modeling Appropriate Behaviors The Operational Committee was established by individuals reporting directly to members of the Executive Committee to make executives actions visible and support a culture of collaboration in the embryonic form of Best Practices, enabling combination of Tacit knowledge interaction from different levels. The two consultants, Bob and Lee, provided a series of recommendation after observing a number of committee meetings. They pointed out that one facilitator was needed in the committee to help train the members with the guidelines and ground rules, and those participants should contribute to the topic only at the meeting, and also third-party attributions had to be avoided. It is troublesome in the late period of identifying and addressing barriers to the Joint Vision and hundreds of barriers lead to the negotiation between the two sidesunion and management, ending with a new two-year labor agreement. The process went well from mid-1988 to early 1990, and then came the unavoidable suspension because of lacking comprehensive training of leaders from both the union and the management sides, following by the discussion based on six specific issues. Margaret Crawford, a member of one of the salaried groups, says that going right to the barriers was probably a mistake and that focusing on opportunities could be a better idea. Since it really takes time to build relationship, active steps should be taken to help people in the organization change. All in all, the Joint Vision Process was a painful process but it did give the right direction, setting the foundation of the whole journey. Leadership involved creating opportunities, Harleys Executive Committee moved forward to expand awareness of senior management of the two separate organizations, Harley and Holiday-Ramble, through activities mainly focus at debate stimulation, learning sharing and organizational cohesion, which was the first time that all top executives from both HDMC and HRC come together in a working session. The learning organization began among the groups with the following six objectives (Teerlink, 2000): Provide insights and concepts to assist senior management in leading their organizations more effectively Demonstrate continuous learning as a way of life Get better acquainted Exchange ideas and information Elicit ideas for the content and process of future sessions Have fun After an effective icebreakerthe Tinker Toy exercise in which the five-member teams comprising purposely mixed employees from HDMC and HRC, in team, design, build, and sell a Tinker toy, all participants came to the next activity, where no challenging ideas were provided by the groups toward the extreme thought given by the guest speaker James Brian Quinn. The participating managers had unexpected flat, one-dimensional reflect in spite that a high level of camaraderie was promoted through the enjoyable experiential learning in which people had energetic and positive responses to the skits. Rich was unsatisfied as peoples habits of getting the answers from on high lead no different new ways and the unawareness of Participation is an important element of Harleys long-term success and must be so recognized by the operating units. (Teerlink, 2000). And Lee compared the awareness expansion to a watershed event, saying that it broke the egg open a little. The Business Process Business process is defined as a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action. Taking a process approach implies adopting the customer s point of view. Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers. (T. Davenport, 1993) As a brushfire of change, the Joint Vision Process received various feedbacks among different level of participants. Problems exist in both pace and process. Channeling energy released through the awareness expansion sessions, the Joint Vision Process, the beginning of organizational learning together with related initiatives called the need of structures. Business Process (Figure 5) is such a device that predated the Joint Vision Process, helping define much about the way Harley does business today. The distinction between Harleys previous improvement programs and the Business Process is that the latter automatically expand and extend the productive programs. Below are the three components of the Business Process: the corporate Umbrella, the operating unit, and the work unit (My Area) Corporate Umbrella In building the umbrella package of ideas including values, issues, and stakeholders, one-word signposts is agreed in the Executive Committee to summarize the following four areas: How will we behave in our interactions with others? (Values) What is truly important to Harley? (Issues) Whom does Harley serve? (Stakeholders) How will we describe success in the future? (Vision) (Teerlink, 2000) The values to determine our interactions with others are based on the short list presented by Dr. Alex Horniman, an ethics professor at the University of Virginia s Darden School, which are to tell the truth, to be fair, to keep your promises, to respect the individual. And to encourage intellectual curiosity was added as a fifth value by the Executive Committee. Five issues including Quality, Participation, Productivity, Flexibility, and Cash flow are focused by the group to determine what kind of company Harley was supposed to be. Stakeholders, whom the Executive Committee defined as anyone inside or outside the company who has an interaction with Harleys products, services, or representatives. comprise six parts: customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, government, and society. Shareholders were replaced by investors due to its restriction on unfolding all of those who backed Harley with money and other assets. The vision, including key ideas of the importance of relationshi ps, the imperative for action, and the international nature of the companys future markets, was defined together by all senior managers and was proved to be the driving force of the forwarding overwhelming business process. Two sentences captured the vision before 1994: Harley is an action-oriented, international companya leader in its commitment to continuously improve the quality of profitable relationships with stakeholders(customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, government and society). and Harley believes the key to success is to balance stake holders interests through the empowerment of all employees to focus on value-added activities. and then was changed to To be a leader in continuous improvement in mutually beneficial relationships with all our stakeholders. Operating Unit A three-year plan, as an attachment of a cover note Rich prepared for the December 1987 board of directors meeting, including a mission statement, operating philosophy, and selected strategies, was the foundation of the Business Process. The Executive Committee attached great importance to flexibility on the mission statement: Preserve and perpetuate the Harley institution through continuous improvement in the quality of our goods and services, and achievement of our financial goals, Provide motorcycles, accessories, and services to motorcycles in selected niches, provide the general public brand-identified products/services to enhance Harleys image and attract new customers (Teerlink, 2000). Engage in manufacturing or service ventures that can add value (not only profit) to the motorcycle business (1991) and We fulfill dreams through the experiences of motorcyclingby providing to motorcyclists and to the general public an expanding line of motorcycles, branded products, and services in selected market segments (February 1999) Objectives: How do we measure success? Operating units are guided in general terms by objectives which are traditionally stated in financial like develop the global market potential of 100,000 units by December 31, 1996, and develop the capacity to meet that demand while continuously improve quality. It is suggested by the Executive Committee that no more than five objectives should be adopted in each operating unit within Harley. Strategic plans, guiding operating units in specific terms, are based on a three to five year time horizon, compared with that of objectives, mostly a five to ten year time horizon at Harley and are changed corresponding to different objectives in various periods of time. Work Unit (My Area) The philosophy embedded in the mind of Harleys people is supposed to be doing the right thing naturally and organically but not in response to some external crisis, which can be enabled by tools for individuals and groups to operate independently, without continuous guidance from corporate, balancing local responsibility with the larger needs of functions, divisions, and departments. Three key points here: 1. A work unit, today operating as natural work group, would map out plans annually according to the stages of the annual operating plans. 2. An employee-driven Performance Effectiveness Plan (PEP) was developed for every employee to understand plans, in both strategic and operating level, and then to make personal plans correspondingly. 3. Inside the Two-way communication, managers act as knowers, to whom people provide their information and go for answers. Managing business process enables organizations to be more efficient, more effective and more capable of change than a functionally focused, traditional hierarchical management approach. In business process, knowledge is created and transferred throughout the organization by tools such as lessons learn database, best practices and community of practices. And since the transfer of business practices is viewed as a source of competitive advantage in knowledge management strategies (Alexandre P., 2007), business process provides Harley the platform to build the core advantages of the companyworld class system through best practices originated from the Operational Committee the behavior model(Teerlink, 2000). Organizational Structure Organizational design is one of the factors that will greatly influence the implementation of a knowledge management process (Enrique Claver-Corte s, 2007). Organizational structure which have high hierarchy and very bureaucratic tend to have low innovations from the employees. Usually the structure is command-control, not much space for the employees to express himself. Harley s manager and union members found that organizational structure gives huge barriers to realization of company s future. Rich changes Harley s organizational structure from command control decision making into employee-driven and minimal structure. Employees have opportunity to contribute on deciding specifics boxes and lines for the organization and the structure should derive from real organizational functions. Rich and colleagues come up with idea about circle organization. The philosophy behind this circle organization was to get the right people, together at the right time, to do the right work right. (Teerlink, 2000). It represents shared leadership and cross-functionality at work in Harley. The circle organization based on three core processes, Create demand; include marketing, sales, public relations, customer services and styling. Produce product; include manufacturing, engineering, purchasing, logistics, etc. Provide support; include finance, HR, legal, information services, etc. And leadership and strategy council (LSC), its coordinator of other three circles. Figure 6 shows complete picture about the circle organization. Arrows pointing to stakeholders area means it s the external focus for the company. Meanwhile, arrows pointing across the circle indicate recognition of interdependence. The scheme encourages employees to seek the right people to work with in order to get the work done. The command-control position was replaced by the coach or facilitator in each group. Employees communicate and share knowledge inside and between the circles, knowledge buyer and seller change their idea how to solve a problem, new ideas often generate during the discussions. Employee Engagement One of factors influencing successfulness of Knowledge Management initiative is employee s engagement to the organization. When employee feel the organization is belong to them and their contribution is recognized by the company, employee will be encouraged to share their knowledge and actively participate to the company s business strategy. Bob Hayward in his website shares some benefits of employee engagement in the organization (Hayward, 2010): Better performance Knowledge worker whom engage in his job tend to work smarter. They always looking for ways to improve their performance. Work in effective and efficient way. It means better quality, innovations and lower cost. Better communication Engaged employee communicate to share ideas, information and knowledge. Knowledge sharing is in his blood. He actively plays roles in knowledge market. Greater customer satisfaction Customer is a king. Engaged employee will seek how he could meet customer needs. Customer satisfaction is his target. Better team working Employee has personal responsibility to deliver business agenda. He works in the team to achieve organization s vision. Greater commitment Employee has a pride and really cares about the company s future, because company s future is also his future. Lower employee turnover and greater ability to recruit great people One of serious problem in organization is high employee turnover. Without proper knowledge management system, knowledge could walk away out the door together with employee. Organization has to reinvent the wheel every time employee goes out. For engaged employee, they do not easily leave the company. They feel happy working there. Good employee usually has good networking; it will lead them to propose the company great people to join them. Rich and his teams clearly have vision how to engage their employee to the company. Harley did some activities to encourage the employee engagement: Established Performance Effectiveness Process (PEP) PEP gives individual opportunity and responsibility to determine function of his work unit and how he can make difference in company s future. PEP is the smallest participatory process entity of company s vision that will evolve iteratively and it will lead to the creation of whole company business process. PEP can be used for several activities, such as: o Performance Evaluation One purpose of performance evaluation is to see strength and weakness of individual. Harley involved the employee on defining their own performance measure and see individual from other perspective. Employee should know his position based on others judgments and understood how their colleges perceived them and how to improve their performance in the eyes of their college. Based on this evaluation, company will extract strength and weakness of their employee. So the company will know which subject they should concentrate to develop. o Career Development PEP was tailored by the HR department to become basic for career development. Many employees like status quo. When company trying to make major cultural change, they do not want to change and hate to be changed. Integrating career development into PEP, it will insist the employee to change their habit. If they do not want to change, then he will be the first employee who will leave the company when layoff comes. o Maximize employee participation. Individuals know clarity how he can make a difference. It s good for company as well for the individuals. With PEP, employee have to give input how to improve them self as well as the company. In their employee handbook, Harley Davidson commit to create a working environment designed to maximize employee contribution and provide resource and opportunities to develop their knowledge. PEP does not succeed in its first month or even first year of implementation. It emerged over several years, with continuous improvement in all aspects. Compensation The second way how Harley engaged the employee is by giving them compensation. Harley compensates people not only from performance but also on how they demonstrate their capabilities. Harley found that they should not compensate the employee only with money. Because their motivation is not only money, indeed we should have much money to do that, said Lee. Harley has two visions on giving compensation. The first is to make a larger part of employees compensation at-risk or variable and the second is to compensate all employees in essentially the same way by creating standard pay components across the company. Listen to the employees Harley Davidson is an employee driven organizations. They were changing their culture from command control top down company into more participatory. Most people want the same thing from their company. For them working motivation is not only money. What Harley s employee really seeks are rewards and recognition in non-monetary realms. They seek opportunities to be heard, organization s evidence of contribution, involvement in decision making and problem solving process. They want to know every single aspect in organization and understand what is going on. Employee seeks total experience in their working place. The company really listens carefully and takes necessary action to response the employee s need. Harley s facilitate sharing session on what they expect in the organization. The employee proposed 49 things to the company. Some of the items can be done immediately and the others need approve from the board. But Harley really engages to his employee satisfaction, and this will bring the employees to do the same thing for the company. Lifelong Learning Learning organization is organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together. (Senge, 1990) Some benefits of becoming a learning organization are: Maintaining levels of innovation and remaining competitive (McHugh, 1998) Being better placed to respond to external pressures (McHugh, 1998) Having the knowledge to better link resources to customer needs (Wikipedia, 2010) Improving quality of outputs at all levels (Wikipedia, 2010) Improving corporate image by becoming more people oriented (Wikipedia, 2010) Increasing the pace of change within the organization (Wikipedia, 2010) Harley s leaders, both union and management leaders have commitment to encourage and facilitate learning and intellectual curiosity in the organizations. Intellectual curiosity is result of looking somebody else doing the task and reason why he doing in that way. Company serves the employee by providing skills and knowledge they need. The most significant step toward Harley learning culture was Awareness Expansion III. One of participant said We re learning from each other, and we re increasing our understanding of our respective business . Successfulness of AEIII leads to establishment of AEIV. AEIV main purpose is to learning from each other. Employee divided into 5 groups and they present on one particular topic. They change knowledge when the presentation was held. Working together in this way, give them a new experience of learning. Based on Lee opinion, AEIV is a huge step of Harley s journey because the group discussion is led and facilitated by themselves, not by professional. Another achievement in AEIV is, they collaborate with MIT-based Organizational Learning Center (OLC). This Research group headed by Peter Senge, he is an organizational theorist and consultant. Peter Senge was the author of The Fifth Discipline book. Rich and Lee had read the book and interest to implement his idea on how to become a successful organization. Senge proposed five disciplines about successful organization, which are: personal mastery, mental models, shared visions, team learning and systems thinking. Senge s sights were aligned with what Harley s doing lately. By working together with OLC, Harley wants to emphasis lifelong learning for all employees. To support this program, Harley provides some formal learning program to its employee. Harley Davidson Leadership Institute Tuition reimbursement programs at Graduate and Undergraduate levels Degree Program with Marquette University Lifelong Learning Centers Motorcycle U Harley Davidson University On creating the learning concepts, they were involving all the stakeholders. Because the root learning concept built based on old Chinese proverb Tell me, Ill forget Show me and I may remember But involve me, and Ill understand To decide specific training and education, management and labor jointly adopt Learning Maps approach developed by Perrysburg. By using this Learning Maps, the employee come up with four topics that they need to learned: our market, the business process, our processes and the money cycle. All these topics are compelled to help every single employee understand the companys critical business issues in the same way. Communication Achievements reached in Communication As stated by Rich and Lee at the beginning of the journey, the umbrella business process was serving to ensure that everybody had the appropriate level of information as defined, to allow them to do their job for the organization. However, the results from two baseline audit surveys on the employees in 1991 broke the leadership s expectation after their more-than-three-year effort on improving the relationships and communications within the organization. Shocked by the feedbacks from a majority of the employees, the leadership recognized the failure on communication and started to find and fix the problems. Aligning with the organizational strategy, transforming the company from command-and-control model to a totally new way based on good communication, Rich and Lee thoroughly abandoned dictating method and broke the assumptions of some senior managers and supervisors on employees perspectives about information and knowledge. Later, they came up with a new approach to improve organiz ational communication by asking the employees what they need to know and trying to meet the needs. Due to the executive of the new approach and the establishment of Harley communications department (which had a risk of setting the communication situation back to the command-and-control era, as worried about by Rich, but truly facilitated the organizational communication and drove the efforts on better communication), the employees curiosity on information in a big picture By design, they owned the big picture. They therefore took responsibility for figuring out which piece of that big picture they would communicate, to whom, and in what form. (Teerlink, 2000) was dramatically raised and information and knowledge finally began to flow efficiently throughout the company and among plants in different locations. Although the achievement Harley obtained on organizational communication still cannot be regarded as a huge success, it did lead to favorable outcome in the organization s coming partnering project. The roots of partnering, as described by Rich and Lee in the book, can be traced back to the crisis in the late 1970s and 1980s.During the hard time, Harley s union leaders and members worked collaboratively with management to save the company. However, once the crisis was gone, the collaborative work began to fade, which was obviously not likely to the company continuous improvement in the new marketing environment. And in the year of 1994, the increasing marketing demand urgently called for an expansion of manufacturing capacity which was not possible to be realized without partnering. Due to the endeavors mainly made by Harley s leadership, Joint Partnership Implementation Committee (JPIC) was founded and Kansas City plant started up as a great outcome of partnering. Factors Leading to Success of Communication According to Thoma

The Deceived Invisible Man :: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

In the Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, our main character struggles to find his place in society. Throughout the novel, he finds himself in "power-struggles". At the beginning of the novel, we see the narrator as a student in an African-American college. He plays a large role in the school as an upstanding student. Later, we see the Invisible Man once again as an important member of an organization known as the Brotherhood. In both situations he is working, indirectly, to have a place in a changing world of homogony. In each circumstance he finds himself deceived in a "white man's world". The Invisible man originally wanted to graduate from his college to be a professor, perhaps even the president of the college. His dream and life as he knew it was crushed when he was expelled from school for taking a white alumni to a black neighborhood where he should not have gone. The president of the college reprimands him for not having enough common sense to show the white man what he "wanted" to see. Dr. Bledsoe, the president, believes that it is necessary to lie to the white man. He calls The Invisible man a "nigger". By this act, Bledsoe is stating that he feels superior. Dr. Bledsoe promises the Invisible Man letters of recommendation to white businessmen in New York. He finds that in truth the letters are mocking him and stating that he will never be invited back to the college again. Bledsoe masks his "respect" for the white man, signing the letter, "Respectfully, I am your humble servant". This power struggle between the white man, the powerful black man, and the black citizen is a twisted circle of trying to please the "other". The Invisible man meets a character named Brother Jack. He is a member of the Brotherhood, an organization desiring peace between races. It can be said that the Brotherhood represents American communism. Brother Jack is the head of power. Once the invisible man finds his place as a political figure in the Brotherhood he is successful. He is a strong speaker and the public loves him. He receives a note warning him that he was moving too fast and that it is a "white man's world". In the end, he discovers that it was Brother Jack, the very man fighting for equality, who was responsible for the letter.