Women Rising From the Ashes of War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Women Rising From the Ashes of War - Essay Example Women Rising From the Ashes of War When World War Two broke out, it was a signal that turbulent times were ahead. Men were recruited to fight for their countries. Women had no choice but to let go of their men. It was unknown to everyone what the future will bring, but when the war broke out, it seemed that a bleak tomorrow threatened the world. Women, in particular, assailed by a series of unending attacks to their humanity and had to claw at what appears to be a hint of hope for survival. Class distinctions broke down and the formerly rich women adjusted to life’s painful realities that they had to live like the rest of the commoners. â€Å"Mass observation surveys conducted during 1941 found that many who advocated conscription believed it would force ‘idle rich girls’ to work.† (Smith: 215) The war demanded enormous manpower, not just in the armed forces, but also in industry. Millions of men joined the forces, which left many industries without a satisfactory workforce. The government realised that this shortfall had to be filled, approximately one and a half million workers were needed in munitions alone and it was vital to keep up the production of essential wartime machinery and equipment. The government therefore, took the decision to draft women into ‘men’s’ jobs, just as they had done during the First World War, in an attempt to keep production at a steady level. The new realities faced by the women necessitated that they likewise take part in the war effort in any capacity they can. Most women had to leave their homes to work in a variety of occupations.

Employment of Expatriates Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Employment of Expatriates - Essay Example By comparison, total compensation for a top-notch Chinese manager would be only about $50,000 per year as stipulated in the case study. The decision to "localize" management in the case study seems inappropriate since they need some professional advice from an individual who is experienced in the specific field. Businesses in China do not properly document their operations and they need to understand its importance. There is a risk involved since it is not right to give up financial control (Wild, Wild and Han, 473). Another issue emerges where many expatriate managers are tested according to the operating results and their efforts to better the skills and competence of local managers through training. â€Å"Localizing† is inappropriate and the use of expatriate managers in this case will help to improve the overall performance. The action of Ricoh Corp does not reflect sound recruitment and personnel policies since he fired Mr. Mackentire to replace him with an expatriate. Th is explains why the move was controversial. Though the decision was right based on the argument of business necessity, it is appropriate to conclude that he was fired simply because he is not an expatriate (Kaplan and Saccuzo, 577).

Impacts of globalisation on Walt Disney

Impacts of globalisation on Walt Disney Globalization is a process where there is increasing of connectivity and mobility of the worlds markets as well as businesses where they are expanding from domestic to international ones. Since the last two decades, advancement of technology has speed up the process to make travelling, communicating and business globally much more easily. The two major driving forces of globalisation are advances in telecommunications infrastructure and internet. As economies are more connected to each other, opportunities increase as well as competitions. Nowadays, most of the company in the world adapted globalisation to secure their position within the competitive market, for example, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC), yet there are still negative impacts on the company. http://www.investorwords.com/2182/globalization.html Walt Disney  is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world in term of revenue which is originally known as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studious. It is founded by Walter Elias Disney on October 16, 1923 and his brother Roy Disney. It is the leading diversified entertainment and media multinational enterprise with five business segments worldwide which are media networks, parks and resorts, studios entertainment, consumer products and interactive media. The companys key products and services are as follow: http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/index.html Media networks: Domestic broadcast television network Television production and distribution Domestic television stations Cable and satellite networks and international broadcast operations Domestic broadcast radio networks and stations Internet operations Parks and Resorts: Walt Disney  World Resort Disney Cruise  Line Disneyland Resort ESPN Zone Disneyland Resort Hong Kong Disneyland Tokyo Walt Disney Resort Disney Imagineering Studio Entertainment: Theatrical distribution Home entertainment distribution Television distribution Audio products and music publishing Consumer Products: Character merchandise and publications licensing Books and magazines Buena Vista games The Disney Store Disney Catalog and disneydirect.com Interactive Media: Disney Interactive Studios Disney Online In this assignment, we will be concentrated more on Disney Theme Parks and Resorts and touch a little bit on its other business segments: Disneyland Resort in Anaheim California. Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando Florida. Tokyo Disney Resort in Tokyo. Disneyland Resort Paris in Paris. (Formerly EURO-Disney) Hong Kong Disneyland Resort in Hong Kong. In order to expand its business, Disney chooses countries with high Disney awareness and affinity, large population centres with stable economies and people having disposable income to spend on leisure. The most important are the market size where it has to be large to guarantee a steady flow of visitors, and level of real income of consumers to have a certain spending power to enjoy leisure activities. The availability of infrastructures as well as skill levels in the host economy and other resources must take into account too follow by other aspects like political, trade policies and macroeconomic stability. To see whether a theme park operation is successful or not, it is highly depends on the stability of political and economical circumstances in the host country to avoid any negative impacts on its business. The characteristics of globalisation are there is an increase in foreign sales, foreign direct investment, expanding market size, communications, global competition, rapid increase and expansion of technology, liberalisation of cross border movement, development of supporting services, etc. Foreign Direct Investment Globalisation leads to increases foreign direct investment of a company from its country of origin into other countries. According to Stephanie Rohac (2006), foreign direct investment is the international flow of capital by creating or expanding a subsidiary in another country. It may be made through established a new enterprise or acquisition of an existing entity. A firm becomes multinational in the case of establishing in two or more countries business enterprises through FDI. Foreign direct investment provides job opportunities, and increase in transfer of skills as well as technology. The headquarter of The Walt Disney Company is located in United States, in order to expand its theme park and resort businesses, Disney develops its foreign markets by doing foreign direct investment in California, Tokyo, France and Hong Kong. After the success of its first venture of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) continue to expand into Asian fields with Tokyo Disney in Tokyo. Nearly twenty years later, the company decided to do its expansion into the European market and here come Euro Disney which is now known as Disneyland Resort Paris. The theme park Euro Disney was expected to bring $600 million in foreign investment into France every year and it is the largest single Foreign Direct Investment ever in France. Lastly, back to Asia again, followed by Hong Kong Disneyland. http://books.google.com.my/books?id=9PqwNoOJagoCprintsec=frontcoverdq=foreign+direct+investment+of+disneysource=blots=Yap4ZathyBsig=Dkmc0vKm5ajWEuErX5x_E93osq0hl=enei=hCP_TJjSCcLirAfyyt2ACAsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=10ved=0CFQQ6AEwCQ#v=onepageqf=false Mergers and Acquisitions According to QuickMBA.com, merger is the combination of assets and also liabilities of two companies to form a single entity while acquisition is when a larger firm took over the small ones. http://www.quickmba.com/finance/mergers-acquisitions/ According to Paul R. La Monica (2006), Disney bought over Pixar which is owned by Apple and led by Steve Job, a deal that worth $7.4 billion. The deals included Steve Job becoming one of the board members of Disney and 2.3 shares of Disneys will be issued for each Pixar share. Merger of these two companies will bring higher quality of films to the people around the world as well as generates higher profit. http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/disney_pixar_deal/ Actual Impacts of globalisation on Walt Disney Political Positive impacts According to Stephanie Rohac (2006), France government has reduced 18.6% of value-added tax on Euro Disneylands ticket sales to only 7%. Besides that, 20 years loan of $960 million at low and subsidized interest rates of 7.85% is provided too. Variety of investment incentives are offered by the host governments to encourage foreign investors to invest into their country. The main issue of France government facing at the time was its unemployment rates increased by 10%. The opening of Euro Disneyland can actually solve the problem where it creates more than 30,000 new construction jobs, 12,000 on-site positions and 30,000 jobs in off-site serving. Economical Positive impacts Brand recognition worldwide The Walt Disney Company markets itself worldwide, creating huge revenues and further establishing itself as a global brand. As the business globalised, Disney brand is known by people globally and merchandising has played an important role in establishing the Disney brand. Market size Due to globalisation, company increases its market size from domestic to international market. By investing into various countries of its theme park and resort business as well as exporting its products to other countries, Disney has enlarged its market size at the same time. According to James Ketterer (2010), the very first Disney Store was opened 28th March 1984 in Glendale, California. The Disney stores are located worldwide, throughout the US, UK, Spain Italy, Japan, and France. Since May 1st 2008, the Walt Disney Company owns all Disney stores in America, Canada and Europe, however the stores in Japan are owned by the Oriental Land Company, for example, Disneyland Tokyo. In the year 2004 alone, merchandise has made $2.5 billion for the company, a figure that shows how globally successful Disney really is. http://www.suite101.com/content/disney-and-globalisation-a196391 Financial Revenues by country of origin: The US and Canada,  Walt Disneys largest geographical market, accounted for 76% of the total revenues in the year 2009. Revenues are generated through other countries of origin: Europe  (17%), Asia Pacific (5%) and Latin America and other (2%). Revenues Operating Income (in millions) 2009 2008 2007 2009 2008 2007 Country of origin: United States and Canada $ 27,508 $ 28,506 $ 27,286 $ 4,923 $ 6,500 $ 6,052 Europe $ 6,012 $ 6,805 $ 5,898 $ 1,158 $ 1,423 $ 1,192 Asia Pacific $ 1,860 $ 1,811 $ 1,732 $ 430 $ 386 $ 437 Latin America and Other $ 769 $ 721 $ 594 $ 161 $ 175 $ 156 Total $ 36,149 $ 37,843 $ 35,510 $ 6,672 $ 8,484 $ 7,837 The data above is obtained from Walt Disney 20009 annual reports. Regardless the financial performance of Walt Disney, try to imagine what would be the revenues and operating income of Disney if it has never globalise. Globalisation helps Disney to gain its revenues from all over the world instead of only from its host countries, United States. The total revenue in year 2007 was $35,510 million. The total revenues increased by 6.6% to $37,843 million in 2008. However, the total revenues dropped by 4.5% to $36,149 million in 2009. Negative impacts Global Recession According to Jason Garcia (2009), during the global recession in year 2009, despite the favourable timing of the busy Easter holiday, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts suffering from downfall of its operating profit and total revenues by 19% and 9% respectively. Disneys profit and revenues in United States have declined by 26% and 7% to $954 million and $8.6 billion respectively. Although Walt Disney World is having the same amount of visitor compared with the previous year and 10% more guests in Disneyland, Disney does not make any profit as it gives out discounts and special deals to uphold the attendance level of visitors. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-07-31/news/disney_1_walt-disney-disney-world-disney-parks Financial Crisis According to Wu Jin (2009), during 2009 global financial crisis, Hong Kong Disneyland left with no choice and plan to raise its entrance ticket prices by nearly twenty percent. The decision was made after numbers of market surveys have been conducted where the tourist visits are not affected by prices but seasonal factors. However, Hong Kong Disney have been threatened and boycotted by local travel agencies and public dismay, hence, it adjusted its price strategy again. http://www.china.org.cn/travel/news/2009-02/05/content_17226206.htm Global competitions A company at first have its own competitors in its domestic market, however, due to globalisation, there are more competitors as it has to face global competitions with international competitors. Company tends to strive to be better in order to compete with its competitors. Walt Disney Company has its own competitors in each and every one of its business segments locally and internationally. However, its major competitors are CBS Corporation (CBS), News Corporation (NWS) and Time Warner Incorporation (TWX). They compete directly with Disney in various business lines which is shown in the chart below: Disney CBS News Corp. Time Warner Films Theme parks Cable networks Broadcast networks Television stations Radio Internet Social Positive impacts Consumer Spending Source: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/11/why_the_focus_o.html The table above shows where United States people spent their money. And it shows that most of their spending is on entertainment: publishing industries, motion picture and sound recording industries, broadcasting and telecommunications as well as amusements, gambling and recreation. This is favourable to Disney as it business focuses on those entertainments. Negative impacts Cultural Differences As every country have different cultural practices, Disney need to add local attractions to attract local consumers. For example, in Hong Kong Disneyland, a Mickey Mouse mascot is wearing a bright red Mao suit while Minnie Mouse mascot is wearing a cherry blossom red dress. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/arts/22arts-ACHINESEMAKE_BRF.html Besides that, employees in the theme parks have to know different languages in different Disneyland theme parks, in Hong Kong Disney land, they speak both English and local dialects like Cantonese and Standard Mandarin. Their brochures and maps are printed in those languages too with additional Japanese language. And the most special one, they actually included sharks fin soup in their menu. http://www.springerlink.com/content/h6335466636hw877/ Technology Positive impacts Nowadays, technology has become a very increasingly important tool to compete with rival companies and industries. The development of technology like video editing software, high definition and 3D have a strong impact on film producer like Walt Disney to helps them in producing the film efficiently. According to Bloomberg (2010), the latest Walt Disney animation movie which is named Alice in the Wonderland which comes with 3D resolution have hit 210.3 million ticket sales in worldwide and 116.3 million in United States. The improvement of technology brings better sales to Walt Disney. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-07/disney-s-alice-in-wonderland-makes-116-million-sets-records.html Negative impacts Before the existence of internet in year 1955, consumers purchased entertainment products such as music CDs from entertainment outlets. As technology advances, entertainment industry has been affected with the existence of Peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture which implemented worldwide. According to Sammy Khayat (2004), P2P is the distributed computing network where people directly shares files or resources from computer with others without going through central server, for example Napster. Hence, people no longer buy CDs from the shops anymore. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, the number of CDs shipped in United States feel 15% from 940 million to 800 million between year 2000 and 2002 which brought to dropped in sales about $2.5 billion. Copyright infringement is expanding as people often do file sharing over internet which allows them to download free music and then send to their friends which is a great threat to Disneys entertainment business. Other than t hat, pirated CDs, DVDs and soft toys give big impacts to Disney as well. http://www.personal.psu.edu/sbk142/disney.htm Environment Negative impacts Bad weathers like rain and thunderstorm decreases entrance tickets sales of Disney theme parks as consumers will be taking the consideration under the hazardous weather. Take Gold Coast theme parks as example, the wet weather at south-eastern Queensland had affected the revenue of the company to fall. http://www.smh.com.au/business/wet-weather-means-less-fun-for-theme-park-profits-20101102-17cd3.html Legal All Disneys cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse are trademarked, hence other people cannot use them without authorization. There was a case back in year 1989 where there were three day-care centres in Florida painted Mickey Mouse and other Disney cartoon characters on their wall and Disney took legal action against them. The rival, Universal Studios replaced with its cartoon characters after Disneys were removed. http://www.snopes.com/disney/wdco/daycare.asp Besides that, technology advancement has led to pirated products such as soft toys which cannot be controlled by the company as it goes worldwide in huge numbers. Potential impacts of Globalisation on Walt Disney Lifestyle influences Nowadays, people are so stressful to face their problems at workplace, school and even at home. Tensed lifestyle is favourable to Disneys business which is concentrate on entertainment sector as people tend to spend their money on entertainments just to make themselves feel more comfortable and relax. This can actually lead to increase in Disneys sales and revenues. Technology advancement As the technology advances, Disney can cut its labour costs. For example, in Disney theme parks, people can buy their tickets from ticket machines where there is no need ticket booths that require workers to sell the entrance tickets. Operators are no longer requires if the theme park is fully computerized, where the roller coasters, marry-go-round, etc, will automatically run when consumers are ready to go. Besides that, future technology can makes Disney films more interesting, maybe it will be in 4D or 5D where people can experience new things and they are willing to spend their money for new kind of entertainment. Disney can also be innovative in their theme parks and come out with new kind of games, gadgets and amusement rides to attract more consumers. In this way, Disney can generate more revenue due to its new technology. Strategy China is having a population of 1.26 billion people which is equivalent to 20 percent of the worlds total population. With the humongous population and established relationship with Chinese Government, its foreseen by the Walt Disney Company that there is high demand for entertainment and the fourth Disney theme park, Hong Kong Disneyland can generates revenue by entering the country. Besides that, the labour cost in China is two third lower than Disneys other theme parks where lower costs generate higher profit. Disney can actually expand more of its businesses into China as it is having very huge and potential market. With one child policy in China, the grandparents as well as parents are pampering their child and they are willing to spend money on entertainment that their child wanted like theme parks and movies. The adults who are facing problems simply need entertainments just to relax themselves. The demand for entertainment is very high in China, however, due to their lower incomes, they may not afford to pay for it. Disney should have brought down its selling prices and hence generates more sales. Besides that, Disney has to understand their cultural practices and try to adapt local custom by doing more market researchers, interview and questionnaires, so that the company can roughly have an idea on what the local people prefer. There are a lot advantages for China if Disney to expand its businesses at China where the business can helps to raise its technology level, provide job opportunities for its people and increase its economic growth. In my opinion, the barrier for Disney to enter China should not be a problem. Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/china/unemployment_rate.html The table above shows the unemployment rate in China from year 2004 to 2010, the data is for urban areas only, including migrants may boost total unemployment to 9%, substantial unemployment and underemployment in rural areas. If Disney further expands its business in China, it can help to reduce China unemployment like how it helps Frances. The Walt Disney Company is having a strong brand name and reputation in this world, it should keep it up and achieve its mission all the time which is to make everyone happy. I believe that Disney will never fail in its business and always stay at the top level.

Parenting Education Essay -- Parenting

In a perfect world, every child would be wanted and loved, and all parents would have the capacity and the desire to raise children who are healthy, mentally and physically strong, and displaying high moral integrity. Sadly, this is not the case. Some parents are, unfortunately, not interested in what happens with their children. Other parents are not pleased with what is happening in the home with their children but do not know what to do to create effective change. Still other parents are unaware that there is another way, a better way, of parenting. Parent education could help in all of these scenarios. Studies reviewed showing that positive parenting through parenting education is an intervention that improves the quality of the relationship that parents have with their children; as well as, improving their children’s social behavior. There are a number of other teaching programs that have been particularly effective when delivered to motivated parents. Motivated parents seem to be a key to success in education programs. There has been little study of the success of programs that serve as interventions aimed at preventing and stopping a wide range of antisocial behavior of children in their teens. There have however been assessments assessed though results of troubled teenagers and the risky lifestyles that have led them to get into trouble. These older children come from broken homes with poor parenting interaction. Risky lifestyles can be gang related activities, drugs/alcohol, and truancy).There seems to be a lack of satisfactory friendships, support systems or supervisio n in these children’s lives. There are, of course, problems associated with delivery of parenting programs; the greatest challenge is getting paren... ...nteractive part. Works Cited Barna, Jennifer S., and Brott, Pamela E. â€Å"How Important is Personal/Social Development to Academic Achievement? The Elementary School Counselor’s Perspective.† Professional School Counseling 14.3 (2011): 242-249. Brannon, Diana. â€Å"Character Education—a Joint Responsibility.† Education Digest 73.8 (2008): 56- 60. Parker, David C., Nelson, Jennifer S., and Burns, Matthew K. â€Å"Comparison of Correlates of Classroom behavior problems in schools with and without a school-wide character education program. Psychology in the Schools 47.8 (2010): 817-827. Reinberg, S. (2010). U.S. kids using media almost 8 hours a day. HealthDay News January 20, 2010. Scott, Stephen; O’Connor, Thomas G.; Futh, Annabel; Mathias, Carla; Price, Jenny; and Doolan, Moira. Child Psychology & Psychiatry 51.12 (2010): 1331-1341.

Stress Management Reflection

After learning about stress in this class my understanding is that, stress symptoms may be affecting your health, even though you might not realize it. You may think illness is to blame for that nagging headache, your frequent forgetfulness or your decreased productivity at work. But sometimes stress is to blame. Indeed, stress symptoms can affect your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behavior. There is a long list of serious health problems that may develop due to stress.Some include depression, diabetes, hair loss, heart disease, high blood pressure, stomach upset, sleep problems, chest pain, back pain, obesity, obsessive-compulsive or anxiety disorder, sexual dysfunction, tooth and gum disease, ulcers, cancer. Some examples on how stress can affect your behavior are overeating, under eating, angry outbursts, drug or alcohol abuse, increased smoking, social withdrawal, crying spells, relationship conflicts. When you recognize common stress symptoms, you can take steps to manage them.Like we learned in this class stress management could include physical activity, relaxation techniques, mediation, yoga, tai chi, get a massage, and even things like keeping a journal recognizing your stressors and working on them. Everyone is different so finding your own relaxation techniques will help tremendously. Throughout this course I have learned about myself that I am not the only one in the world that has stress, it is more common than I thought. I have learned that if I take the time to do breathing exercises or right a journal about my thoughts I feel a huge relief and a lot less stressed.When I have a lot do I found that if I make a list and plan ahead it helps minimize my stress. I learned that when I am in a very stressful situation or the week has added up to breaking point for me, doing breathing exercises helps me feel way more relaxed and calm. Another thing I learned about myself regarding my relationship with my boyfriend is I have become a negative thinker, due to some issues we had in the past. This causes so much stress in my life that I cannot even begin to explain. However, after taking this class I have learned many ways to cope with this and it has been a tremendous help to me and my relationship.I believe my strengths are keeping organized and motivated. If I am not organized it is a huge stressor for me. When I stay motivated I accomplish a lot more things in one day, which in return is a huge stress relief. Some areas that I show room for improvement are I need to set more weekly or monthly goals for myself instead of just long term goals, by doing this I believe I would feel more accomplished. Another area of improvement for me is I need to have more trust for my boyfriend. Forgive, forget and move on. One last improvement would be to improve my level of self discipline.The topics I related to the most or the ones that I was most interested in were body awareness, breathing exercises, the worry and anxiety chapter, goal setting, and time management. I really enjoyed the body awareness exercises because it recognizes that when stressed the body automatically tenses. Our muscles become hard, tight and tense. Holding this tension is very tiring, and hence, a feeling of fatigue can occur. If the muscular tension has no release, because of the constant stress levels and not knowing how to relax your muscles can cause strain on your body.After doing this exercise in the book I was able to recognize what tense muscles felt and looked like and what relaxed muscles felt and looked like. So now when I have tension I feel that I am better at being able to let it go through body awareness and muscle relaxation. The breathing exercises we did in class I really enjoyed doing, I was able to take this from class and apply to my daily life when I was feeling stressed. I was really able to relate to the worry and anxiety chapter because I used to have huge anxiety problems which I have had counseling to work th rough.Another chapter that interested me was the goal setting chapter because it is something that I have wanted to work on improving myself, so I loved the fact that I had the opportunity to learn more about goal setting and that it had activities in the book. Time management was another big one for me. I feel like learning more about time management helped improve my organization skills. If I was to take this class again I would like to learn more about the different stress relieving techniques. I guess not so much learn about them because we did learn about different ones, but I would have liked to practice more of them.For example, I would have liked a yoga day. I would have liked to learn about more ways to prevent stress, I felt like we learned a lot about what to do when we are stressed but not enough about what to do prevent it. Our true sources of stress aren’t always obvious, and it is way too easy to overlook our own stress-inducing thoughts, feelings, and behavior s. I don’t believe there is anything that is unclear about what we learned in class, our book did a very good job at covering stress management.I felt the books activities were very helpful and for once I bought I book for school that I will go back and refer to for future help. Now that the course has ended and I am more aware of my stressors, my plan is to continue my stress journal where I write about what causes my stress, how it made me feel both physically and mentally, how I acted in response, and what I do to make myself feel better. Also, continue to learn new healthier ways to manage my stress. Change the situation, or change your reaction. Remember the four A’s, avoid, alter, adapt, or accept.Remember my healthy ways to relax and recharge when I am overwhelmed and feeling stressed. Some of the things that work for me are, going and getting a massage, doing something with my mom or sister, playing with my daughter, taking a long bath with lots of lavender sce nt and candles, driving around and listening to my favorite music, and doing one of my many hobbies. If I am noticing that I continue to have a lot of stress I will either find a way to enjoy the situation (except the things I cannot change) or find a way to leave/change the situation.The concepts discussed in this class apply to my future career goals by being constantly stressed out and not knowing how to deal with it can cause lack of motivation. I think that my future career goals call for a lot of motivation, so it would help if the stress in my life was minimal so I could stay focused. Another topic discussed in class that could be applied to future career goals is goal setting and time management. My future career goal is to become an OB nurse, with this job there could be extra stress due to the weird hours worked and just the job it’s self.So I believe the concepts discussed in class I will be able to apply to my future career and my personal everyday life. In conclu sion, after taking this stress management class I have learned that stress has many negative impacts on the body. I learned more about myself in regards to my stressors and I learned about some things that I didn’t even realize were stressing me out. There were topics I could relate to and some I really was interested in. I will continue to write in my stress journal and find ways to help and avoid stress.

Leadership Incident Essay

Companies differ markedly in their ability to produce future leaders, as several recent analyses of the 1,187 largest publicly-traded U.S. companies revealed. Among the CEOs in one study, a remarkable total of 26 once worked at General Electric (GE). But as the table below shows, on a per-employee basis that earns GE only tenth place in terms of the likelihood of a current or former employee’s becoming CEO of a large company. Top on the list is management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Amazingly, if we extrapolate into the future from the current stock of McKinsey alums who are CEOs, of every 690 McKinsey employees, one will become CEO of a Fortune 1000 company. Some companies did not fare nearly as well, such as Citigroup (odds: 30,180:1), AT&T (odds: 23,220:1), and Johnson & Johnson (odds: 15,275:1). While some might dismiss the results, not surprisingly, the companies at the top of the list do not. â€Å"We are a leadership engine and a talent machine,† said retiring P&G CEO A. G. Lafley. Questions 1. Management consulting firms did very well on a per-employee basis, partly because they are mostly comprised of managers (as opposed to blue-collar or entry-level workers). How big a factor do you think composition of the workforce is in likelihood of producing a CEO? 2. Do you think so-called leadership factories are also better places for non-leaders to work? Why or why not? 3. Assume you had job offers from two companies that differed only in how often they produced CEOs. Would this difference affect your decision? 4. Do these data give any credence to the value of leader selection and leader development? Why or why not? Based on D. McCarthy, â€Å"The 2008 Best Companies for Leaders,† Great Leadership (February 17, 2009), http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2009/; F. Hansen, â€Å"Building Better Leaders†¦Faster,† Workforce Management (June 9, 2008), pp. 25-28; D. Jones, â€Å"Some Firms’ Fertile Soil Grows Crop of Future CEOs,† USA Today (January 9, 2008), pp. 1B, 2B.