Month: June 2020

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unit 1 blog DRAFT

The author of my article is named Aaron Hicks, and he, with the help of four individuals who he acknowledged from the University of Richmond, published “Religion and the Workplace : Pluralism, Spirituality, Leadership.” Aaron is a professor with an undergraduate degree and graduate coursework in economics, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Ph.D. in religious studies. The author’s religious tradition is Presbyterian (Protestant, Christian). Before he began writing Chapter 1 of this book, Aaron clarified his opinion to the reader by stating how faithful Christians should have no interest in imposing their beliefs or practices upon others and they should want to receive no advantage in public life or the workplace because of their religion. “Religion and the Workplace: Pluralism, Spirituality, Leadership” is structured into 3 parts, where I will be writing about Part 2 (Chapters 5-7). The author’s objective in this section of the text is to offer distinctions, concepts, and comparative examples that demonstrate how religion is present in contemporary workplaces. The audience of this text includes scholars in favor of secular workplaces and supporters of spiritual leadership and Christian preferences because they will be actively challenged in their beliefs, but the audience also includes individual employees of any religion, or those who do not identify as religious or spiritual. 

Aaron’s purpose is to analyze current realities in the workplace in relation to religion and spirituality, and he does so by first pointing out how individual and institutional expressions of religion differ. That is, most approaches to religion and spirituality in the workplace often underemphasize religious diversity. Religion in the workplace is often seen as religion of the workplace, and the author makes an important point that the corporate leader cannot play the role of a spiritual guide or guru to his or her workforce. If a single company sponsors or promotes one specific kind of religion, this is questionable. One quote by the author which supports his reasoning and argument on why companies can’t openly express one religion over any other is “It may be easy for Christians to downplay the significance, for example, of subtle messages in the workplace that convey the privileged status enjoyed by Christian symbols, ideas, or holidays, but for Jewish, Muslim, and atheistic co-workers these messages are overtly present and reinforce their experience of marginalization.” (Hicks, 2003, p. 133) Additionally, public life impacts the workplace as the article explains. Religion plays many roles in American society, and many employees who are Christians have admitted that they receive or have received preferential treatment at work and in society. These current discussions of spirituality tend to marginalize those who are atheists or adherents of many religious backgrounds, causing those who feel pressured by society to divorce their religious / spiritual commitments from all aspects of their public lives.

I decided to include this photo for statistical reference. It is from library.cqpress.com from an article titled “Should employers allow more religious expression?”

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/ZTAwMHhuYV9fMTIwNTM2X19BTg2?sid=69c92641-5cec-4578-a000-a5aa855c2117@sessionmgr4008&vid=3&format=EB&rid=2

 

 

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Week Four Discussion

I loved all three TED talks, but my fast favorite was Jason Fried discussing “Why work doesn’t happen at work”.  Fried argues there are too many distractions at the office for anyone to get any work done. This could be considered a “controversial” stance to take, but one that immediately resonates with the audience. Just about everyone watching and listening can relate to the idea of having too much work to do, and too little time during the workday in which to get it done.

Fried may identify managers as a contributing factor to that lack of time, but immediately puts any managers in the audience at ease by self-identifying as a manager himself. This creates a sense of simpatico, as if the entire audience are now working with Fried on this problem and are open to hearing his thoughts on potential solutions.

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Sticking with Fried, I think his proposals on how organizations can give back time to their workers have merit. However, as he stresses, it’s up to managers to make that happen. By dedicating meeting-free blocks of time, management can communicate to the entire organization that it recognizes the value of interrupted time. This in turn could lead to those meetings which do remain on the calendar to be more productive than they might have been previously.

Thinking about how this connects with other things we’ve been reading and discussing with regards to organizational culture, I came up with the below Venn diagram:

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6/8-Discussion Questions (Mikayla)

  1. While watching Heffernan’s talk, one thing that is noticed is how she speaks on the future and the unlearned traits of the world. In her rhetoric argument she talks about how we should use our minds and imaginations to explore the problems of the world and how technology is setting us back in time. I find it interesting how she depicts modern day problems and shows the audience how they were solved by using ingenuity and imaginative solutions. She leaves the audience something to ponder on and every time she asks them a question she answers it. She indicates the talent and potential that could be implemented if we simply use our skills. However, if we hone our abilities we have the power to turn the future into whatever we wish. She notes how many problems the world has today but shows us that we have the potential to accomplish anything. Not only was this an inspirational speech but she tapped into the audiences capacity for improvement and tells them that not only has she seen change happen before but she knows that they are capable of it.
  2. In Jason Fried’s speech makes an argument on how although offices are created in order for people to come and do work it isn’t the space in which the most productive work is done. He presents his findings on how the best work productivity is never done in the office because there is never enough time to create new ideas or complete tasks well. He provides evidence on this and explains how he asked a group of people where they get the most work done and they all either said at home, in an airplane or even at a coffeeshop but none of them said at work. He compares trying to complete a full day of work to being interrupted in the middle of sleep, you cannot fully complete the task if you are always being stopped halfway. I find it very interesting that he presents this question and then he provides 3 tactics on how to avoid these interruptions and increase productivity within each office.
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Responses for Week of 6/8

  1. For this weeks assignment, I am choosing to focus on Salecl’s talk about choice, and how paralyzing it can be. In terms of her rhetorical approach, she engages the audience by starting with a few quotes. These quotes are relevant to the rest of her speech as she incorporates them throughout her talk by ending by talking about one. She ended with restating that she had then choice to include the quote by Samuel Johnson, and she is choosing to end with the same quote. She also engages the audience by retelling a series of stories that while humorous at times, drove home her overarching message of how we as individuals have the choice to change things not only for ourselves, but our environment. Each story played a different role in her topics,  as she touches upon how we are often paralyzed by the looming choices and we tend to overthink. As humans, we often take choices too seriously which may induce anxiety and think that what we do now will affect the future, or the choice we make now may contradict what we choose later on in life. I thought her argument was eloquently put together as she related experiences of others and herself to many feelings that the audience may have. She incorporated relevant examples, of taxing the rich or wanting a healthier lifestyle, that the listener can relate to themselves in order to completely understand her points. Her ability to generalize then personalize her message I believe was the most significant part of her delivery, and even made me reevaluate how seriously I take choices and how I too become paralyzed.
    3. I choose to do Jason Fried’s Ted Talk on why work does not happen at work to add to the body of knowledge we already have from organizational culture. Jason Fried is a writer and entrepreneur who created the software company basecamp who offers three possible to solutions to why work does not get done at the workplace. He offers the view of how working in an office can allow for short bursts of time to do work, instead of focused uninterrupted time to truly let the creative brain take over. He also touches upon how working from home allows for voluntary distractions, when someone needs a break, compared to the involuntary distractions of working in the office, where someone may approach you and ask you to do something other than what you are already doing. He poses the idea that managers and meetings are the true issue as they are place holders and distractions that add to the inability to work in an office. In order to counteract this, he gives three suggestions to remedying this deficit. I saw a connection between what we have been learning about organizational culture and his solutions for a better work environment. Below, I have detailed them in a Venn diagram to physically show the connections that can be drawn while also highlighting the differences that I have noticed.
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Exploring The Impact of Diversity in Professional Soccer- DRAFT

Written by Keith Ingersoll, Edmund Malesky and Sebastian M. Saiegh, and published in the Journal of Sports Analytics, “Heterogeneity and team performance: Evaluating the effect of cultural diversity in the world’s top soccer league” is an academic study focused specifically on determining the impact cultural diversity has on the success of European soccer (football) clubs. Using data science, the authors determine that those clubs which are more culturally diverse have a greater rate of success on the pitch.

I had heard it said by a commentator during a FIFA World Cup broadcast in 2014 that the national teams whose squads were comprised of players who played their “club football” in Europe had an advantage. It wasn’t only because the European leagues are considered the most competitive in the world. The announcer believed it was also because of the exposure those players had to the different styles of play utilized by clubs across the continent.

This seemed plausible to me, but was there any actual evidence to back up such claim? Could exposure to such diversity translate to better performances? It was with these questions in mind that I sought out such a study. “Heterogeneity and team performance” goes a long way towards answering them both.

The UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League is an annual competition comprised of the top clubs from around the continent. It is by far the most popular club competition in the world, with viewership numbers in the millions. In order to qualify for the Champions League, a club must have finished in the top four or five positions of their domestic league the previous season. In “Heterogeneity and team performance”, Ingersoll, Malesky and Saiegh focus on the English, French, German, Italian and Spanish clubs who competed in the Champions League during a ten year stretch from 2003-2012.

Ingersoll, Malesky and Saiegh collected data on 168 players across 41 clubs. Each of the clubs were given a cultural diversity rating based on a calculation referred to by the authors as “linguistic distance”. This, they explain, is to account for clubs comprised of players who may be from different countries, but where the same language is spoken. (For example, South American players who play for Spanish clubs.)

Keeping in mind to address potential impacts to the results of the study, such as the financial resources of each club, player movement, etc., Ingersoll, Malesky and Saiegh used the linguistic distance measurement, and per-goal difference as variables. They then used total and average roster value as a control variable. To measure overall club quality, they cited such resources as player rankings published by ESPN and The Guardian as a means to establish player quality and averaged that across each club. It seems that the numbers do in fact back up the assertion made by that commentator back in 2014. More diverse teams do have a greater rate of success.

Put simply, goal differential is the number of goals a club scores minus the number of goals allowed. It’s an especially effective measurement for success, because the higher the goal differential, the more likely a club is winning or drawing matches, as opposed to losing them. As you can see in the above chart taken directly from the study, clubs with a greater rate of linguistic diversity also had higher average goal differential per season.

If cultural diversity translates to success in soccer, does it not also stand to reason that the same would be true across a myriad of endeavors? The cultural influence of soccer, the UEFA Champions League, and of clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris San Germain, Manchester United and Arsenal cannot be overstated. Soccer is a game played and watched by billions around the planet. The most successful clubs in the most successful competition are comprised of the most talented players from around the world. To see a collection of players from diverse backgrounds work together towards a common goal and be rewarded for it, should serve as an inspiration for soccer fans around the world. Maybe, just maybe, soccer fans will see that success, and attempt to emulate that in their own lives.

Heterogeneity and team performance

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Draft of Expanding the Canon

Providing equal representation for minorities has always been a growing concern the world has faced much discriminiction and hesitancy over providing opportunities to all races. However, a different form of racial exclusion comes to the surface when we read an article titled “Gifted Ethnic Minority Students and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis”. This article boils down the prejudice encountered in day to day life and centers on discrimination encountereed in the classroom. A study was conducted in order to investigate racial bias against minorities being chosen for gifted education programs. It has been a constant theme of teachers overlooking educated minority students and not being able to depict them from other students. With a general disregard for these students and a lack of representation in these programs, once they reach college, they find themselves falling behind tremendously and taking extra classes to keep up. This article’s main purpose is to highlight the academic differences between minority and regular students and explore the rates of academic success for those involved in the programs. With a school as big and diverse as Syracuse University it is important to allow minorities to take rigorous classes and to be encouraged to join leadership programs. The authors of this article attempted to convey how classroom and educational program diversity can help students with less opportunities excel and be allowed to flourish in these restricting environments. It is important to bring conversations like these to light and help spread awareness on making classrooms more welcoming spaces.

https://journals-sagepub-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0016986216674556

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6/8 discussion

  1. The presentation Margaret Heffernan gave felt very passionate, her use of strong phrasing and deliberate personal connections helped solidify her point of view and she was able to deliver quite a powerful TEDtalk about a topic I had yet to fully address. Humans worldwide are racing toward the future, although no one can really predict what we are racing to. Heffernan uses experiments conducted in nursing homes, supermarkets, and professional sports teams that provide solid evidence for the ideology that efficiency has become more dangerous than prosperous as we keep pushing ourselves toward the future. Many of the statements made by Heffernan resonated with me, including “What all of these technologies attempt to do is to force-fit a standardized model of a predictable reality onto a world that is infinitely surprising. What gets left out? Anything that can’t be measured — which is just about everything that counts.” Humans can use technology to make many advancements for our race, although when we start to place our own future into the hands of technology to lead us we are giving up the idea that humans and our lives are naturally unpredictable. I believe the statement resonated with the whole audience since it received an applause; it addresses human lives as being the center of attention as they should be, and something our capitalist world isn’t good at doing at all. With all the emotion flowing through the 8 billion people on this planet we must focus on creating a welcoming future, rather than creating the first future we can get to.
  2. Jason Fried’s approach to the idea of reforming the standard business office system is fueled with the idea that while we are working with efficiency in mind many businesses could be unknowingly slowing down productivity because of interruptions that only occur in the office. He speaks to the audience with a tone of someone who has been in the unproductive office setting that many know, and by listing examples of everyday occurrences he changes the perspective on what is actually helping people work and what only looks like it is helping people work. Fried talks about the question he has asked many people, “where do you go when you really need to get something done?” The answers vary, but all stray from the office; typically, individuals work the most efficiently when they are alone. This idea is completely offensive to the way offices work, they’re designed to be an open environment that is meant to make an organization operate together without physical boundaries separating the workforce, Fried makes this very evident in his statements. Using words like “toxic” and “poisonous” to describe a meeting, but when he breaks his opinion down into the fact that a one-hour meeting with 10 individuals is actually a 10-hour meeting, you can see how his perspective has solid points. When standards are put in place and enforced by a manager, you take away the control someone has on their specific task, forcing a team to stop what they are doing and turn their attention to a meeting only one person has on their mind can completely wipe away the deep workflow people find themselves in when they are left alone.
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Unit 1 Assignment Draft

Throughout this unit, we have dived into the specifics of diversity and inclusion in the workplace using numerous readings. While it really opened my eyes, I have still yet to really see how the LGBT community faces these challenges, particularly in sports where not many individuals within that community fit the norm. The article I picked is titled “Between Homohysteria and Inclusivity: Tolerance Towards Sexual Diversity in Sport,” which does a great job at explaining what is currently happening in the industry of sports with this community as well as giving evidence from the study they did. The researchers are Joaquin Piedra, Rafael Garcia-Parez and Alexander G. Channon and the article was published in April of 2017. These researchers are experts in the field and have done numerous studies about homophobia and Homohysteria in all facets. The goal of this particular article is to broaden the knowledge of Individuals who might not know much about it and create a new way of thinking for ones who often neglect people just because of their sexual orientation.

The article begins by stating how there are a small number of openly gay and lesbian people in top flight sports which raises the question about wether sporting or social context makes it easy or difficult for these people to come out. There have been studied about tolerance to towards sexual diversity in sport which is why the researches wanted to write this article in which h they analyze metacognitive profiles of two different cultures, relative to the concept of homohysteria. Ever since sports were created, it has always been very male dominant, but even more specifically a site of hegemonic masculinity. Gender and sexual diversity has always been ignored and the sexual minorities have been stigmatized for quite some time now. In order to understand the complexity of changes in the sport, you must know the broader theory of inclusive masculinity the authors state. This can be defined. as “the fear of being socially perceived as gay.” The fact that in todays society people are still not accepting of this is an issue. From this statement alone, we learn a lot and why this is a great example of diversity and inclsuion. Not only in sports, but in a lot of areas in America, the LGBT community is discriminated against and while it has gotten much better over the years, there are still areas of improvements. One of them is in sports which is why I found an article in the are and I think it would be a great addition to expand the canon. Furthermore, In this article, the authors go on to state a bunch of statics showing how these individuals have been discriminated against and then actually proving how openness on a team is actually very beneficial for not only the individual, but the team as a whole. The authors do a really great job at defining terms that may be new to a lot of people which makes this a really informative article for any type of affiance to read. Whether you know a lot about the topic or know nothing at all and just want to learn about it, it will be very beneficial to everyone.  Attached I have a video that explains even in further detail about LGBT inclusion in sports.

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Draft of Expanding the Cannon

The article titled “Employee Assistance Program Services for Alcohol and Other Drug Problems: Implications for Increased Identification and Engagement in Treatment” written by Jodi M Jacobson and Paul Sacco follows the study they conducted regarding the use of Employee Assistance Programs, or EAP’s, in the workplace and the further effects that it had on the company and individual. The central argument the researchers focused on was to determine whether or not EAP services were significantly beneficial for those with AOD, also known as Alcohol and Other Drug addiction. Furthermore, their study was directed to show employers how individuals with AOD can benefit in an environment where their needs can be met in a judgment free workplace. In order to gather data, the researchers drew from the pool of individuals associated with NESARC from different backgrounds in all 50 states. To narrow the data, the researchers then separated participants into those who had access to EAP’s in their workplace and those who looked elsewhere for help. The researchers concluded that those who had used EAP’s in their workplace were less likely to foster feelings of negativity in the workplace for fear of being stigmatized compared to those who did not have access to an EAP. Jacobson and Sacco elaborate on individuals in their study who had previously had experience with EAP’s and the demographics of those individuals. The conclusions of their work suggests that individuals who had used EAP’s before were those who had never been married, who were older, and of a higher income household. The study emphasizes how the use of EAP’s has varied across co occurring disorders and those who struggle with addiction, but they reported that the EAP gave them an outlet to receive help while simultaneously being able to live a normal life. The influence of EAP’s on the vulnerable portion of the workforce reflected individuals who felt more comfortable reaching out for help, and did not feel they were outcasts. Individuals who suffer from an AOD addiction struggle to reach out and receive the help they need. However with the help of Employee Assistance Programs, those who are struggling have improved performance in the workplace. The article originally published on The American Journal on Addictions can be found on the website EBSCOhost, which provides scholarly articles and similar published works. The site can be accessed through the Syracuse Library Summons, which provides Syracuse Students and Faculty with access to a wide range of studies and published articles by scholars. The linked article below is published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration , or SAMSHA, which elaborates on the use of EAP’s and how to use them within a company. SAMSHA is an agency that promotes receiving help for addiction while simultaneously educating the public of addiction and its many forms in hopes of reducing substance abuse. In hopes of encompassing diversity and promoting a work environment that is suitable for peoples of all abilities and disabilities, Employee Assistance Programs target the needs of the individual in order to provide them a way of healing while continuing a healthy lifestyle. Those who struggle with substance abuse often find the process of healing difficult, especially in the work force where they often feel like an outcast and carry a specific stigma. EAP’s work to break down the barriers to promote a work environment where individuals of all race, gender and socioeconomic backgrounds can receive the help that they need.

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Dan discussion week of 6/8

  1. The Presentation “Why work doesn’t happen at work” by Jason Fried incorporates many good argument techniques. The main purpose of his talk was to speak about how companies are hindering employee productivity by involuntarily creating a distracting workplace. He starts off by discussing a question that he has posed to many people over the years. The Question is “Where do you go when you need to get something done?” This is a powerful question as it forces the audience to think about their own answer. He then makes his point that almost nobody’s answer to the question is “the office”. Jason uses light humor to get the audience laughing through choosing examples that they can relate to. An example of this is his statement that true distractions are the M&M’s (Meetings and Managers) and not often social media. During one part of the presentation, he made the connection that work is like sleep as it happens in phases. He states that just like sleep, people need long hours of uninterrupted time to get meaningful work done. He then engages the audience directly by asking them to raise their hands if they have had 8 hours of uninterrupted time at the office (which of course they have not). The very last thing that Jason did in this 15 minute presentation was make three suggestions to remedy these productivity problems. He placed what he says in the final three minutes of the video. This is the last thing that his audience will remember, and his suggestions will be strong as the audience was very engaged in the discussion at this point.
  2. I noticed the presenter in the TED Talk “The human skills we need in an unpredictable world” used a few very strong techniques in persuading her audience. Margaret Hefferman initiates her speech by telling a story of a company that attempted to increase efficiency by automatically allocating tasks down to the minute. The point of her story was that this resulted in an inefficient process as the technology could not account for needy customers and other unexpected occurrences. Starting off with an example made it clear for her audience to understand the problem she is addressing. She then made some examples of important “inefficient” company processes such as a vaccine company who is developing many vaccines that could possibly be useful in case of a global pandemic. (Apparently there is not enough of these companies). Another example she provided was how banks are now holding more capital than they have in the past in case of market crashes. Though it is inefficient to hold too much cash, she explains that it is robust and a good safety net in case of economic emergencies. She then leads her audience by posing a question of how do we change our company models of efficiency? She uses examples of how this has been done such as in hospitals in Netherlands where nurses have more responsibility to tend to the needs of the individual patients. After a few more examples she adds in her point that we need to become less dependent on technology that is focusing on efficiency and become more interdependent with each-other. She also makes the powerful point that if we continue to let machines think for us, we will lose our ability to think for ourselves at all.