Tag: isaac

1. The focus of the article “How To Create a Culture Manifesto for Your Organization (And Why It’s a Good Idea)” is clearly mentioned through the title. In this informative article, Molly West goes over examples of manifestos created for varying organizational cultures and goes over the positive role a manifesto can have in an organization. West introduces us to the topic with the realization that mission statements usually have nothing to do with the workforce behind the statement, and this helps the reader to make the inference that a companies plan should include the goals internally, not just on the exterior. There are no negatives affecting the persuasiveness of the article, making the idea of creating a culture manifesto seem like a no-brainer. Which, in fact, it is; the manifesto is purely meant to improve the environment and culture of an organization by creating a collection of shared beliefs throughout the workforce to help unify and boost morale in the employees. West’s perspective is that a culture manifesto is a necessary step in creating a positive organizational culture, rather than an extra step. After West went over the example organizations, she informs the reader on how to create their own culture manifesto. This section shows that a short list of questions and ideas, followed by a series of steps is all it takes to create a draft manifesto for an organization. The questions she uses and the conciseness she is able to describe the instructions with help solidify the idea that creating a culture manifesto is a simple, and very helpful addition to your organization’s culture.

2. Since the start of this research project, I have only read scholarly articles that range from nine to thirty pages in length. They are able to go into great detail and include experiments and studies that back up their research and analysis. At first, I thought this would be the best method for me to add my perspective to the conversation, although after developing a deeper sense of my topic I noticed I simply don’t have a strong enough grasp, or enough information to share to write a scholarly article. My main option now is to write an informative op-ed. It will be shorter compared to my sources, and can only feature quotes from peoples experiences and firsthand accounts, but it will have the same critical focus that my sources all had. Quotations from preservice teachers, early education teachers, and professors will be a main source of perspective on the complex issue, while the experiences of my close friends and my own will help me personalize papers attitude and stance. 

I want to inform the misinformed and the uninformed, the ignorant, and the arrogant. Misinformation has become a tool of the powerful to create masses of uneducated followers. It has also become the effect of leaders and influencers of our culture being given undeserving power over the people. In hopes to bring harmony between people, I plan on writing my research paper as an opinionated article thats focus is on the removal of the discriminatory and unjust cycle that ethnically and racially diverse people are forced into; primarily the beginning of the cycle that takes place in the education system.

1.  Allison Wynn is at the point in her article where she is listing her proposals to mitigate the ongoing discrimination in organizations when she adds the link to the article “Why Most Performance Evaluations Are Biased, and How to Fix Them”. The link is contained in a small paragraph that places blame on ambiguous evaluation forms that use open-ended questions that draws biased opinionated answers. The study she links to elaborates on this claim, and uses data and experiments to try and find a solution to the problem. The study involved speaking to current managers and their thoughts on the evaluation form and its process, and their answers typically were not confident in the current system. The ambiguity of the questionnaires leaves managers lost often, and in turn, their unconscious/conscious biases help them fill in the open spaces.  The authors, Lori Mackenzie, JoAnne Wehner and Shelley J. Correll, then go on in the same direction as Wynn by proposing improvements to the evaluation form process. The study they conducted also included managers feedback and opinions on their more specific evaluation form that forced the managers to work through their employees using a standardized list of criteria, in hopes everyone is judged much more equally. The responses they received were 90% positive, and the managers who participated in the study said the new form made them feel much more confident in their evaluations.
2. The target audience of Allison Wynn’s article “Individual Change Won’t Create Gender Equality in Organizations” is primarily the managers and executives in leadership roles that have the power to implement the reforms Allison Wynn is calling for. Baseline employees and even some of the higher positions in organizations usually have little power in making changes to the pre-existing standards of the company, although the manager’s role typically includes managing and evaluating their employees work. In the article, Wynn states 

“While conducting a year-long, in-depth case study of a Silicon Valley technology company implementing a gender equality initiative, I investigated how executives understand and attempt to mitigate inequality. I found that their explanations for inequality—and strategies to address it—often fall short of enacting the change that’s most necessary.”

This statement was used in her introduction, and she brings up the fact that most of her studies results show that the people with the power to enact positive change often do not do so. This passage is calling out to executives, informing them of how large this issue has become and how they are the ones in the position to enact change, and the rest of the article calls back to this statement every time it mentions the executive’s role in a company.

1. The article “Changing preservice Teacher’s Attitudes/Beliefs About Diversity” investigates the motives behind racial bias and what is needed to reform the bias into awareness. M. Arthur Garmon is the author and a professor of early education and human development at Western Michigan University and uses past study’s results to introduce us to the issue of preservice teachers having discriminatory biases. He created his own study of one of his students, Leslie P., who becomes a great example of the development of the racially sensitive mindset that is crucial in teaching. Garmon bases his study around the question “what are the factors that appeared to be most critical in the development of her multicultural awareness and sensitivity?” Through 10 hours of recorded interviews, Garmon analyzes the conversations he had with Leslie in her senior year of college and categorized her reflections on diversity and multiculturalism throughout her life and how she developed a healthy perspective on the topic. The article is filled with large quotes from their conversations, between them, professor Garmon adds in his inferences and analysis of Leslie and her mindset. He continually mentions Leslies mindfulness and how she is more perceptive than any of his other students. Like most of her white classmates, Leslie came from a homogenous rural town where diversity was rarely discussed. Her interest to open her mind to the topic is what stood out so much to Garmon, although she had not grown up surrounded by multiple cultures she believed it was important to be engaged in all the different walks of life that surrounded her when she arrived at college. 

Leslie opened up about the prejudices that had formed in her childhood and the ignorance that the biased beliefs fed off of. Although, she affirms that this openness and mindfulness to ones own prejudiced views is a necessary step to forming the multicultural awareness that all people should work towards. She places a lot of the responsibility of this mindfulness on going to college, which was the first time Leslie had really become a part of a culture that included many varying cultures. This source will be especially helpful because it tells a true story of the development of an unbiased open mind; a crucial characteristic for anyone working in the education system. The article also addresses her commitment to social justice, this is a topic I feel very strongly about because I believe it should be a characteristic that is taught and encouraged in everyone, not just teachers. In past article summaries, and in my research plan I have addressed the issue that people have become selfish with their privilege, and how not only the education system but the whole world needs to turn their attention to the number of people forced into crime and poverty, not the number in their bank accounts.

1. While the article from Katherine Shwab does a great job of informing the reader about the perspective of open offices from a female it lacks in the topic of how to change it. It works as a great informative piece, and I noticed many solid and concise quotes that would make great additions to a paper or study regarding this issue, but to make this article a stronger argumentative piece I would include a possible solution. Typical cubicle office spaces seem to be uninviting; you are designated only a small square of space to do your work and you have walls surrounding you to help you not get distracted. It eliminates any feng shui that can improve an environments comfortability like the open office space is able to. Although, the open office plan clearly has problems of its own, and a large factor is how it eliminates all privacy that the cubicles offered. 

My suggested solution to these conflicting office arrangements would be to find a balance of the two. A main problem I saw repeatedly in the article was how there was no place to go in an open office to relieve stress or to make a private call. An open office that consisted of larger ‘mega-cubicles’ may be able to fix this issue, where some would be designated to teams of employees are meeting areas while others would be an open space that worked as a break room or collaborative space. This idea can also work like the casual-Fridays appeal, where the rooms are given designated days for their purpose, such as having a comfortable room with dimmed lights as a de-stress room two days a week. Not only does this address the issues women are facing, but it allows a person to choose how they want to spend each day. Forcing everyone into the same work conditions may seem like equality, but that’s not the answer to inequality; equity is.