Discussions/Homework – Page 11 – WRT 205 Summer 2021

Discussions/Homework Week of 6/28

Response #1

The style of Margaret Heffernan’s TED Talk, The Human Skills We Need in an Unpredictable World, was quite compelling. Ms. Heffernan, an entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker, immediately grabbed our attention by sharing case studies that presented examples of things the audience likely would predict had happened, then surprised us by showing that we were wrong.

Heffernan led us through the telling of multiple stories with unexpected endings primarily because every case involved humans versus technology. Our presenter’s voice possessed a cadence that kept her audience’s attention and she engaged us by asking a question then answering it. She used descriptive words like “robust”, “inefficient” and “preparedness” repeatedly to drive home her point. Heffernan was able to captivate her audience by discussing things that mattered to them, like the value of humans over algorithms.

Once she drew in her audience, Heffernan shared some philosophies that are important to her like how outsourcing to machines displaces people in low-income jobs or how technology leads us to not connect with people different from ourselves and have less compassion for others. In the end, she proved to us that humans are uniquely cut out for unpredictability and all its wonder.

Response #3

Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker, is an innovator. She started out by looking at what made women-owned businesses different from others. Now she examines the intersection of business, technology, society and family.

During her TED Talk, “The Human Skills We Need in an Unpredictable World” we find that Heffernan’s views align quite well with many of the issues we’ve been studying in class. She understands that nothing is in a vacuum and that all things are connected. Ms. Heffernan spends a lot of time examining how the impact of one action can have a domino effect on multiple, seemingly unrelated, things. This is an important point as shown in “Key D&I Concepts” where Kaplan and Donovan illustrate how executive Kim unknowingly causes negative impacts on several of her employees through seemingly innocent acts. Similar to Austin and Pisano’s Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage, Heffernan’s TED Talk also speaks to the problematic nature of algorithms resulting in disconnection from and dispassion for others unlike ourselves. In an attempt to be efficient in hiring by using algorithms, many companies miss out on surprisingly beneficial relationships with atypical job candidates. As Ms. Heffernan put it, “We are attempting to force-fit a standardized model of a predictable reality onto a world that is infinitely surprising”. While we delve deeper into our work on Diversity and Inclusion, I hope we learn to do away with force-fitting standardized models on people and embrace everyone’s differences.

Discussion Questions Week of 6/28

Response to #1

In his TEDxMidwest talk, “Why work doesn’t happen at work” (October 2010), Jason Fried, entrepreneur and founder of Basecamp, argues that it’s time for companies to change their thinking and practices about office work. He asserts that the typical office is an unproductive environment full of interruptions and activities that waste time, and he makes a case that employees will be more productive working in environments of their own choice. Fried’s rhetorical approach is interesting because it relies entirely on anecdotes to support his claims. He does not cite statistics or external sources. Fried knows that office workers are the audience for this talk, and he engages them by telling stories they can relate to. For example, most office workers can relate to Fried’s anecdotes about meetings that were a complete waste of time or a boss who has a habit of interrupting them. He really strikes a chord when he compares interrupted work with interrupted sleep. In delivering his talk, he does not speak from the position of an authority on office work but from the position of a peer, as someone who has developed insights from experiencing office work directly himself. He wears worn jeans and hardly ever makes eye contact with the audience as he shuffles back and forth on the stage. His tone is conversational. All of this helps him convey the message that “I’m one of you,” and create the pathos that helps his audience emotionally connect with his ideas. Fried also knows that radical organizational change is hard to achieve quickly, so he offers some simple and practical ideas that his audience can try wherever they work. For these reasons, I think Fried’s rhetorical approach is effective in getting his audience to believe his argument.

Response to #2

Margaret Heffernan begins her TEDSummit talk “The human skills we need in an unpredictable world” (July 2019) with a story about a grocery chain that tried to use technology to improve its operations. It’s a story of good intentions with poor results and helps her illustrate the main theme that runs throughout her speech, and that’s: the expensive and inefficient human way of solving problems often delivers better results. Her objective tone and poise establish trust with her listeners, which is important because she wants them to understand that her subject is serious with implications for everything from climate change to financial crises to epidemics. To appeal to her audience and build up support for her claims, she uses a pattern of stories followed by ideas. These stories are her evidence, and she draws them from many different areas of life, such as the grocery store, home health care, and sports. These stories create pathos and emotional connection because her audience can relate to these scenarios and outcomes. In her story about home nursing care, Heffernan also incorporates data to support her argument, noting that after an experiment “patients got better in half the time and costs fell by 30 percent.” This tactic helps creates logos and appeals to listener’s sense of logic and reason. Heffernan is a polished speaker, and she is also very skilled at using rhetorical strategies to strengthen her argument and persuade her listeners to share her point of view.

Discussion Questions Week 4

Response 1

Heffernan, a former CEO, attempts to explain the need for human qualities, as forecasting with technology cannot be solely relied on in the future. In the TED talk, Heffernan first attempts to connect with her audience by using a joke, in which coconuts are used in the reference as an example. I thought it was well done by Heffernan, as it got her audience interested in hearing more about what she had to say. After using examples of things that AI cannot forecast, such as when a group of high schoolers will need to buy coconuts, Heffernan uses “we” a significant amount. Heffernan is most likely referring to the human population due to how much she references human nature and the qualities that humans have, unlike technology. Along with using “we”, Heffernan does a fantastic job at blending in everyday real-world examples of why human qualities are essential. Heffernan does this by speaking about a hospital that had a strict schedule for each patient, which was changed to a more relaxed schedule based on what the nurse believed was necessary. A nurse who is sitting in the audience might be interested in hearing more about this topic. She uses other topics of individuals in the business world, thereby making other people within that field interested. By referencing a wide range of different industries, Heffernan can appeal to a variety of people in different areas, yet all have one thing in common. Efficiency does not always mean effectiveness, as numbers are not 100%, and cannot predict the future. She also used a personal anecdote where she said she spoke to some rising CEOs, asking who their friends were at work. The CEOs stated that they had no time for that, in turn not being able to create lasting connections with other meaningful people in the business world.

The most critical part about her speech though is that she spoke more in a conversational tone. She did not bring up any relevant statistical evidence in her examples, rather she spoke through the reasoning. Technology, on the other hand, would solely rely on numbers, not human intuition. For this speech, Heffernan only relies on human interaction and appeals to the audience as “we” to illustrate the need for human interaction and emotions to be involved in organizations.

Response 2

Heffernan chooses to work with evidence in the exact opposite way that AI would work to form an opinion. Instead of using numerical data to back up her findings, Heffernan relies almost only on anecdotes in different organizations to prove her point. To make her points more effective, Heffernan develops her ideas by initially stating what she believes to be true, which is that we must not rely on technology completely, as humans are useful due to their ability to form connections and have emotions. After doing so, Heffernan chooses to use a real-world example to illustrate this point. For example, Heffernan states that having an efficient well-laid schedule may not be effective. Nurses discovered this after following a strict schedule only allocating a small amount of time for each patient and then turning to a schedule where they were able to spend as much time as they would like to with any given patient. After switching schedules, the cost went down while patient recovery times also improved.

Heffernan throughout the speech keeps us on our toes, as she speaks on the fact that no one knows when the economy is going to tank, or when the next epidemic is going to happen. Although this talk happened in 2019, I think it is really interesting. No one ever could have imagined that the COVID pandemic would happen in 2020, as we really could not predict it. Being able to look back on this video two years later is fascinating to me because it solidifies her point that forecasting and technology cannot predict everything in life, especially because ”Efficiency works well when you can predict exactly what you are going to need. But when the anomalous comes along… efficiency is no longer your friend.” She speaks about how there are organizations that help research vaccines and variations of sicknesses or diseases. If we did not already have research on other diseases such as SARS, then we would not have been able to develop a vaccine as quickly. However, due to some amazing researchers who continued to research SARS a vaccine was developed fast. Some may not have thought that it was efficient to be studying something that was not impacting our society at that present moment. However, it became effective in the long run and helped develop a vaccine.

Another reason why Heffernan is so successful at conveying her thoughts is because of the way that she addresses her audience. She addresses the audience as “we” because both she and the audience have emotions and are people. One of the main points that she tries to illustrate is that the thing that makes an organization successful is the people within it. I believe that her speech was less of an argument and more so went through a step-by-step process of her ideas, which were laid out through logical reasoning and stories.

By using both imaginary and real-world anecdotes to convey her point, Heffernan does a fantastic job at conveying her point about why technology cannot be fully relied on. I enjoyed listening to this TED talk especially because it aligned with many topics covered in my management classes last semester.

Discussion Questions WK 6/28

In Jason Fried’s Tedtalk “Why work doesn’t happen at work” he mainly uses comparisons to help his get his point across that work doesn’t happen at work because of the various distractions present in the office. One of his comparisons was that when a person is trying to sleep they need to be distraction free so they are able to have a good nights rest. Fried says this is the same case for work as well, you must be distraction free to get your best work done because you won’t be able to get deep into your work (or your sleep) if you are constantly being interrupted. He gives examples of distractions that are present at work that aren’t at other places like work meetings or frequent check-ins from managers.I think that by making these comparisons Fried gets across his message that people do their best work on their own schedules when they are in control of their environment.

2)Margaret Heffernan’s use of real world examples allows her to effectively support her claim . Heffernan began by talking about an American Supermarket which switched over to functioning more digitally in hopes of making the store more efficient. She contradicts the idea that it would be more efficient by mentioning that the machines could not do what employees could, things such as predicting when a kid would knock something over, or when someone would drop things. Heffernan said that efficiency is only beneficial when you can predict exactly what is needed, but when the unexpected happens efficiency is not longer an asset. She reasons that this same reason is why “Companies are blindsided when plastic straws and bags and bottle water go from staples to rejects over night.”. We spend too much time relying on things that we do not consider having any alternatives in case these things unexpectedly don’t work out. By including all of these real world examples Heffernan is then able to support that every time we lean on technology to do the things that we can do ourselves the trade-off becomes increasingly steep. Margaret Heffernan is able to utilize this information to express that the idea of efficiency makes us necessarily on Technology which us from working at our full potential.

Discussion Questions Week 4

In Fried’s TED talk, he discusses the reason people do not get work done at work. All three of the TED talks were relatable but I felt that Fried’s was the most because of the way he explained distractions and the way he compared work to sleep. I think that the talk as a whole is significant for many reasons, I also think that the way Fried presented his argument is important because the way that an argument is presented can have an effect on the response by the audience. He gave example after example and explained why each example happened which allows his listeners to actually picture an event that he is describing. He uses so many different types of examples that most people should be able to related to. Even if you are someone who does not work in an office, like a student for example, you can relate to be interrupted by your phone or by your teacher. I found the overall topic to be interesting and significant because work and sleep are things that people do everyday and will do for the rest of their lives.

In Fried’s talk about doing work at work, he provides evidence that most people have most likely experienced. He discusses where and when most people claim they are the most productive by giving some examples of answers to the question he asks, “where do you go when you need to get something done?”. Fried also gives scenarios where people get distracted so they physically can’t do their work. Every piece of evidence that he gives, it is very clear as to how it supports his argument. For example, when 10 people are in a meeting for 1 hour, that is 10 people whose work was interrupted and 1 less hour of work that they are going to get to do. So, as Fried explains, thats 10 hours of work that the company is losing. He walks the audience through all of the examples and evidence that very clearly prove his point. What I found to be the most effective about his argument is the fact that he used a wide spread of examples, the more examples he uses, the larger amount of people are going to relate to it.

Discussion Questions Week 6/28

Response to #1

In Relata Selecl’s TED Talk, I first noticed how honest she was. She would say phrases like, “I wasn’t sure what quote to share with you.” By being honest like this, Selecl makes her speech very relatable for the listeners. She also uses “we” and “us” a lot, which creates the same impact. Salecl also used many examples from personal experiences or her friend’s experiences. This way, many listeners can realize they have seen themselves in similar situations or have seen someone they know in these situations. By doing this, she created laughter. She also created laughter by the way she worded her points. For example, Selecl says, “She was so good at selling cars that then she sold airplanes.” Her friend did not sell airplanes, but it was a clever phrase used to engage the audience. Then, after this laughter, she got more serious about her point. Selecl went into an analysis of choices, then circled back to her own experience with a stranger. She started with a funny punchline that this person needed a sperm donor, which created laughter once again from the audience. However, again, she got more serious after with her tone and talked about how this woman has chosen bad men in her life and how these choices have been risk and stress-provoking. Selecl was very clever with her speeches structure; she creates almost a bond with the audience by using words like “us,” “we,” and presenting stories that most people in the audience could relate to. Using universal terms and ignorance, anxiety, stress, individual choice, and a “veil of obviousness.” A very successful tactic Selecl used was also bringing it back to herself and even asking herself questions. This creates more of a bond with the audience because it shows even the speaker still has questions and that people aren’t alone.

Response to #2

In Margaret Heffernan’s TED Talk, she started her speech with evidence. However, this may have blown over some people’s heads since it was an overview of an experience and ended up being evidence of “dealing with the unexpected.” When Heffernan talks of defying forecasting, she then says an example of this would be when the Bank of England says, “There might be another crash, but we don’t know why or when.” I noticed that some of her evidence did not have to be scientific or relate to a specific event. Heffernan mentions that we don’t know when or where there will be a forest fire, proving her point that we can’t rely on technology for it. Using examples like these where technology is not included in predicting things, Heffernan concludes her introduction by stating that efficiency actually stops us from adapting and responding as humans. This leads into the main section of her speech, asking if efficiency does not help us, what skills will? She gives an example of how we know there will be more epidemics in the future, but we don’t know when and where, but we can prepare. We can prepare with vaccines and safety measures. Heffernan explains that we won’t use them all with an abundance of vaccines, causing these actions to be inefficient. However, she states that this is robust because it creates more options. Heffernan’s “evidence” is hypothetical and does not rely on scientific or scholarly sources. However, I think this was intentional because her whole argument is about relying on ourselves to adapt and grow, not on efficient technology. By using human experiences as “evidence,” she supports her own argument. Heffernan also gives an example of banks, stating that now they hold more capital, being inefficient. However, it protects the system. She also uses climate change as an example, stating that they are forming multiple solutions, and uses the same approach towards trade wars. By dissecting all of this “evidence,” Heffernan’s point is that we can’t rely on something that is “efficient” because we can’t predict the future, we can’t predict outcomes, and it would be better to be “inefficient” and have multiple solutions and preparations for different scenarios. In her Netherlands nurses example, there was an experiment example where the nurses decided what to do with the different patients and how to treat them, causing them to get better in half the time. The nurses had no idea how easy it would be to create this solution since it was not something one could figure out by sitting at a desk, looking at a screen, or analyzing data. Since Heffernan used hypothetical evidence to start, this evidence example was placed perfectly in her speech to prove her point and prove that this type of inefficient thinking actually works. Heffernan did a great job at building a climax in her speech and presenting evidence in a way where the audience could engage by thinking critically about universal experiences with Heffernan’s presented mindset.

Overview for Week of 6/28

We’ll be closing out Unit 1 this week, so that means your first Unit assignment deadline is approaching (Sunday, 7/4).

Read on for an overview of how we’ll be moving toward that:

Look for feedback from me in the next couple of days on the summary of your article that you submitted yesterday. You’ll work with that feedback to finalize your summary, which will become part of your Unit 1 blog post (along with your commentary on how this article would enrich our understanding of the specific organizational culture issue/area you’re exploring). Be sure to review the Unit 1 assignment sheet. Consider your purpose carefully.

While you’re waiting for that feedback, start thinking about and looking at your options for a media component (link, video clip, image, etc.) to incorporate into your post. You’ve got a lot of latitude to work with here. I suggest using the assignment’s purpose as your starting point.

Here’s what I mean: while you’ve read this article (probably multiple times by now), your classmates probably haven’t. You’re suggesting that this text ought to be part of our canon, that looking at it would enrich our knowledge and understanding of this important issue. You need to show and tell us how that’s the case. You’ll be offering summary, analysis, and commentary. The media element is there to round that out.

For example, your media component might:

provide some background knowledge that would be crucial to our understanding (i.e. through a link or a video)
contain some visual context for the scope or complexity of the issue (i.e. an infographic) or assist with our understanding of change over time or comparison (i.e. graph, chart)
offer an opportunity to explore this issue further (i.e. through a link) for those who want to learn more

You may incorporate more than 1 element if you would like; just make sure you have at least 1.

Also be sure to attend to the following:

if using a link, make sure it is functional–use the “Add Media” button in the +New Post window to “Insert from url”
if using an image, make sure it is high-resolution so that it’s legible–again you’ll use the “Add Media” button to “Upload files” and “Insert into post”
if using an image, provide a caption that includes the source information (where you found the image–the actual web page, not just “Google search”)
whatever your media component, be sure that you explain its relevance in your post–don’t leave your reader to draw their own conclusions about its significance. Walk us through what you want us to learn from this item.

Here’s the other work on tap for this week:

draft of your blog post (let’s extend the deadline here to the end of the day on Wednesday, 6/30)
a few TED talks to watch (linked from Blackboard) for more perspectives on diversity and organizational culture (and in preparation for this week’s discussion)
discussion work on the blog–see the prompt here

I’ll be reading your drafts (due Wednesday) and getting you feedback by the end of the day on Friday. Your final version of the blog post is due by the end of the day on Sunday, 7/4.

Discussion prompts for Week of 6/28

This week you will be watching three TED talks and reading another article that all intersect with our big umbrella topic of organizational culture. (Think of this like a Venn diagram:

I think this can be a helpful analogy because it is much the same tactic that we take in research: we are not simply looking for the one “perfect” source but rather for a source that interacts with our ideas in someway that move them forward. And the more voices we hear from in that research (the more perspectives we incorporate), the more likely we will arrive at a fuller understanding of the topic we’re examining.

For this week’s discussion I would ask that each of you respond to question #1 and then either #2 or #3. Please categorize your list as “Discussions/ Homework” and tag it with “weekof6/28,” “unit 1,” and [your name].

We use the term “rhetoric” to discuss how we make arguments (what we do and how and why, not just what we say). Since a hefty portion of your work in this upcoming Expanding the Canon blog post hinges on rhetorical analysis, let’s do some practice–working with one of the TED talks for this week (Heffernan’s, Fried, or Salecl), talk to us about what you find interesting in their rhetorical approach. How do they engage the audience? What kinds of strategies do they use to explain their ideas? What do you think is interesting or significant about the way that they present their arguments and appeal to their listeners?
Choose one of the talks that you watched this week and examine how this speaker works with evidence. What kind of evidence do they use? How do they explicate the connections between their evidence and their claims? Be specific. How do they walk the audience through their argument? What are some of their argumentation tactics that you find effective? Note that you will need to watch the talk at least a second time, and take notes while you are doing it; you can also access a full transcript of the talk on the TED website.
Choose one of the talks, and discuss how this presenter adds to our body of knowledge around organizational culture. Who is the speaker/author, and what kind perspective do they contribute? (You may need to do a quick Google search to get a sense of who they are.) What kind of connections do you see between this take and other things we have been learning about organizational culture? If you were to make a Venn diagram (or a few) articulating the connections between this text and other ones that we’ve read, what would it look like? You can have some fun with this using an online Venn creator like this one or by sketching it out by hand and incorporating the image(s) into your post):

Venn Diagram Maker

Please post your responses by the end of the day on Wednesday, 6/30, and respond to at least 2 of your classmates’ posts by the end of the day on Saturday, 7/3.

Discussion Questions Week of 6/21

Question 1

In anticipation of “expanding the canon” I started my research at the SU library with the intent of using some of the filters to narrow my search. This resources has been advantages in its ability to gather relevant texts that can I pull from in order to form a well rounded claim. The phrase that provided the best search results in support of my topic was “veterans and unemployment”. Many veterans find it difficult if not impossible to find employment after joining the military as a result of the trauma they faced while serving. Being that the readings we have covered thus far have taken the ideas of organizational culture/ diversity and presented them with respect to a wide variety of people, I believe the topic of unemployment amongst veterans will highlight the intersectionality between these concepts. Moving forward, I plan on pulling articles that express the ideas of not only the veterans but of those who have influence in the hiring process and members of human resources departments at companies who strive to make an impact on the veteran unemployment rate.

Question 2

In “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off” by Kaplan and Donovan, they express the difference between intention and action surrounding the topic of diversity. They make claims on how the vision of diversity in the mind can come to fruition in a way that does not reflect the true intent of the person who made those actions. Whereas in “Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage” by Austin and Pisano they reflect more on the change that needs to be made regarding diversity and organizational leadership rather than the though process behind it.

In this week’s they say/ I say I was more comfortable with comparing the ideas of the two texts. This is due to the amount of practice I had with understanding the stances of each author separately and then comparing them throughout last week’s assignments. These templates have helped me understand my own beliefs through the analysis and comparison of the author’s own points of view.

Response 6/21

I would like to “expand the canon” by researching about LGBTQIA+ diversity in the workforce. Currently, I do not know much about this topic. However, I think it is important to educate myself and others about it. For this assignment, I would like to read a variety of texts and watch a few videos. I think it is crucial to hear from researchers and experts, but more importantly personal narratives of those facing discrimination in the workplace based on their sexual or gender identity. I plan on gathering statistics to show how “real”, important, and widespread this issue truly is through using the Syracuse Library databases. I also think it would be interesting to reference specific companies that have implemented programs and resources to address this. Additionally, it would be helpful to hear from hiring managers and diversity leaders on their experience with this topic. Finally, I would like to find proposed solutions to fostering more inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community in the workplace.

2. In Kaplan and Donavan’s book, they argue that people generally have good intentions regarding inclusivity but can unconsciously overlook situations which can become hurtful and harmful. The authors urge readers to constantly consider the importance of diversity throughout our daily decisions. I agree with the authors claims and believe that this excerpt has the potential to spark change within because of the real and powerful story told about Kim. Through sharing a day in the life of Kim , these authors have clearly identified detrimental patterns in the culture of careers and have provided solutions to address these issues.

I used components of my Kaplan and Donavan response to craft this one. I am still getting comfortable using the templates and I am questioning if I am doing it correctly. I was not sure if my “I say” was strong enough or even made sense but I wanted to try it out instead of using two of the “they say”.