The Leadership Moment Essays - Composition, Fiction,

The Leadership Moment The Leadership Moment is a collection of nine true stories of triumph and disaster and their lessons for us all. The stories are familiar: Eugene Kranz and Apollo 13; John Gutfreund and Salomon Brothers; Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Civil War, to name a few. The stories are drawn from the past and present, represent a wide-range of challenges that include both natural and man-made disasters, and illustrate lessons of success and failure. The author, Michael Useem, is the director of the Wharton School's Center for Leadership and Change Management. He does a superb job of relating the events and definitive moments of each narrative. Events unfold with the right mix of facts and drama to keep the reader interested. Lessons, or implications as Useem calls them, are woven throughout the narratives. Charts and pictures supplement the text where appropriate. The nine stories are sandwiched by an introduction and conclusion. All the implications presented in the book, about 40, are summarized in a final chapter called A Leader's Guide. The book assumes that much can be learned about leadership by the successes and failures of others. The author's concluding chapter extracts nine leadership principles from the nine leadership moments: know yourself, explain yourself, expect much, gain commitment, build now, prepare yourself, move fast, find yourself, and remain steadfast. The Leadership Moment reads like an adventure novel. Even the book's cover, mountain climbers trudging up a foreboding slope, promotes a sense of intrigue and danger. Useem is a great storyteller. His selection of narratives provokes many thoughts about leadership triumphs and disasters. My only real frustrations with the book stem from the implications and the nine leadership principles. The 40 implications that Useem introduces across the nine chapters can overwhelm a reader. Even though he summarizes them in the Leadership Guide, I doubt most people will remember more than about five once they put the book away. Readers will more likely remember the nine short-and-simple principles. Unfortunately, their introduction at the end of the book gives the appearance that they are an afterthought. Useem should introduce them at the beginning and help the reader understand the context for selecting each narrative. The Leadership Moment is easy reading. I kept the book in my car and read it during the 10-15 minutes I often spend waiting to pick up my daughter at school or the bus stop. The short-story format is perfect for the person with lots of fragmented time. The Leadership Moment is a great addition to your reading list. Lynn Heinrichs is associate dean of the College of Business and associate professor of computer information systems. Her interests include data communications, networks, and information technology management Book Reports

The Murderous Cult of Roman Diana and Her Sword-Wielding Priests

The Murderous Cult of Roman Diana and Her Sword-Wielding Priests In the US, the President has to retire after eight years in office, but at least they get to live after their second terms as President. Some of the ancient Romans werent so lucky. In order to become the new priest of the Italian sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis (Diana of Nemi), the incoming priest had to murder his predecessor to get the job! Although the shrine was  located in a sacred grove and near a gorgeous lake, so applications for the position must have been through the roof... Priestly Problems So whats the deal with this sacerdotal situation? According to Strabo, Artemiss worship at the grove of Nemi - included a barbaric ...  element. The priestly turnover was quite graphic, for, as Strabo recounts, the priest had to be a runaway slave who killed the man previously consecrated to that office. As a result, the reigning priest (dubbed the Rex Nemorensis, or King of the Grove at Nemi) always carried a sword to protect  himself against murderous interlopers. Suetonius concurs in his  Life of Caligula.  Apparently, the ruler of Rome didnt have enough to occupy his twisted mind during his own reign, so he meddled in religious rites...Supposedly, Caligula got fed up with the fact that the current Rex Nemorensis had lived for so long, so the dastardly emperor hired a stronger adversary to attack him. Really, Caligula? Ancient Origins and Mythical Men Where did this odd ritual come from? Pausanias states that when Theseus killed his son, Hippolytus - whom he believed to have seduced Theseuss own wife, Phaedra - the kid  didnt actually die. In fact,  Asclepius, god of medicine, resurrected the prince. Understandably, Hippolytus didnt forgive his father and the last thing he wanted was to stay in his native Athens, so he  traveled to Italy, where he set up a sanctuary to his patron goddess, Artemis/Diana. There, he set up a  contest for runaway slaves to become the temples priest, in which they fought to the death for the honor. But according to  the late  antique author Servius, who wrote commentaries on major  epic texts, the Greek hero Orestes had the honor of founding the ritual at Nemi. He rescued his sister, Iphigenia, from the sanctuary of Diana at Tauris; there, Iphigenia sacrificed all strangers to the goddess, as recounted in Euripidess tragedy  Iphigenia in Tauris.   Servius claims that Orestes saved Iphigenia by killing Thoas, king of the Taurians, and stole the sacred image of Diana from her sanctuary there; he brought the statue and the princess back home with him. He stopped in Italy - at Aricia, near Nemi - and set up a new cult of Diana.   At this new sanctuary, the ruling priest wasnt allowed to kill all strangers, but there was a special tree, from which a branch could not be broken. If someone  did  snap a branch, they had the option to do battle with the runaway slave-turned-priest of Diana. The priest was a fugitive slave because his journey symbolized Orestess flight westwards, says Servius. This ritual, then, was Virgils source of material for the legends about the area where Aeneas stopped off in the  Aeneid  to find a magical plant and enter the Underworld.  Sadly for these entertaining tales, neither probably had anything to do with the ritual at Nemi. Issues of Interpretation Aeneas and the slave-priests came up again in modern studies of religion. Ever heard of anthropologist James Frazers seminal work The  Golden Bough? He theorized that Nemi was the spot where Aeneas went to Hades, as Servius suggested. The sacred sparkly in the title refers to a bough, golden leaf and pliant stem Aeneas had to grab in Book VI of the Aeneid  in order to descend to  the Underworld. But Serviuss own claims were spurious at best! This odd interpretation has a long history -  well-chronicled  by Jonathan Z. Smith and Anthony Ossa-Richardson.  Frazer took these ideas and claimed that used the slaying-of-the-priest as a lens through which he examined world mythology. His  thesis - that the symbolic death and resurrection of a mythical figure was the focus of fertility cults across the world - was an interesting one. This idea didnt hold much water, but that  theory of comparative mythology informed the works many historians and anthropologists, including the famous Robert Graves in his  White Goddess  and  Greek Myths, for decades ... until scholars realized Frazer was wrong.

Parts of the Business Need to be Strengthened by Raft Furniture Assignment - 19

Parts of the Business Need to be Strengthened by Raft Furniture Company - Assignment Example There are various factors that seem to be influencing the organizational culture of RAFT Company. Such factors include The influence of Quinn and his co-founder Heinz Frye, whose influence affect the performance of the business. The development and the size of RAFT company influence its organizational culture are it is a small business seeking to expand through franchising in order to expand. The attitude of the customers towards the products of the company. The furniture of RAFT Company is unique and different from other producers in the market and therefore, is dependent on the role of the market. The forest-friendly nature of RAFTs furniture attracts most of the customers. Most of the customers are moving towards green furniture and therefore, are a great source of motivation for consumers who want to protect the environment by buying furniture which has been produced from recycled wood. While it was a great motivation of buyers to buy furniture because of the way it looked, this motivation has changed as more buyers are inclined to buying furniture that seeks to conserve the environment by preventing logging of trees. This makes such buyers responsible for their environment by buying a green option. Furthermore, buying green products becomes a habit for buyers thereby increasing the purchase of green furniture. Buyers are also appealed to the furniture produced by RAFT as it is a way of celebrating imperfection in art. The use of recycled teak wood in making furniture which is also characterized by imperfections such as natural marks. This attribute of RAFT furniture makes it artistic thereby appealing to people with aesthetic appeal. According to Quinn, it is warts and all the attributes of recycled wood that makes it beautiful.