Just War Essay

The just wars fought by the United States government against Indian tribes were iniquitous and questionable. The formulation of the concept of just and lawful war was proof of the same reason why most Indian tribes sided with England, that the Americans were corrupt and fraudulent. I believe that there is always a democratic and diplomatic way of handling problems and conflicts, especially when dealing with political and social issues. For instance, the U. S. government, holding a prominent and powerful place in society, should have exercised authority responsibly by surveying and gathering information regarding the concerns and demands of the tribes. There should have been in depth discussions regarding the peace-keeping process of local tribes, as well as its relation to their culture. When we talk about culture in the global context, we are talking about variety and difference. What I mean is that, there is and will never be one right culture. Cultural relativism, and the likes, proves such assertion. To apply this concept in the situation, what the U. S. government believes as a process of long term peace, may not be true to the beliefs and traditions of the tribes. Tribal conflicts have been a part of their existence, and long before the intervention of the Europeans and the Americans, they have managed to coexist despite conflicts, which they settle within their own means of setting up a common ground and bringing back social order. Therefore, the U. S. government should not have made assumptions about the practices of the tribes. Moreover, every person has the right to believe in things they want to believe in. So if tribes believe that the Americans are oppressive and chose to side with the English, then that is their own right – to look after their best interests in order to survive. They should not have been punished due to their beliefs and their prevailing instincts to survive and live in more desirable conditions. After the war ended, and the English were defeated, the U. S. government should have sat down with tribal leaders and talked about what things should be done in order to calm and satisfy the tribes. The just and lawful wars, as claimed by the U. S. government were tactless and unreasonable.

Turning Strategy into Great Performance

First, let me start by explaining that a lot of times executives, and some HR leadership fail to recognize that performance and potential are two completely different dynamics that get often confused when companies are trying to hire new talent or possibly promote their current talent for new roles within their organizations. In fact, today's leaders cannot assume that their current top performers are the next potential talent in the industry for future purposes. Certainly, high performers may master their specific job task at the moment, but the â€Å"potential† challenge is going to be how well they will adapt to future role changes, and the ambiguity that may follow with that new role and their current skills capability. Unlike performance, individuals showing potential are identified by how well they adapt at accomplishing new tasks quickly and effectively while learning new roles quicker than their peers. After all, performance keeps businesses running optimally at the moment, but it's potential that helps run the future state of the business and that's what's needed to bring companies to the next level. Besides, employees who have potential have the ability to grow and take on more responsibilities in the future. In short, performance keeps the business moving, while potential makes the business prosper, grow, and mature.In fact, this is where the dynamic changes to potential rather than performance. In his book on Strategy-Driven Talent Management, Silzer and Dowell, (2009) explains that Executives and human resource personnel need to be better trained at accurately assessing talent to identify both potential and behavior rather than just judging by past performance because they will need to predict and envision whether a person will be successful in the long-term or not in future new roles. In the same way, they will need to take into consideration the fact that before moving existing talent into future positions that assessment measures must be taken whether these individuals will continue to be able to perform and grow in their new roles as they did in their past roles. In particular, consider how likely they are to develop and be successful in rapidly learning, adapting, and growing into these future roles (Silzer, & Dowell, 2009). In the same way, Church and Rotolo, (2013) explain in their benchmark survey of large corporations that multi-source assessment tools are a great way for organizations to make decisions about their potential talent and performance identification within their talent pools; help aid in succession planning; and drive behavior change for those selected individuals. In addition, they emphasized that not one specific tool is perfect, but that in using many feedback assessment tools the common end result should point to the same conclusion. In fact, they found specifically that the constant feedback from executives and their peers using 360-degree feedback surveys were successful in almost 70% of the organizations researched. The 360-degree feedback survey helped executives make important decisions regarding their talents potential and performance measurements towards predicting future behavior. Similarly, they also discussed the importance of making these surveys specific to their own needs, challenges, and business strategies (Church, & Rotolo, 2013).Likewise, Dries, Vantilborgh, & Pepermans, (2012) explain the role of learning agility and career variety in the identification and development of high potential employees. Their research found that in order to help identify talent in high potential individuals those individuals needed to succeed in a variety of other roles while being subjected to tough or difficult conditions other than their current limited job tasks and their past performance alone. In fact, those select employees needed to have a high agility for continuous learning they had to be willing and able to learn new competencies. Nevertheless, they emphasized that management in the past have always depended on current job performance to identify high potentials, but have failed because not all high performers are high potential individuals. In brief, they emphasized the need for a learning agility assessment in their development and identification of high potential individuals, in order for organizations to sustain their competitive advantage (Dries, Vantilborgh, & Pepermans, 2012). Equally important, is Campbell & Smith's, (2010) article on High-potential talent: A view from inside the leadership pipeline. These two researchers found that an overwhelmingly 96% of survey participants said that both engagement and commitment were very high on their list for developing potential employees to be motivated to perform above and beyond their specific job duties. More importantly, they explained the vital role that their employee's experiences and perspectives play in identifying potential talent from within the companies talent pipeline. In fact, they believe that when companies invest in talent management to include both career pathways and support for their high potential employee developments that those processes help identify the next steps needed to advance leadership potential and performance within the organization. All the while, building employee engagement, commitment and loyalty to their organization that results in an overall business advantage (Campbell, & Smith, 2010). Nevertheless, because it's such a financial challenge to attract, develop, and support talent management policies for companies today, I believe it's vital for organizations to have in place retention initiatives, tools, and resources to help avoid any such loss of their high potential employees intellectual knowledge, skills, and abilities. Besides, there is a high cost of turnover for companies when employees leave for career advancement elsewhere. Surprisingly, Frey, & Stechstor, (2007) found in their double round of survey interviews of twelve senior human resource experts from large and medium multinational companies that in the first round of the survey, most companies had no real retention management policies or initiatives in place and that their attitudes towards retention management strategies varied greatly from some who thought it was critical to the success of the company, to some who didn't think retention tools were necessarily important at all (Frey, ; Stechstor, 2007). Subsequently, in the second round of survey questionnaires, collected from those same HR experts who were asked to then rate three specific categories of retention management tools that were deemed to be most important to them when possibly implementing them in their own retention policy strategies. The categories for the initiatives for retention were labeled as:1. ‘Must-have', 2. ‘Optional', or3. ‘Trend-setting' As a result of the data collected, in the first group of ‘must have' employee retention tools HR management of those twelve organizations thought that performance related pay, constant feedback, culture and developmental career opportunities were the highest priority for retention of high potential talent. Next, they thought that the second most important tools for retention that should be in the ‘optional' group were listed as job rotation, retirement benefits, coaching, and mentoring. Finally, in the third ‘trend setting' category the tools that they thought were good for future retention strategies were stock options, working from home, and specific job tailoring (Frey, ; Stechstor, 2007). In sum, the value of investing in employee training and development can help an organization in many ways. Namely, by having the ability to run a business leaner and more importantly, by helping to diversify the talent and potential that already exists within the organization. Certainly, when companies invest in their employee development and talent management policies it motivates employees to perform at their best, while at the same time offsetting costs associated with high employee turnover, and retention of skilled labor. All in all, in these difficult economic times when businesses are cutting costs and headcount, identifying and assessing high potential employees can help management move workers around to different areas of the business and run a leaner and cost efficient process. Finally, a company with good employee development also attracts loyal and motivated individuals. Simply put, businesses must have employees who are knowledgeable in more than one skillset to remain competitive. Altogether, training, assessments, and education help ensure that employees have the skills needed to perform their business needs. Therefore, when you invest in your employee's aspirations and abilities, it improves your business performance, efficiency, loyalty, and profit. In other words, the ROI on employee talent development is one of the best long-term investments that a company can make.

Food wine and culture of California Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Food wine and culture of California - Essay Example In laymans terms, a sustainable food ought to be reasonably priced and also include all the necessary nutrients required by the body. In other words, a sustainable food must be balanced. On the other hand, an unsustainable diet does not include all the nutrients that make a food balanced. Therefore, a sustainable diet helps uphold the well being of individuals. Over the recent past, most Americans have engaged themselves in consuming foods high in fats and sugars. As a result, a large proportion of individuals in the western world are either overweight or obese. According to Parvanta et-al (2011), "Approximately two-thirds of American adults are obese or overweight. Overall, approximately 23 million children are obese or overweight, and rates of obesity have nearly tripled since 1980" (n.p). This shows that instead of upholding individual well-being, the western diet is contributing to ill health. The westernised diet lacks the necessary nutrients such as vitamins, proteins, and carb ohydrates, and is high in sugars, fats, and other industrially manufactured substances. Based on this aspect, the western diet is unsustainable. In essence, a sustainable food is a food with the ability to be available for a very long time no matter the conditions available. Sustainable foods are also affordable. It is important to consider the fact that a sustainable food has to be enough for the local inhabitants (Carrera-Bastos, Fontes-Villalba and OKeefe, 2011). People cannot depend on imports as some foods are seasonal. According to Simopoulos (2011), the western diet contains some imported food stuffs such as vegetables and fruits. Fresh food products are able to reach the intended consumers faster and cheaply as compared to imported food stuffs. Studies conducted in the past elucidated the fact that the more the food delays before reaching the intended consumers, the more nutrients it loses. Therefore, such food may not meet the

The American Military Failure in Vietnam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The American Military Failure in Vietnam - Essay Example The fact that the United States never had a real sense of purpose in this war, and the fact that the Vietnamese were able to bog down the American military, are the key reasons why the Vietnamese were victorious in this conflict. The conflict, of course, began when the French decided to release their colonial claims to Vietnam. The French army was driven from Vietnam in 1954, resulting in the Geneva Peace Accords. This created a temporary partition of Vietnam at the seventeenth parallel, until 1956, when nationwide elections would be held. While the Communist powers in the Soviet Union and China did want the entire nation of Vietnam to become Communist, they predicted that the 1956 election would accomplish their aims without bringing the United States into the conflict (The Wars for Vietnam: 1945 to 1975). Rather than initiate another conflict similar to Korea, the American government began a concerted effort to win the political minds of those living to the south of the Communist zone. A major part of this effort was the creation of SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization). Initially, the American efforts were successful: the 1956 elections brought Ngo Dinh Diem, a firm opponent of Communism, to power in South Vietnam (Kaiser, p. 36). However, Diem claimed that the North Vietnamese were preparing to take the southern half of Vietnam by force, and the Americans began aiding his military maneuvers against the northern half in 1957. Diem used a variety of brutal internal measures in South Vietnam to quell the Communist insurgency, including Law 10/59, which permitted authorities to hold anyone who was suspected of being a Communist indefinitely, without bringing charges (Kaiser, p. 41). Over time, Diem became increasingly autocratic, which made him an increasingly difficult leader for the United States to support. In response, the Communist insurgency began to increase the amount of violence in its protests (The Wars for Vietnam: 1945 to 1975). The National Liberation Front was the official organization for those in South Vietnam who wanted to overthrow Diem's government. Created on December 20, 1960, the NLF had only one requirement for membership: applicants had to be opposed to Diem's rule. While the American government scorned the NLF as a mere puppet of the North Vietnamese Communist government, giving it the slur "Viet Cong," there are many who were inside and outside the NLF who claimed that the majority of its members were not Communists - thus showing how unpopular Diem had actually become (Kaiser, p. 44). President Kennedy's policy toward Diem was neither full assistance nor full rejection: the United States supplied advisers and equipment to the South Vietnamese government, but did not commit a large-scale complement of troops to assist Diem's military in its conflict against the NLF (The Wars for Vietnam: 1945 to 1975). This level of assistance was not sufficient to keep the South Vietnamese government stable. After Diem's brother led raids on the Buddhist pagodas throughout the country, claiming that the priests were harboring Communists, there were protests throughout the c

Intro to Film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Intro to Film - Essay Example According to the research "Intro to Film" findings, Spielberg’s career can be divided into three distinct phases. His main commercial success took place during the years in between 1975 to 1993. During this phase, he directed many of his and Hollywood’s best films like Jaws, King-Kong, Superman, Star Wars and E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, King Lucas, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones. Since 1994, his career took a new dimension and he got more engrossed with the manufacture of his dream studio, DreamWorks. Along with this he became further busy in production and directed some of the spectacular panoramas on the silver screen like Jurassic Park and its sequels along with The Lost World. Amistad, Catch Me If You Can, A.I. - Artificial Intelligence are some of the films from this director those were successful in the box office and were also critically acclaimed across the globe for their immense improvisation of technical usage and themes (American Film Institute, 2011). Spielberg’s style of filmmaking is responsible for his commercial success and worldwide critical acclamation of his films. His aesthetic senses are very strong and this is pertinent in his sets and costumes that so well fit with all his movies that they become an integral part of every film he directs. He has the power and flair to blend substance and maturity with entertainment. His language of the camera is both explicit and sometimes implicit. This particular style is exclusively Spielberg’s own signature and it has developed, strengthened and matured with years.

Reaction paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 6

Reaction paper - Essay Example That he was a former Jew and an insider makes what he is saying believable. There is no doubt that there are things about the World Wars that we are not aware of. Whether they were dispensable pieces of history or intentionally left out so as not to tarnish the image of the bloodshed in the Holocaust and to make those atrocities take an impact in the minds of people is something worth asking. What is very evident from the introduction of the speech was that it fully takes on an anti-Jewish approach or to say it directly, it is very anti-Semitic. â€Å"Here in the United States, the Zionists and their co-religionists have complete control of our government† (Freedman, n.p.). Benjamin Freedman tells us that what happened are all products of the propaganda of powerful Jewish people but I can’t stop feeling that in some way he has propaganda of his own. Throughout the speech he was very persuasive among Christians to take a second look at the lies Jews proliferated and how they have been kept in the dark all these years. Perhaps it was the best tone to convince people to what he is saying but the generalization of Jews makes it uneasy to take in without a second thought. It is very effective in that even I now begin to reconsider my knowledge of World War II and how it has portrayed Germany and rethink whether it was truly a genocide or just plain casualties of war.

Service Marketing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Service Marketing - Research Paper Example In service industry Customer experience in service industry on the other hand is a very important factor. Service industry directly deals with the customers. Unlike other industries service industry has more exposure towards the customers. The start to end process of the service industry deals with the customers and is dependent on their experience. Service industries mainly position themselves as alternatives to make the life of the customers easier and happy. Their advertisements and promotions are all centered around the customer’s convenience on availing the services. Most services availed by customers are for luxury or leisure purpose and the performance of such services are completely dependent on the experience the customer has throughout the process. Being aware of the customer’s need and providing them with it is a key factor in service industry. Established players like the Hilton group of hotels, The Marriott group and all the privately run hospitals are awar e of the direct impact of customer experience on their business. A single customer having a bad experience with their service can cause them lose many potential customers (Goodman, 2009, p.16). Concept of Customer Experience The level of interaction which an organization develops with its customer profile helps in the development of the concept of customer experience. An enhanced understanding of the concept includes the involvement of several parameters. Parameters studied involve the operational aspects of the companies, the different senses which the company’s operation evokes and the emotional aspect adhered to the products and services produced by the company. Further analysis shows that the level of customer experience developed in an organization depends on the level of interaction of consumers with the elements like people, different processes, cultural parameters, technological and other resources, and other strategies devised by the company in gaining more revenues and market share. The same can be diagrammatically represented as follows. The study of the concept of customer interaction in regards to companies gains importance owing tom certain reasons. Firstly the enhancement of customer interaction helps in the development of a long standing relationship between the people and the organization. Secondly the customers through such enhanced interaction tend to develop a strong liking for the products and services of the company and thereby enhance the parameter of loyalty. Thirdly this process helps the organization in augmenting the value of the offerings rendered in regards to the customers (Shaw, 2005, p.51, 56). Figure 1 (Source: Shaw, 2005, p.51) Customer Experience in Service Organizations The level of customer experience in regards to service organizations can be studied along the following parameters. Customers experience in regards to service organizations involves the direct interaction of the consumers with the pattern of service of ferings rendered by the service industries. From the viewpoint of the service industries it also aims to study the aspect which the service organizations generally take in dealing with its effective customers. The experiences which the customer gains of the organizational service are thereby studied mainly along two sets. Firstly the experience which the custome