Megan Glavaz
5/15/14
Chef Cory
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t
There are countless small businesses that go out of business because they lack a “Wow!” factor. In the book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make it and Others Don’t the author, Jim Collins, thoroughly examines the differences between largely successful companies such as Kroger and Philip Morris, and those who, unfortunately, cease to exist. He delves deep into such things as finances, attitudes of employees, and operational practices of these companies.
The book begins with Collins describing the research that he and his team performed in order to write this book. The main factor of the selection process was the “period of growth” and if these companies were able to maintain monetary success over a long period of time (Collins, 2001). Once the selection process had been completed, the organizations that were selected for continuation in this process included but is not limited to: Walgreens, Wells Fargo, Gillette, Fannie Mae, and Nucor.
In the second chapter of the book, Collins co...
Good Old Boy by Willie Morris The book that I chose to read was written by the Mississippi author Willie Morris. The book, Good Old Boy, was written in 1971 and takes place in the small Mississippi town of Yazoo City. The book contains experiences of the author's childhood in this small town. The story began by telling many of the legends of Yazoo City. One of these legends involved a woman who lived by the Yazoo River. She supposedly lured fishermen to her house to kill and bury them in the woods never to be found again. The sheriff eventually found out about her and chased her through the woods into quicksand where she sank and died. Before she was completely under the sand she vowed to return twenty years later to have revenge on the town on May 25, 1904. Her body was retrieved from the quicksand and buried with a giant chain around her grave. On May 25, 1904 the whole town was engulfed in flames. Everything was destroyed in this blaze. The next day, some citizens went to her grave and to their horror the chain had been broken. Another legend was one about Casey Jones, a famous tr...
In Jim Collins book Good to Great, we explore the notion of being rigorous, not ruthless. “To be ruthless means hacking and cutting, especially in difficult times, or wantonly firing people without any thoughtful consideration.” (GTG, p. 52) In stark contrast, rigorous companies are no walk in the park, but the difference between the two styles is night and day. Rigorous companies adopt a top down approach when it comes to hiring management. There is an old saying that says a “fish rots from the head down.” This is analogous to a business hiring the wrong leadership and the business failing as a result of the poor hiring decisions in leadership. I think that successful companies, especially moving forward will
The motion picture A Few Good Men challenges the question of why Marines obey their superiors’ orders without hesitation. The film illustrates a story about two Marines, Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson and Private First Class Louden Downey charged for the murder of Private First Class William T. Santiago. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, who is known to be lackadaisical and originally considers offering a plea bargain in order to curtail Dawson’s and Downey’s sentence, finds himself fighting for the freedom of the Marines; their argument: they simply followed the orders given for a “Code Red”. The question of why people follow any order given has attracted much speculation from the world of psychology. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, conducted an experiment in which randomly selected students were asked to deliver “shocks” to an unknown subject when he or she answered a question wrong. In his article, “The Perils of Obedience”, Milgram concludes anyone will follow an order with the proviso that it is given by an authoritative figure. Two more psychologists that have been attracted to the question of obedience are Herbert C. Kelman, a professor at Harvard University, and V. Lee Hamilton, a professor at the University of Maryland. In their piece, Kelman and Hamilton discuss the possibilities of why the soldiers of Charlie Company slaughtered innocent old men, women, and children. The Marines from the film obeyed the ordered “Code Red” because of how they were trained, the circumstances that were presented in Guantanamo Bay, and they were simply performing their job.
Ender is first shown as intelligent and skillful, and Peter shows the same attributes throughout the story. Ender uses his intellect to triumph over his bullies, and this translates to his experience in the Battle Room. He has to outsmart the enemy, rather than beat them physically, and it worked in his favor the majority of the time. Ender understands when he has to use his physicality to beat a bully, but also knows when he has to strategize to avoid a certain situation. When Ender is encountered by Bonzo after he won the battle by disobeying Bonzo’s orders, he has to use his judgement rather than his fists to get what he wants. Ender argued with Bonzo, “‘... I’ll pretend that you won this argument. Then tomorrow you can tell me you changed your mind.’ ‘I don’t need you to tell me what to do.’ ‘I don’t want the other guys to think you backed down. You wouldn’t be able to command as well’” (Card 87). Ender understands what his enemy, in this case Bonzo, wants, and knows how he can make both of them get what they want. He doesn’t resolve to violence when he knows that he can use a different method that benefits him. Ender’s intelligence and strategizing helps him overcome the difficulty he approaches throughout his life. Peter also uses his intellect to benefit himself throughout the events that happen.
You would not buy a home, car or other large purchases without researching what product offered you the most for your money. The same is true when investing in a company. Investors do avid research on multiple companies to find what company matches the investors' criteria. In this paper Team C will research both AT&T and Verizon's financial documents. Team C will compare selected ratios, cash flow and make recommendations how both companies can manage cash flow for the future.
In the short story Good People by David Foster Wallace, Lane Dean and his girlfriend Sheri Fisher are two Christians with a troubling choice ahead of them, and finds himself questioning his own ethics as a Christian. The question on whether or not they should abort their baby is making the main character question everything he has ever known and believed in. While his girlfriend is described as a model Christian and a good hard-working woman, he is described as a man who would be stuck outside of the Dante’s Inferno chased by hornets for all time. He has not the conviction to stand and speak on what he thinks is right or even to decide on what he believes is right in the first place. He is ruled by fear and never stops questioning his own convictions. Not once in the story does the character make a concrete decision and leaves his girlfriend alone in a time of uncertainty. If only for this reason alone his actions are unethical to the standards of what a man in our society should act like. Any action taken out of fear is hardly ever an ethical one. As the narrator explains his
What is the difference between a.. What should MCI do now? BIBLIOGRAPHY Author not named (2002), Assessing a Firm's Future Financial Health, Harvard Business School Publishing. Stein, J. (1992)
“Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other” (Eric Burdon). People do not think they are doing good or evil, they just think that they are doing the right thing. Evil comes from within each one of us. You just need to something to bring it out.
Flannery O 'Connor is considered to be one of America 's most finest fiction writers in her time. Growing up as an only child, O’Connor was a devout catholic. All of her stories focused on morals, ethics, and religion. Most of her characters were southern protestants who were forced to undergo change as a result of painful and violent situations, by doing so this brought them closer to God. Her work is said to be classified as gothic, meaning it is characterized as gloomy, grotesque, mysterious, and violent. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, she uses many literary devices like irony, foreshadowing, and tone to convey her message throughout the story. What makes a person good; is it their choices, their actions, or maybe their beliefs?
When the 1980’s rolled around, it was a thriving company, in the Seattle area. However, the co-founders began to have other interests and were involved in other careers simultaneously. Despite that, the company was about to undergo a major turnaround. A man by the name of Howard Schultz started to pursue an interest in the company. He noticed that the coffee shop had a wonderful environment.
Eric Burdon, a famous singer-songwriter and member and vocalist of rock band, The Animals, and the funk band, War, once wrote, “Inside each of us, there is a seed of both good and evil. It’s a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.” Both good and evil are inherent in humans, however it is up to man to discover which trait will be displayed dominantly. William Golding, a witness of the destruction of humanity during World War II, has the ideology that man is inherently evil. Through his novel “The Lord of The Flies,” Golding introduces the thoughts of evil in society. To exemplify that man is inherently evil, a variety of characters, allegory, and metaphors are used to convey the occurrence
“You can’t handle the truth!” One of the most famous movie lines in the history of filmmaking stated by Colonel Nathen Jessep played by Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men. This movie starts as a couple of U.S. marines are convicted of murder at the military base in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The two men receive a lawyer named Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee played by Tom Cruise. Together he and his team of lawyers save the falsely accused marines and convict the Colonel for ordering a “code red”. The second work of literature, A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles is about a set of boys who attend a boarding school in New England. The greatest tension in the novel exists mostly between the two characters, Gene and Phineas (Finny). These two
In America eight out of ten small businesses fail in just their first year. Competition and lack of financing are two huge factors that lead to businesses failing. In 2009 more and more workers started to leave their more secure jobs to start their own business and become entrepreneurs. (Hannon 68) Over six hundred thousand small businesses were started, but that number means nothing if eighty percent of them (480,000) were doomed to fail in only twelve short months. (68)
Although small businesses do not make a lot of major deals with large investors, most small businesses create profit revenue greater than large corporations. Small business creators are very brave considering only ten percent of small businesses survive. Unfortunately, some communities do not support local small businesses; they only support the large brand name and force small businesses to die out. Since small businesses will not have a name brand known around the world, many people from communities will not support them because they are not known on a national scale. “This, in turn will affect the local economy and drive capital out of their local economy. On average, for every one hundred dollars spent in an economy, if spent on a
There are countless organizations throughout the world providing services to government agencies, educational institutions, medical facilities, and individuals. No matter what type of services an organization provides or to whom, financial management is essential to their economic viability. Consequently, many questions must be asked and decisions made pertaining to the finances of an organization. An organization must take into consideration, what long-term investments they should partake in, how they plan on financing the long-term investments, their liabilities and short-term assets, and how daily financial activities will be conducted. While these are not the only questions and decisions an organization must entertain, they are crucial