Reflective Skills Essay

Reflective Skills Essay Reflective Skills Essay Do people develop professional skills only at their workplace? I would be writing about the skills and knowledge I have gained in the last 10 15 years. You dont have to work in an organization to gain skills and knowledge. Even while at home you can learn something that might help you at your workplace. Sometimes people dont realize that they have developed skills that can be used effectively in their workplace. In this essay I am going explain the skills and knowledge I have developed through work, education and other activities how this could help me in a workplace. First Im going to talk about the skills I have developed from my hobbies and day to day activities. Its actually surprising to know how much you can learn while having fun. After that Im going to talk about the skills I am developing academically at present. Playing cricket is one of my biggest hobbies and as a cricketer I am a wicket keeper. Being a wicket keeper, my role isnt just to collect missed deliveries and score runs but is also to motivate and inspire the team every minute so that my team members dont get sluggish in their respective roles and perform towards success. Once familiarized with the team I can act as a good motivator. This skill can not only help me to motivate other employees in my workplace but it also gives me the ability to work with little or no supervision as I can motivate myself to work towards achieving my goal. In todays workplace, team leaders have to encourage and motivate their teams in order to perform well. A strong motivator can act as the backbone of the team. This skill is one of the essentials required to be a good leader in any kind of workplace. Employers are also looking out for people with creative minds. By nature I am a very creative person. I look at things in a very different prospective. Usually I would take an original idea and expand upon it using my creativity, which can also sometimes lead to something else completely new. It has to do with thinking beyond the obvious. This is the secret to how the minds of creative people work. For instance, with music, the first type of genre was baroque music played during the 1600s and from that evolved a lot different genres. In todays date we have more than 400 music genres. This was possible only because of some creative minds who thought of doing things differently. Employers want their employees to have the ability to solve problems using their creativity and reasoning skills. An innovative problem solver can take an organization, irrespective from which industry, to the next level. One of my other favorite hobbies is travelling and I would often find myself in a situation of convincing some friends to come along. Usually I would succeed 9 out of 10 times, as they say I always manage to get things my way. This can also be called the art of diplomacy. Now having employees with the ability to persuade people can be very useful for an organization as they can face situations in which they might have to persuade a client or a trade union to reach an agreement. This skill can also be related to the sales ability of an employee. Travelling has also shown me that I can be a responsible person as I would make all the plans in detail, do the math for the expenses to be occurred, make sure every one is having a good trip and everything else is under control. One of the basic yet most important skills is to communicate effectively with other people. Everyone has been naturally practicing this skill since they were able to speak, listen or write, yet communication gap between the employers and employees still seems to be one of the major concerns in many organizations. In order to have a productive workplace, they should always be effective communication between the employee and employer. Successful communication is critical in business. I have developed good communication skills over the time. I can easily converse and make the other person understand and communicate with me either verbally or written. Along with this my listening skills are good as I listen to the other person patiently and then engage in communication with what that other person was speaking about. I can improve upon this skill by practicing more. A few other basic skills that I have acquired are computing and numeracy. Schools in India never allowed the use of calculators. I always wondered why we couldnt use calculators while schools across the world were allowed, but now when I look back, I realize why. Doing basic calculations mentally, without the use of a calculator has helped me sharpen my numeracy skill. Each day, people use simple math skills in their jobs and personal live in order to complete projects and other job duties. A recent large scale survey in the UK showed that people who have better literacy and numeracy skills tend to have better wages and come to work more often. One way of improving this skill is by avoiding the calculator when whenever a need of calculation arises. My interest in IT has enabled me to carry out all the basic computing tasks at ease. I always had an interest for it and I utilized everything taught at school like Web designing, HTML, QBASIC, SQL and a lot more. Almost every job now requires some basic understanding of computer hardware and software, especially word processing, spreadsheets, and email. Lack of IT knowledge can affect the performance and future prospects of an employee. While I did my schooling in India, our knowledge gained was always tested in the unseen exam format. After joining university I was exposed to new tasks like conducting presentations and writing report. When I was first assigned to conduct a presentation I was a bit nervous as I had never done this before in front of people I dint know. Later I was advised to practice in front of a mirror and it did work. My second presentation went better than the first. Being able to conduct a presentation with confidence is a very important skill to develop especially in the field of HR. One effective way by which I can improve upon this skill is by preparing my self well in advance so that I dont get nervous and referring to books and articles relating to improving presentation skills Another skill I developed while conducting presentations and writing reports in university is Teamwork. Working in teams is probably one of the most vital skills required to succeed in a workplace, especially with regard to how you communicate with the people you work with. 9 out of 10 jobs require you to work with teams. Working in teams with a diverse group of people has helped me understand how to communicate with my different co-workers and understand their views when solving a problem. Teamwork has a lot of benefits to offer, one of it being it helps to generate a lot of different ideas which leads to a creative solution and it definitely speeds up the process. Having more projects involving teamwork will surely prepare me once I start working at a professional level where my skill would be tested. Since Ive started an independent life after shifting to the UK I learnt how to be organized. Being organized has a lot of benefits attached to it. It has proven to be both cost and time effective. It also helps to boost confidence and give more energy to work. Employers would love to have all their employees being organized in their work.

Comparing Stanislavski and Brecht’s Acting Techniques

Comparing Stanislavski and Brecht’s acting techniques Early life Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria. On the 10th February 1898 Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins. Thanks to his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would impact on his writing throughout his life. From her, too, came the â€Å"dangerous image of the self-denying woman† that recurs in his drama. When he was 16, the First World War broke out.Fearing persecution, Brecht left Germany in February 1933, when Hitler later took power. Stanislavski was born in Moscow on the 17th on januray 1863. Stanislavski had a privileged youth, growing up in one of the richest families in Russia, the Alekseyevs. He was born Constantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev – â€Å"Stanislavski† was a stage name that he adopted in 1884 in order to keep his performance activities secret from his parents. As a child, Stanislavski was exposed to the rich cultural life of his family. His interests included the circus, the ballet, and puppetry.Increasingly interested in â€Å"living the part,† Stanislavski experimented with the ability to maintain a characterization in real life, disguising himself as a tramp or drunk and visiting the railway station, or disguising himself as a fortune-telling gypsy. Techniques Brecht remained a lifelong committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his epic theatre-Epic Theatre proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage.Brecht thought that the experience of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effec t change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.The distancing effect is achieved by the way the â€Å"artist never acts as if there were a fourth wall besides the three surrounding him. The audience can no longer have the illusion of being the unseen spectator at an event which is really taking place. † The use of direct audience-address is one way of disrupting stage illusion and generating the distancing effect. In performance, as the performer â€Å"observes himself,† his objective is â€Å"to appear strange and even surprising to the audience. He achieves this by looking strangely at himself and his work.Whether Brecht intended the distancing effect to refer to the audience or to the actor or to both audience and actor is still controversial among teachers and scholars of â€Å"Epic Acting† and Brechtian theatre. By disclosing and making obvious the manipulative contrivances and â€Å"fictive† qualities of the medium, the viewer is alienated from any passive acceptance and enjoyment of the play as mere â€Å"entertainment. † Instead, the viewer is forced into a critical, analytical frame of mind that serves to disabuse him of the notion that what he is watching is necessarily an inviolable, self-contained narrative.This effect of making the familiar strange serves a didactic function insofar as it teaches the viewer not to take the style and content for granted, since the medium itself is highly constructed and contingent upon many cultural and economic conditions Stanislavski's ‘system' is a systematic approach to training actors. Areas of study include concentration, voice, physical skills, emotion memory, obse rvation, and dramatic analysis. Stanislavski's goal was to find a universally applicable approach that could be of service to all actors. Yet he said of his system: â€Å"Create your own method.Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you. † Many actors routinely identify his system with the American Method, although the latter's exclusively psychological techniques contrast sharply with Stanislavski's multivariant, holistic and psychophysical approach, which explores character and action both from the ‘inside out' and the ‘outside in'. Emotion memory-Stanislavski's ‘system' focused on the development of artistic truth onstage by teaching actors to â€Å"experience the part† during performance.Stanislavski hoped that the ‘system' could be applied to all forms of drama, including melodrama, vaudeville, and opera. He organised a series of theatre studios in which young actors wer e trained in his ‘system. ‘ At the First Studio, actors were instructed to use their own memories in order to express emotion. Stanislavski soon observed that some of the actors using or abusing this technique were given to hysteria. He began to search for more reliable means to access emotion, eventually emphasizing the actor's use of imagination and belief in the given circumstances of the text rather than her/his private and often painful memories.The Method of Physical Actions- In the beginning, Stanislavski proposed that actors study and experience subjective emotions and feelings and manifest them to audiences by physical and vocal means. While in its very earliest stages his ‘system' focused on creating truthful emotions and embodying them, he later worked on the Method of Physical Actions. This was developed at the Opera Dramatic Studio from the early 1930s. Its focus was on physical actions as a means to access truthful emotion, and involved improvisation. The focus remained on reaching the subconscious through the conscious.

Buy-Grid model Essay

Supplier Evaluation An important job of the purchasing agent is to evaluate potential suppliers and their offerings. The effects of purchasing on a firm’s competitive ability are great, so companies pay close attention to how they evaluate suppliers. Marketers must also understand the process, for them the ones being evaluated. Understand the process is like understand the rules of any games; if you don’t know how to score, you are unlikely to win. The buy-grid model is a version of a theory developed as a general model of rational organization decision making, explain how companies make decisions about, for example, where to locate a plant or make a purchase. The buy grid model has two parts: the buy-phase model and the buy class. The buy-phase model in a management class as the rational or extensive problem solving model or in consumer behavior as high-involvement model. Buy -phase model suggests that people go through a series of steps (or phrases) when making a decision, beginning with problem recognition. Then they search for alternatives, evaluate alternatives, and select a solution, which are them implemented and evaluated. For example, when an organization needs new office space, crowded conditions help force recognition of the need. The next step is to define the type of product needed: Does the organization want to build a new office building, add on to an existing building, or simply find a larger place to rent or buy? As the organization continues to examine its needs, detailed specifications such as the size and number of offices are created. If the decision in the second step was to build on, an architect would help create specifications drawing plans. Then suppliers would be contracted, included those recommended by architect. Step 5, acquisition and analysis of proposals, involves receiving and reviewing bids from each contractor. The architect and the executives would meet, evaluate the proposals, and select  a contractor (step 6). Step 7 involves the creations of a contract specifying when the building will be completed, what it will look like, and when the payment will be made. Evaluation begins as the project begins, but continues well after the organization moves in. As observers of buying behavior quickly realized, many organizational purchase decisions do not involve that much work or include each and every step every time. A second element, the buy-class, was added, resulting in the grid. Buy-class refers to the type of buying decision, based on the experience of the buyer with a purchase of a particular product or service. Organizational researchers realized that once a decision was made, products were bought automatically over and over; recognizing a problem simply mean recognizing that the company is low in an item and needs to order more. The complete process was used only for new buys, products or services never purchased before. Automatic purchasing described what happen with straight rebuys, and only two steps were required. These steps are need recognition and placing an order. At other times, however, a product or service would be bought again but not automatically. When a company was contemplating a rebuy but wanted to shop around, the process will be included most or perhaps all of the steps – hence the term modified re-buys. In this instance, the process may involve need recognition, an evaluation of suppliers, and a decision – a process that can be similar to a new buy. The difference is not in the number of steps but in the amount and type of information that must be collected before a purchase can be made. Modified rebuys can also be similar to straight re-buys or new buys, depending on the specific of the situation. In a new buy, the buyer has no experience with the product or service and must be educated about the product or service to make a purchase. In a modified re-buy, the buyer has purchased the product or service before. There, the buyer will not spend time on education about the product itself, but the various vendors and their offerings as the buyer shops around. The buy grid model, therefore describe how purchasing practices vary along a continuum depending on the buyer’s experience in buying that particular product or  service. Value analysis is one situation that can turn a straight rebuy into a modified rebuy. When a company is closely evaluating a particular part, one question that is asked is if the part is available elsewhere for less. As the answer is sought to this question, out-suppliers (those suppliers who products are not considered in a straight re rebuy) are given the opportunity to earn business. In-suppliers (those suppliers whose products are ordered automatically in a straight rebuy) must prove value or create new value by redesigning their offerings. Thus, the purchase moves from being a straight rebuy to a modified rebuy. Buy-Grid and Marketing Practice The theory suggests that more information is needed by the buyer to make a new buy than when making a modified rebuy, and almost no information is needed for a straight rebuy. To use this model, a company would look at the degree to which a market is buying a product for the first time. If most of the market is buying the product for the first time, method of communication such as personal selling may be used in order to provide the most information. Advertising would contain a lot of detailed copy that described the benefits and how the product worked. Over-time, as the market grows more familiar with the product, less educational methods of communicating may be used, such as catalogs. Another marketing implication is thatan in-supplier would like purchases of its products to be straight rebuys. Annual contracts are one method of creating straight rebuys. For example, Xerox offers its customers an annual supply contract. Each time a department is low in copier supplies, the purchasing department orders automatically from Xerox, perhaps using EDI. Out-suppliers would be locked out until the next time the contract comes up for review. Recently, research has found that marketers who get involved early in the decision process are more likely to be successful. In part, this higher  probability of success is due to greater understanding of the buyer’s needs, an opportunity to help shape those needs, and a better understanding of the process. The lower probability of success when starting later in the process is also due to the fact that buyers become committed to a course of action over the process of making the decision, and that course often leans towards alternatives presented early in the process. When buyers don’t have experience, marketing strategies can provide buyers with the information they need to make a decision. Marketers consider how buyers use that information to be very important.

Genetically Engineered Food Essay - 2444 Words

Genetically Engineered Food As Scientists commence the unraveling of genetic mysteries the food we eat is undergoing significant changes. From supermarket produce, milk and eggs to tofu, sprouts and garden burgers most have genetically altered ingredients. As with all new products tests are necessary. Guinea pigs, used in those tests, show the effects of the Genetically Engineered (GE) feed. So far the tests have shown elevated breast cancer from ingesting milk from cows consuming (GE) hormones. Others tests have shown possible deadly allergic reactions to foods altered with proteins from peanuts or shellfish. Most dramatically in 1989 and 1990, a (GE) brand of L-tryptophan, a common dietary supplement, killed more than thirty. Animal†¦show more content†¦These plants produce a sterile seed unable to reproduce itself. By flipping on a couple of genes a plant, is forced to make a toxic protein that will sterilize its seeds after it is fully grown . . . sterile-seed technology quickly became a potent sym bol for how genetically modified crops could cause a break in nature. Worse than that, such seeds could threaten more than a billion poor people throughout the developing world, for whom saving harvested seeds is essential. (Specter 62) In the past the best seeds were set aside by farmers. The best quality apples become the next generation of trees. The best of this years crop becomes next years seed and through the millennia farmers progressively produced a better crop. Farmers worked within plant and animal breeds improving quality. Now scientists armed with the tools of modern genetics are taking on natures secrets. This new technology breaks down not only genetic barriers between species but between humans, animals and plants. In the markets throughout the U. S. grocers sell tomatoes that have both the genes of the tomato itself with those of the pacific salmon. To the consumer that might not make sense but to the retailer it is extremely important. The fused salmon genes cause tomatoes to be resistant to bruising which extends shelf life. This gene fusing is not limited to the foods we eat but is branching out into the field of medicine. Swine are having human genes fused with their own in an attempt to raiseShow MoreRelatedGenetically Foods And Genetically Engineered Food1463 Words   |  6 PagesGenetic Engineered Crops and Animals This planet sustains various life forms and over time these organisms have evolved to better survive in the environments in which they live. Humans are constantly trying to improve the world and the organisms in it. In order to achieve this goal, there is a powerful tool scientists are using called DNA Technology. It is this technology that allows humans to modify, create, and/or destroy life as we know it. 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