The Importance of Communication in the business world Essays

The Importance of Communication in the Business World The Importance of a positive organizational culture is communication. Creating a positive culture is not an easy task. Companies today need to develop feedback mechanisms to provide a reality check on management?s beliefs about the perception of its employees. In this paper, I will examine the importance of communication in the business world and some of the ways in which companies can improve their communication skills. I will also discuss how communication barriers led to the loss of my past job as a bank teller and how breaking these communication barriers could have prevented the loss of my job. Communication is very important when trying to create a positive and effective work environment. It is important for employers and employees to be able to communicate with one another comfortably. ?Feedback mechanisms can: serve as devices to learn and respond constructively to employee problems and seek to create a climate of openness in which employees do not fear directing their questions, suggestions, or complaints to the attention of management. Also by attempting to remove the barriers to upward communication created by lower level management reporting only what they think top management wants to hear? (Grensing-Pophal, L., 2010, pg. 99). Communicating facts and information to employees about the future, growth, and barriers to profitability that the organization is experiencing can also help break the communication barrier between management and employees. By supplementing and validating overall supervisor and/or employee relationships and by taking corrective action when necessary can benefit both management and employees. Communicating more effectively helps employees with job-related and sometimes personal issues because personal issues are often barriers to employee productivity. Companies have a variety of feedback and communication mechanisms they can use, but for these to be effective they must be backed with commitment by top management. Examples of feedback/communication mechanisms include the following: ?Attitude surveys (also known as climate surveys) help employees to provide opinions on fair treatment, recognition and appreciation, quality of supervision, working conditions, job demands, job security, adequacy of communication, and satisfaction with compensation, benefits, and other conditions of employment? ( Grensing-Pophal, L.,2010, pg. 98). There are also other methods that companies can try to better their communication with their employees such as; ?Skip-level interviews. These types of interviews are usually used in a union free organization where managers are encouraged to spend time with each employee two levels below him or her on an annual basis. This method reduces the perception of ?we/they? in an organization and facilitates upward communication where it may not routinely happen. It encourages management to resolve issues and employees promptly? (Grensing-Pophal, L., 2010, pg. 124). Most union free organizations encourage open door person-to-person meetings. If the meeting involves complaints or grievances, the issue should be carefully documented. Departmental communication meetings are often used as a means of regular upward communication. Employees within a particular unit are asked to meet with the manager to discuss current developments and seek areas for improvement. What employees think or perceive is as important as the facts communicated to them. There are several methods of communicating information to employees. By keeping supervisors informed so they can respond to employees? questions. Employers could also publish newsletters or other types of communication. To an employee, the company is really no better or no worse than his or her immediate supervisor. This is why supervisory training on good communication and employee relations practice is necessary. There are six different types of barriers when it comes to effective interpersonal interactions such as ?different languages, cultural barriers, individual barriers, organizational barriers, interpersonal barriers, and attitudinal barriers? (Jain, R., 2008). Each of these communication barriers could cause great confusion in any work environment. It is important for individuals to learn to break these communication barriers in order to communicate effectively with one another in their work environment. In 1999 I took a job as a bank teller. The weekend before I started my new job my now ex-husband and I had separated due to some unresolvable issues. The day I started my job I was not only nervous and anxious about starting a new job I was also trying to deal with the issues that my now ex-husband and I were having

Symbolic Play essays

Symbolic Play essays Jean Paiget, a Swiss born doctor began his work at the Binet institute, adapting verbal reasoning tests for French children. It took him much of his career to develop his own cognitive-development theory, which was at the time, very unique compared to the dominant behaviorist and psychoanalyst theories. His work didnt reach the United States until the mid 50s and since then the field has been active with theorists from opposing sides trying to integrate their ideas with Piagets four stages of childhood development (Rathus, 2004). Jean Piagets second stage, preoperational, starts at age 2 and continues until about 7. This stage in Piagets scheme is characterized by inflexible and irreversible mental manipulation of symbols. The child begins to represent words mentally but still has egocentric thought. Children in this stage cannot focus on two aspects of a situation at the same time and therefore lack conservation (Rathus 2004). An important feature of this stage is symbolic play, which represents pre-linguistic skills that support subsequent development (Lyytinen et al., 2001). Through this activity, concepts that children learn are modeled, practiced and honed. Symbolic play serves to reinforce receptive language skills and build expressive language skills. Play does not come before language skills develop and language skills cannot develop well without play. During this period of development in a childs life they are not mature enough to learn in a structured manner but this does not mean they dont absorb information. The practical life lessons and language they gather receptively on a day-to-day basis you can see replayed, reinforced and experimented with during a childs playtime. Ungerer and Sigman break play behaviors into four categories. Simple manipulation is defined by instances of mouthing, waving, banging or throwing a single toy. This type of play starts ...

Symbolic Play essays

Symbolic Play essays Jean Paiget, a Swiss born doctor began his work at the Binet institute, adapting verbal reasoning tests for French children. It took him much of his career to develop his own cognitive-development theory, which was at the time, very unique compared to the dominant behaviorist and psychoanalyst theories. His work didnt reach the United States until the mid 50s and since then the field has been active with theorists from opposing sides trying to integrate their ideas with Piagets four stages of childhood development (Rathus, 2004). Jean Piagets second stage, preoperational, starts at age 2 and continues until about 7. This stage in Piagets scheme is characterized by inflexible and irreversible mental manipulation of symbols. The child begins to represent words mentally but still has egocentric thought. Children in this stage cannot focus on two aspects of a situation at the same time and therefore lack conservation (Rathus 2004). An important feature of this stage is symbolic play, which represents pre-linguistic skills that support subsequent development (Lyytinen et al., 2001). Through this activity, concepts that children learn are modeled, practiced and honed. Symbolic play serves to reinforce receptive language skills and build expressive language skills. Play does not come before language skills develop and language skills cannot develop well without play. During this period of development in a childs life they are not mature enough to learn in a structured manner but this does not mean they dont absorb information. The practical life lessons and language they gather receptively on a day-to-day basis you can see replayed, reinforced and experimented with during a childs playtime. Ungerer and Sigman break play behaviors into four categories. Simple manipulation is defined by instances of mouthing, waving, banging or throwing a single toy. This type of play starts ...

Symbolic Play essays

Symbolic Play essays Jean Paiget, a Swiss born doctor began his work at the Binet institute, adapting verbal reasoning tests for French children. It took him much of his career to develop his own cognitive-development theory, which was at the time, very unique compared to the dominant behaviorist and psychoanalyst theories. His work didnt reach the United States until the mid 50s and since then the field has been active with theorists from opposing sides trying to integrate their ideas with Piagets four stages of childhood development (Rathus, 2004). Jean Piagets second stage, preoperational, starts at age 2 and continues until about 7. This stage in Piagets scheme is characterized by inflexible and irreversible mental manipulation of symbols. The child begins to represent words mentally but still has egocentric thought. Children in this stage cannot focus on two aspects of a situation at the same time and therefore lack conservation (Rathus 2004). An important feature of this stage is symbolic play, which represents pre-linguistic skills that support subsequent development (Lyytinen et al., 2001). Through this activity, concepts that children learn are modeled, practiced and honed. Symbolic play serves to reinforce receptive language skills and build expressive language skills. Play does not come before language skills develop and language skills cannot develop well without play. During this period of development in a childs life they are not mature enough to learn in a structured manner but this does not mean they dont absorb information. The practical life lessons and language they gather receptively on a day-to-day basis you can see replayed, reinforced and experimented with during a childs playtime. Ungerer and Sigman break play behaviors into four categories. Simple manipulation is defined by instances of mouthing, waving, banging or throwing a single toy. This type of play starts ...

The Oneota Culture - Last Prehistoric Culture of the American Midwest

The Oneota Culture - Last Prehistoric Culture of the American Midwest The Oneota (or western Upper Mississippian) is the name archaeologists have given to the last prehistoric culture (1150-1700 AD) of the American upper midwest. The Oneota lived in villages and camps along tributary streams and rivers of the upper reaches of the Mississippi River. The archaeological remains of Oneota villages are located in the modern states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri. What Did They Know of Cahokias Complex Capital? The origin of the Oneota people is somewhat of a controversy. Some scholars argue that the Oneota were descendants of the pre-Mississippian Woodland groups who were immigrants from other as-yet unknown locations, perhaps the Cahokia area. Another group of scholars argue the Oneota were local Late Woodland groups who changed their society as a result of contact with Middle Mississippian technologies and ideologies. Although there are clear connections in Oneota symbolism to the Mississippian complex of Cahokia, the Oneota sociopolitical organization was widely divergent from that of the complex society at the capital in the American Bottom near St. Louis, Missouri. Oneota groups were mainly independent chiefly societies located on major rivers upstream and far away from Cahokia. Oneota Characteristics Over the nearly six hundred years of their (recognized) occupation of the Upper Mississippi region, Oneota people changed their style of living and subsistence patterns and as the Europeans moved into the region, they migrated far to the west. But their cultural identity maintained a continuity, based on the presence of a number of artifact types and icononography. The most commonly recognized artifact of Oneota culture is shell-tempered, globular-shaped ceramic vessels with purposefully smoothed, but not burnished, exteriors. Distinctive point types used by Oneota hunters are small unnotched triangular arrow points called either Fresno or Madison points. Other stone tools connected with Oneota populations include pipestone carved into tablets, pipes and pendants; stone scrapers for buffalo hides, and fishhooks. Bone and shell hoes are indicative of Oneota agriculture, as are the ridged fields found in the early and eastern villages of Wisconsin. Architecture included oval wigwams, multi-family longhouses and cemeteries organized in sprawling villages on terraces near main rivers. Some evidence of warfare and violence are seen in the archaeological record; and the evidence of movement west with a maintained connectedness to people back home in the east are indicated by trade goods, including pipestone and hides, and metasedimentary abrasive rocks called paralava (formerly mis-identified as volcanic pumice or scoria). Chronology cal AD 1700-present day. Historic and modern tribes thought to be descended from Oneota include Ioway, Oto, Ho-Chunk, Missouria, Ponca and othersProtohistoric Oneota (Classic) (cal AD 1600-1700). After direct and indirect contact with French trappers and traders, La Crosse was abandoned, and the people moved westward along the Iowa/Minnesota borders and west following bison herdsMiddle Oneota (Developmental) (cal AD 1300-1600), Apple River and Red Wing abandoned, expanded outward. Oneota settlements opened at La Crosse, Minnesota, and the central Des Moines River valley (Moingona Phase)Early Oneota (Emergent) cal AD 1150-1300. Apple River (northwest Illinois) and Red Wing (Minnesota) localities are started, decorative motifs derived from Mississippian Ramey Incised pots Initial or Emergent Phase Oneota The earliest villages recognized as Oneota arose about AD 1150, as diverse and scattered communities along the floodplains, terraces and bluffs of the rivers, communities that were occupied at least seasonally and perhaps year-round. They were horticulturalists rather than farmers, relying on digging-stick agriculture based on maize and squash, and supplemented by deer, elk, birds and large fish. Foods gathered by early Oneota people include several plants that would be eventually domesticated as part of the Eastern North American Neolithic, such as maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana), chenopodium (Chenopodium berlandieri), little barley (Hordeum pussilum) and erect knotweed (Polygonum erectum). They also collected various nutshickory, walnut, acornsand conducted localized hunting of elk and deer and communal longer-distance hunting of bison. There likely was a lot of variation in these early villages, especially with respect to how important maize was in their diets. Some of the largest villages have accretional burial mounds. At least some of the villages had a tribal level of social and political organization. Development and Classic Period Oneota Middle Oneota communities apparently intensified their farming efforts, moving into broader valleys and including the preparation of ridged fields, and the use of shell and bison scapula hoes. Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) were added to the diet about 1300 AD: now Oneota people had the entire three sisters agricultural complex. Their communities shifted as well, to include larger houses, with multiple families sharing the same long house. Long houses at the Tremaine site in Wisconsin, for example, were 6-8.5 meters (20-27 feet) wide and varied in length between 26-65 m (85-213 ft). Mound building ceased entirely and mortuary patterns shifted to the use of cemeteries or burials beneath the floors of the longhouses. By the late period, many Oneota people migrated westward. These dispersed Oneota communities displaced the locals in Nebraska, Kansas and adjacent areas of Iowa and Missouri, and thrived on communal bison hunting supplemented with gardening. Bison hunting, assisted by dogs, allowed Oneota to obtain adequate meat, marrow and fat for food, and hides and bones for tools and exchange. Oneota Archaeological Sites Illinois: Gentlemen Farm, Material Service Quarry, Reeves, Zimmerman, Keeshin Farm, Dixon, Lima Lake, Hoxie Farm Nebraska: Leary site, Glen Elder Iowa: Wever, Flynn, Correctionville, Cherokee, Iowa Great Lakes, Bastian, Milford, Gillett Grove, Blood Run Kansas: Lovewell Reservoir, White Rock, Montana Creek Wisconsin: OT, Tremaine, La Crosse, Pammel Creek, Trempealeau Bay, Carcajou Point, Pipe, Mero Minnesota: Red Wing, Blue Earth Sources This article is a part of the About.com guide to the Mississippian Culture, and the Dictionary of Archaeology. Several good locations on the web for Oneota information include Lance Fosters Ioway Cultural Institute, the Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist, and the Mississippi Valley Archaeological Center. Betts CM. 2006. Pots and Pox: The Identification of Protohistoric Epidemics in the Upper Mississippi Valley. American Antiquity 71(2):233-259. Boszhardt RF. 2008. Shell-tempered pottery from the upper Mississippi river valley. Southeastern Archaeology 27(2):193-201. Emerson TE, Hedman KM, and Simon ML. 2005. Marginal Horticulturalists or Maize Agriculturalists? Archaeobotanical, Paleopathological, and Isotopic Evidence Relating to Langford Tradition Maize Consumption. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 30(1):67-118. Estes MB, Ritterbush LW, and Nicolaysen K. 2010. Clinker, Pumice, Scoria, or Paralava? Vesicular Artifacts of the Lower Missouri Basin. Plains Anthropologist 55(213):67-81. Fishel RL, Wisseman SU, Hughes RE, and Emerson TE. 2010. Sourcing Red Pipestone Artifacts from Oneota Villages in the Little Sioux Valley of Northwest Iowa. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 35(2):167-198. Logan B. 2010. A Matter of Time: The Temporal Relationship of Oneota and Central Plains Traditions. Plains Anthropologist 55(216):277-292. OGorman JA. 2010. Exploring the Longhouse and Community in Tribal Society. American Antiquity 75(3):571-597. Padilla MJ, and Ritterbush LW. 2005. White Rock Oneota Chipped Stone Tools. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 30(2):259-297. Ritterbush LW, and Logan B. 2009. A Late Prehistoric Bison Processing Camp in the Central Plains: Montana Creek East (14JW46). Plains Anthropologist 54(211):217-236. Theler JL, and Boszhardt RF. 2006. Collapse of crucial resources and culture change: a model for the Woodland to Oneota transformation in the Upper Midwest. American Antiquity 71:433-472. Tubbs RM, and OGorman JA. 2005. Assessing Oneota Diet And Health: A Community And Lifeway Perspective. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 30(1):119-163.

Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 16

Assignment - Essay Example According to the law, a drug dealer means a person who ships, transports, or imports or acquires purchases, possess, manufactures or introduces drug substances in that state. According to the law of Iowa, a person becomes a dealer if he or she introduces seven plus grams of a dutiable constituent except marijuana, but comprising a chargeable means, especially a blend of cannabis sativa and other taxable affluences. It also applies when a person gets into possession of forty-two and half or more of refined cannabis sativa, or of a matter consisting of or comprising cannabis sativa. A person in possession of one or more unprocessed marijuana plants becomes subject to the drug-stamp Act. Ten and above prescription components of a taxable matter that is not sold by mass (Department of Iowa Revenue Web). The following rates of tax are imposed on the dealership of marijuana. On every gram of processed marijuana, five dollars is taxed. On every metric gram of any dutiable substance, sold by mass, other than cannabis sativa, two hundred and fifty dollars fee is imposed. Seven hundred and fifty dollars is charged for every unprocessed marijuana plant. Four hundred dollars fee is imposed on every ten-dosage units that are not sold by weight or portions thereof. Tax payment is required upon possession of drugs. Any person dealing with drugs and fits in any of the above categories is required to buy drug tax stamps and affix the stamps on the drugs. To avoid self-incrimination, a person is not required by the law to divulge any personal information. However, there are some penalties imposed on dealers of marijuana. The director assesses tax, interests, and appropriate penalties based on information available. However, the following information is confidential stamp sales and inquiries, assessments, bank levy, and payments. Garnishment and lien can only be exposed to the public if the papers are forwarded to the

Discussion Question Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 12

Discussion Question - Essay Example There are cases where the providers do not expect profit in the provision of their services. This is a hindrance that occurs as they try to offer the best healthcare. Many may be underpaid which usually leads to stress on their part. While taking care of others, this stress is directed to them. Social good is an obligation they meet while doing their job (Kongstvedt 67). It is imperative that they do their job with the aim of keeping the society together and in excellent health. Another way they meet their obligations is caring for the low income earners. These organizations cannot go broke when they do this and; therefore, one way to serve and protect the people is through accepting everybody that is in need of help. This is whether they have insurance to offset their expenses. One way these obligations conflict with some of their needs is time consumption. Time taken into taking care of those in need is extremely exhausting. They spend more time at their jobs than they would with their own family, and relatives. Another conflict created is the emotional turmoil they undergo. It may be hard to see many people come and go in the institution one works. This may be hard for them especially when they come to form extraordinary bonds (Kongstvedt 78). In conclusion, obligations by care givers are often met. What they go through must also be taken into account. This is to know what it is they go through in the day to day activities (Kongstvedt 90). Understanding them may be a starting point in the way people treat