tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79257630236201404552024-03-19T10:56:38.982-07:00ECON 490 Fall 2016I am a student in Professor Arvan's Economics 490 class. I am blogging under the alias of the famous economist Joan Robinson in order to protect my identity.Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-41570733384395611792016-12-02T12:19:00.000-08:002016-12-02T12:19:01.494-08:00Course Review<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Economics of Organizations was a class very different from every other class I have taken. It was multi-faceted; split between in-class discussions, excel assignments, blog posts and comments, a group essay, and several online videos and readings. This dynamic approach allowed for ample learning, but it also had some drawbacks. In this post I will discuss some lessons I learned, personal views on the course, how I approached the course material, and ways I think the course could be improved.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Coming in to the class, I felt that I already had some good background knowledge on the topic of Organizations and how they are run. On top of several courses in basic Economic theory, I have taken courses on Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Theories in Leadership, and Business as a Force in American Society. I chose to take Economics of Organizations because organizations and they way they are run interest me very much. At the beginning of the semester, I felt like I already knew about the topics we discussed such as gift exchange. This quickly changed as we moved on to more advanced and complex topics. Even learning about gift exchange was valuable for me because (though I had heard about the topic before) it helped me solidify the idea in Economic terms. A few topics that stood out to me and that I learned the most from were the Triangular-Principal-Agent model and the idea of shirking. Through the Triangular-Principal-Agent model, I was able to see more clearly about how tasks look different to different members of the organization and how this may affect outcomes and motivation. Learning about shirking was surprising for me, because I never realized that this type of thing is accounted for. Being someone who tends to follow the rules and worry about what might happen if things aren’t done correctly, it wasn’t completely clear to me that shirking was something so concrete which could, in some ways, be measured and accounted for. I did not think it was much of a problem, and if it was, then I didn’t think it could be measured. I see now, however, that attempting to measure and account for shirking is important and can increase the productivity of an organization.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I learned a lot about the topics we discussed in class, but I think that the pedagogic approach could have been better. I would have rather heard more about the professor’s views and theories rather than those of my classmates. In most cases, I felt that my classmates and I knew much less about the topics and the Economics behind them than our professor did. Even so, I think we all learned a lot from the way the questions in class were structured. Asking questions to help point our thinking in certain directions allowed us to use our own thought processes to come up with the conclusions we were supposed to. Though this may not have happened perfectly, it was a valuable learning experience.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My process for blogging and doing the excel homework was relatively consistent throughout the semester. I read the blog prompt and thought about how it related to the things we were doing in class. I tended to wait at least a few hours (sometimes up to a day or two) before writing my post. This allowed the prompt to “sink in” and helped me think of connections and roughly organize what I wanted to write. Then I typed out my blog post in Google docs first before posting it on my blog. As for the excel homework, I usually tried to start it as soon as it was released. Often, the mathematical/economic principles were hard for me to grasp and I took a long time completing the homework. I would post a question on the discussion board if I was still confused or ask my fellow group members for help. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have only a few suggestions for ways the course might be improved.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> At times, I felt that there was a lot going on in the course at once; with the blog posts, excel homework, discussion-style lectures, textbook readings, and updates to the course website, I found it hard to gauge which information was most important and which was supplementary. I felt like there was a lot of information being thrown at us at once, which made the class feel overwhelming and sometimes confusing. Even so, I think that this method forces us to think about what all the different connections might be and come up with our own conclusions about the course. This, I think, is a very valuable way to learn because it requires deep thinking and an ability to integrate many topics and methods of thinking. The only suggestion I have for improving this would be to potentially hand out a course outline that is visually easy to understand. What I mean by this is maybe some sort of info-graphic with the main course topics and large, bold print, connected to other course details and topics in a smaller font. It would look sort of like a mind map.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another suggestion I would give is to restructure the blogging aspect of the course. I felt that the comments could have been more like a discussion in themselves, but I tended to not read my partners’ responses to my own posts until much later, and when we commented on each others’ posts, no one responded to the comments.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6085f51-c12e-f72e-7610-854b7c4d0d3d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall, I learned a lot from the course Economics of Organizations, and I thought it was very dynamic and structured differently than other classes I have taken. I enjoyed reading my partners’ blog posts and reading comments that others wrote on my own blogs. I learned about organizational efficiency in terms more concrete and Economics-based than I ever did before.</span></b></div>
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Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-60592470445711023202016-11-21T16:08:00.001-08:002016-11-21T16:08:02.859-08:00Reputation<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-9f2528fc-895b-eeb1-537b-864c39244030" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I was a high school student, I had a strong reputation among my English teachers. This was mostly because I was close to three of them in one year; one was my senior AP Literature teacher, one was my cross country coach, and one was my junior AP Language teacher who I was a teacher aid for senior year. Since all of the English teachers at my school seemed to be friends, they talked to each other often about many things, including the students. Over the years, I got to know my English teachers well and liked all of them. I enjoyed talking to them and listening to what they had to say. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I admired my English teachers for their writing skills, strong opinions, love of news, and dedication to social justice. They liked me for my strong work ethic and desire to learn. They often told me I was a talented writer, and even shared some of my works with the class as examples. My love for them and their belief in me drove me to constantly work hard to impress them. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After three years spent around English teachers who cared for me and an English teacher/Cross Country coach who knew about my work ethic in and out of the classroom, I developed a reputation as a great student. With each new assignment, I spent hours researching for essays and revising previous versions. The fact that I had a “reputation” help my work and reputation grow stronger - I felt the need to keep up the high standard my English teachers had set for me. I valued them and their opinions so much; if I slacked, what would they think? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My reputation also expanded because I came to office hours whenever my English teachers had them. I would ask them to look over my paper with my and make adjustments or correct errors. I occasionally went in after school or during lunch to ask questions about how to make my writing better. During my senior year, when it came time to write college application essays, I made sure at least one of them looked my work over before I sent it in.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the end of my senior year, however, it got hard for me to focus on my schoolwork and thus harder to write good essays. I still completed all of my assignments, but sometimes I shirked a bit on the essays I had to write for my senior class. I think the teacher understood that most seniors were doing this, so it wasn’t a big deal. Even so, the reputation I had developed over the years gave me a lot of leeway in terms of finishing those last assignments. My senior year English teacher had a system of extra credit in which we could turn in weekly essays to increase our course grade. Throughout the semester, I had turned in an essay almost every single week. When it came time for the final paper, I had a 120% in the class. This meant I could get a low B on our final essay and still have a solid A in the course. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With such strong incentive to shirk (as it was the end of Senior year when lots of fun parties were happening and people were ready to move on to college), I did not work as hard on my final paper. I received an A-, which I think was quite generous considering the amount of work I put in. I think that my teacher understood how hard I had worked all through high school and how I decided it was time for a break. I still tried, but I didn’t put forth a 100% effort. This was my way of cashing in my reputation at the end of high school to allow me to slack on the final paper but still get a good grade in the class.</span></div>
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Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-73133645448949169742016-11-12T09:49:00.000-08:002016-11-12T09:49:13.961-08:00Triangular Principal-Agent Model<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5affc757-59a7-9098-3bb8-7040d25e97c8" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In my job as a Resident Advisor (RA) on campus, I serve as an agent for both my boss (the Resident Director) and the residents who live in my wing of the building. These two principals do not differ entirely on what it means to be a successful RA, but there are several important differences.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Resident Director (RD) is a professional housing staff member (often a graduate student or young professional in student affairs) who is in charge of the entire residence hall. As my boss, the RD of my hall requires me to make educational bulletin boards once a month, create “Door Dec” artistic nametags for each of my 45 residents, and hang up flyers for different events put on by University Housing. I am also required to plan educational and fun programs for the residents of my wing and for the whole building, go on rounds of the building to help ensure safety in the hall, and fill out paperwork to document any alcohol, drug-related, or bias/intolerance incidents that happen. I attend weekly staff development meetings, create program lesson plans, and hold extra programs once a month pertaining to aspects of student wellness (health and fitness, stress management, self-reflection, etc.).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On top of all these measureable and objective tasks, my RD also expects me to build community and develop relationships with each one of my residents. I am required to hold “open door hours” at least five hours per week for residents to stop by and chat or ask questions. Though these actions are encouraged, the RD essentially has no way to tell if these events are happening, so it is not formally measured in success from an RD’s standpoint.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Doing all this is what counts as success in the eyes of my RD. Residents, on the other hand, would see their RA as a success for different reasons. It must be noted that a lot of what the RD uses to measure success is insignificant to the residents. Most residents will not look at the bulletin boards I put up or come to the educational programs. Usually, just two or three residents from my wing come to an educational program; maybe ten residents come if the program is meant for the whole building. Residents don’t generally care about whether their RA is going on rounds of the building. In general, they don’t care as much about the technical parts of the job; residents just want an RA who is friendly, caring, and helpful. Residents have come to me with ideas for programs that they think would be fun. They have asked for tips on how to find a campus job, study more effectively, and make friends. They have come to me to sort out roommate disagreements and occasionally knocked on my door in the earliest hours of the morning to talk about life struggles. To residents, a successful RA is one who shows care for each and every one of his/her residents. It’s one who plans fun events, helps floormates become friends, and lends a listening ear. It’s also one who is there to help when a resident gets locked out of his/her room or when neighbors are being too noisy. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ideally, my Resident Director also considers these qualities as part of a successful RA. The problem is that the qualities that residents tend to look for in an RA are hard to measure. There is no way for an RD to know how many times an RA has interacted with each resident or how friendly he/she is on a day-to-day basis. My Resident Director is in charge of me and my fellow RAs, but she’s also responsible for all nearly 500 residents who live in the building. This makes her extremely busy. So, realistically, it’s impossible for her to attempt to measure these intangible assets of successful RAs. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This causes a dilemma for the RA as an agent of the RD and of the residents. Evidently, the most important part of the job is supporting residents - that is what RAs are there for. The difficulty of measuring this facet of the job encourages emphasis on less important parts of the job (bulletin boards, program planning, paperwork, etc.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It is nearly impossible to be successful at both the measurable and immeasurable aspects of the RA job. Most importantly, the RA should be successful for the residents. But this doesn’t always happen because the residents are not as demanding as the Resident Director; the resident director checks up on you and makes sure you are completing requirements, but residents don’t ask anything of you unless they’re having a specific problem. Coming up with creative bulletin board ideas, hanging up flyers, and attending weekly staff development meetings takes away from my time with residents. My job comes second to my position as a full-time student, so I have only limited time to begin with. As a result, it’s easy to push the community-building aspects of the job to the back burner.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There multiple potential ways to solve this problem. The first is to do only what the RD says, taking care of the measurable aspects of the job while ignoring the others. This would make my look good in my boss’s eyes, but I wouldn’t be very connected to the residents. Basically this method would make me a bad RA who looks like a good one. Pleasing the RD principal does not often do much to help me be a successful RA for my residents. In this case, pleasing one master would leave me failing for the other.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The opposite extreme would be to skimp on the formal duties given to me by my RD to maximize my time with residents. In this solution, I do just enough of what my RD says for her to see me as successful, and I dedicate most of my energy to the residents. This, in my view, is the best solution because it allows both masters to be satisfied to some extent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Disregarding the requirements of the RD to focus only on the residents would not work because I would very likely lose my job that way. It must also be mentioned that although they are less important than interacting with residents, the duties that my RD gives to me do contribute to my success with residents. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The only other option I see would be to sacrifice my learning or my personal well-being in order to be a “perfect” RA. I could complete all the requirements that my RD gives me </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">be there constantly for all 45 of my residents, but I would have to give up sleep, study time, and exercise in order to do so. At the beginning of the year, I tried this method and it ended up backfiring - I could not be a successful RA without getting enough sleep or feeling like I had put enough effort into my studies. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Though it is not ideal in some ways, doing the bare minimum of requirements from my RD and spending as much time as I can with residents seems to be the optimal solution. I must complete the checklist of measurable requirements to satisfy one principal (the RD), and I must build community and form bonds with my residents to satisfy the other. The two principals are not directly opposed, as pleasing one often helps in pleasing the other, but there are important differences which must be accounted for.</span></div>
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Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-28677771256501974962016-11-06T16:12:00.001-08:002016-11-06T16:12:03.924-08:00The Office Clarification Post<br />
Here is some background about the main characters in the episode I described earlier:<br />
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1. Michael<br />
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Michael is the manager of the office. He's goofy, blunt, and often rude (but he doesn't seem to realize it). In this episode, he decides to mediate and solve as many workplace conflicts that he can. It is normally not his job to do this; he takes over for the HR manager, Toby (a minor character in the episode, so I didn't include his picture).</div>
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2. Oscar </div>
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Oscar is one of the accountants in the office. He is upset the his co-worker Angela has an offensive poster hung on her wall that he can see every day. He finds the poster creepy and doesn't want to look at it.<br />
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3. Angela<br />
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<br />Angela is pretty much known around the office as an angry cat-lady. She's the one who is in conflict with Oscar about the poster. She wants to keep it because it was a gift and she thinks that it is great art.<br />
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The conflict:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Oscar is mad that Angela has an offensive poster on her wall. He was just trying to tell the HR manager how he felt about it when Michael ("World's Best Boss") walked in and asked what the problem was.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Michael goes overboard and uses his "Mediator's Guide Book" to help Oscar and Angela solve their conflict. He doesn't listen to Oscar nor Angela's real feelings as he goes about solving the problem. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Keep in mind that Oscar's feelings about the poster would not have been a conflict if Michael hadn't decided to step in and tell Angela all about it. So there was never really a conflict at all. Oscar was just venting his feelings when Michael decided to make it into a full-on conflict between Oscar and Angela.</span><br />
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<b><span style="background-color: white;">Below is the original blog post cleaned up. It should hopefully be easier to understand now that it's been simplified a bit and now that you've been more formally introduced to the characters:</span></b><br />
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Season 2 of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Office</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Michael </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">decides to</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> manage conflict between office members. It starts when he </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">walks in on</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Oscar privately </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">explaining his feelings about Angela’s offensive poster</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. He’s really just venting his feelings </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to the office's HR manager, </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but Michael decides that it is an important </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">conflict</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b> </b>that needs to be addressed out in the open. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"></span></span></b><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He gets Angela and Oscar together in the conference room to discuss the issue face-to-face and takes out his “Mediator’s Tool Chest.” </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The "Mediators Tool Chest" is a book of Michael's which describes different styles of conflict resolution. </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He begins to read aloud from the tool chest to educate Angela and Oscar on the “5 styles of conflict.” </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both Oscar and Angela seem eager to leave, forget about the conflict, and get back to their work.</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Despite</span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> this,</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Michael explains each painstakingly-obvious definition </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from the tool chest</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in order, starting with Lose-Lose. “A Lose-Lose situation is when both parties lose. This is the most ineffective style…” he says. “Now I have to ask you, do you want to pursue a lose-lose situation?” </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to the book, </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the best scenario is the win-win-win, a situation in which both Angela and Oscar are happy with the outcome, and Michael “wins” for having successfully mediated a conflict in the workplace.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Angela and Oscar are in a fight over an “offensive” poster on Angela’s desk. Michael walks them both over to the poster and asks each of them to express their feelings using “I statements” and “emotion statements”. Angela states that she got the poster as a gift, appreciates its artistic value, and wants to see it every day. Oscar finds the poster rude, offensive, and creepy. He doesn’t want to have to look at it, and he does not think that it’s real art. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, Michael decides that they should all “brainstorm creative alternatives” to find a win-win-win solution. He immediately comes up with the idea that Angela makes the poster into a t-shirt for Oscar to wear every day. That way, he can never see it, but Angela gets to see it every time she looks at Oscar. Michael is happy because the way he sees it, both of them are winning in this scenario, and he came up with the solution himself (so he wins too). </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">neither Oscar nor Angela can come up with </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a better solution,</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael's assistant </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">suggests that Angela gets to hang the poster on Tuesdays and Thursdays. According to Michael, however, that would be classified as solution number 3 known as compromise, which is “not ideal.” Michael ranks every solution to the problem which he thinks is possible:</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Compromise: Angela gets to hang the poster on Tuesdays and Thursdays</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Win-lose: Take the poster down so Oscar won’t have to look at something he finds </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">offensive</span></b></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Win-win-win: Have Oscar wear a t-shirt of the poster</span></b>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to Michael’s manual, a win-win-win situation is always best, so he makes the executive decision that Angela should make the t-shirt. Michael’s view of the situation is selfish, apathetic, and hastily made. If anything, he has made the problem worse instead of making it a “win-win-win situation.” </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He listens to Angela and Oscar’s sides of the situation, but he takes them too literally. As a result, he comes up with a solution that makes them both worse off. Angela has to take down her poster, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oscar has to wear a t-shirt displaying a poster he finds offensive. Essentially, Michael takes the conflict-resolution manual too seriously. He loses sight of the real issue, which is about Angela and Oscar’s feelings, only to come up with a solution that can technically be classified as win-win-win. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Michael could look closely, however, he would see that it is more like a lose-lose-lose solution. Angela is left unhappy, Oscar is left unhappy, and Michael hasn’t “resolved” anything. Angela and Oscar let Michael charge ahead with his solution by reluctantly agreeing to do what he said. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The show moved on, and the conflict was never truly resolved. The most ironic thing of all is that if Michael hadn’t decided to step in in the first place, Oscar would have just finished venting to Toby about the problem and moved on. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael’s idea that “bringing conflict out into the open” can solve problems causes further problems throughout the episode. Michael asks to see written records of all the complaints people have every made to</span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the HR manager </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about problems they’ve had with others in the workplace. </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The HR manager </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">refuses, saying that it would infringe on everyone’s privacy, but Michael proceeds to snatch it out </span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of his </span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hands. “I had to use win-lose that time,” Michael says, “It isn’t pretty.” </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He decides to sort out his newly acquired pile of workplace conflicts by reading them out loud to everyone. He says that sinc</span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">e the HR manager me</span></span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rely listened to everyone’s problems then waited for them to forget about it, he hates to see such angry feelings festering in the workplace; he decided they must be let out into the open. Michael effectively makes everyone angry with each other for bringing up old dirt (most of the complaints were marked “redacted”, meaning that the complainer decided to remove the complaint anyway). </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every single conflict in the episode could have been avoided if Michael had decided to just mind his own business. Sometimes, bringing conflict out into the open (through a “cage match” to put it in Michael’s words) does more harm than good. One lesson I’ve learned from this episode is to keep any complaints about others to myself. The most important one, however, is that listening to people’s problems rather than jumping to a solution is essential. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;">I hope this makes the story easier to understand; sorry<b> </b></b><span style="font-weight: normal;">that it wasn't clear enough the first time. Please let me know if this is understandable now.</span><b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<br />Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-22514191338467501022016-11-05T20:06:00.001-07:002016-11-05T20:06:18.284-07:00Workplace Conflict<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Season 2 of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Office</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Michael takes over Toby’s job of HR manager to manage conflict between office members. It starts when he hears Oscar yelling about Angela’s offensive poster. He’s really just venting his feelings to Toby, but Michael decides that it is an important issue that needs to be addressed. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At first, he tries to get Oscar to dismiss the problem, saying “So what, you’ve having a little spat. I forget, aren’t you two dating?” Michael’s initial response to this issue is problematic for many reasons. He invalidates Oscar’s feelings when he says that the problem is just a “little spat.” He then goes on to probably offend Oscar when he asks if the two are dating - Oscar is openly gay. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once Toby convinces Michael that his response to the situation was not ideal, Michael decides to give conflict resolution a try. He gets Angela and Oscar together in the conference room to discuss the issue face-to-face and takes out his “Mediator’s Tool Chest.” He begins to read aloud from the tool chest to educate Angela and Oscar on the “5 styles of conflict.” Angela immediately asks to leave, “because I have lots of work to do”, and Oscar asks to get the process over-with as well. Despite their complaints, Michael explains each painstakingly-obvious definition in order, starting with Lose-Lose. “A Lose-Lose situation is when both parties lose. This is the most ineffective style…” he says. “Now I have to ask you, do you want to pursue a lose-lose situation?” Ultimately, the best scenario is the win-win-win, a situation in which both Angela and Oscar are happy with the outcome, and Michael “wins” for having successfully mediated a conflict in the workplace.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Angela and Oscar are in a fight over an “offensive” poster on Angela’s desk. Michael walks them both over to the poster and asks each of them to express their feelings using “I statements” and “emotion statements”. Angela states that she got the poster as a gift, appreciates its artistic value, and wants to see it every day. Oscar finds the poster rude, offensive, and creepy. He doesn’t want to have to look at it, and he does not think that it’s real art. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, Michael decides that they should all “brainstorm creative alternatives” to find a win-win-win solution. He immediately comes up with the idea that Angela makes the poster into a t-shirt for Oscar to wear every day. That way, he can never see it, but Angela gets to see it every time she looks at Oscar. Michael is happy because the way he sees it, both of them are winning in this scenario, and he came up with the solution (so he wins too). </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When neither Oscar nor Angela can come up with their own solution, Pam suggests that Angela gets to hang the poster on Tuesdays and Thursdays. According to Michael, however, that would be classified as solution number 3 known as compromise, which is “not ideal.” Michael ranks every solution to the problem which he thinks is possible:</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Compromise: Angela gets to hang the poster on Tuesdays and Thursdays</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Win-lose: Take the poster down so Oscar won’t have to look at something he finds </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">offensive</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Win-win-win: Have Oscar wear a t-shirt of the poster</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to Michael’s manual, a win-win-win situation is always best, so he makes the executive decision that Angela should make the t-shirt. Michael’s view of the situation is selfish, apathetic, and hastily made. If anything, he has made the problem worse instead of making it a “win-win-win situation.” He listens to Angela and Oscar’s sides of the situation, but he takes them too literally. As a result, he comes up with a solution that makes them both worse off. Angela has to take down her poster, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oscar has to wear a t-shirt displaying a poster he finds offensive. Essentially, Michael takes the conflict-resolution manual too seriously. He loses sight of the real issue, which is about Angela and Oscar’s feelings, only to come up with a solution that can technically be classified as win-win-win. If Michael could look closely, however, he would see that it is more like a lose-lose-lose solution. Angela is left unhappy, Oscar is left unhappy, and Michael hasn’t “resolved” anything. Angela and Oscar let Michael charge ahead with his solution by reluctantly agreeing to do what he said. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The show moved on, and the conflict was never truly resolved. The most ironic thing of all is that if Michael hadn’t decided to step in in the first place, Oscar would have just finished venting to Toby about the problem and moved on. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael’s idea that “bringing conflict out into the open” can solve problems causes further problems throughout the episode. Michael asks to see written records of all the complaints people have every made to Toby about problems they’ve had with others in the workplace. Toby refuses, saying that it would infringe on everyone’s privacy, but Michael proceeds to snatch it out of Toby’s hands. “I had to use win-lose that time,” Michael says, “It isn’t pretty.” </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He decides to sort out his newly acquired pile of workplace conflicts by reading them out loud to everyone. He says that since Toby merely listened to everyone’s problems then waited for them to forget about it, he hates to see such angry feelings festering in the workplace; he decided they must be let out into the open. Michael effectively makes everyone angry with each other for bringing up old dirt (most of the complaints were marked “redacted”, meaning that the complainer decided to remove the complaint anyway). </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-17351169-3798-e539-dfd3-b362f67c79c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every single conflict in the episode could have been avoided if Michael had decided to just mind his own business. Sometimes, bringing conflict out into the open (through a “cage match” to put it in Michael’s words) does more harm than good. One lesson I’ve learned from this episode is to keep any complaints about others to myself. The most important one, however, is that listening to people’s problems rather than jumping to a solution is essential. </span></b></div>
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Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-14920148011181428082016-10-23T13:47:00.001-07:002016-10-23T13:47:55.182-07:00Team Production<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-889fb227-f34c-3608-ed74-6b4395b34378" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The most common sort of team projects I have worked on have been group projects for my classes. In these projects, most of the time we are assigned a group to work with, then once the project is completed we all receive the same grade. This to me seems, in some sense, opposed to the theory discussed in the New York Times article we read about collaboration. In essence, the article claims that when people are forced to collaborate in order to get any sort of outcome, they are much more likely to share the benefits of their work equally. The idea is that, when forced to work together, people will share the outcomes of that work equally by choice. In group projects, however, the sequence of events is inverted. Group members are encouraged to collaborate, yes, but not matter how they get their work done, they are forced to share the “benefits” equally (in this case, the final grade). All members of the group will receive the same grade regardless of how the work gets done or who does most of it. To use the metaphor from the article, it is almost like there is one giant rope which gives the same marble to everyone in the room, regardless of whether they play the game or not. Teachers and professors set the “game” up so that students will all pull on that single large rope together, similarly to a tug-of-war match, but this is often not the case. One or more group members can easily “sit out” and still receive their marbles at the end.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Knowing this, it is true that the more members sit out, the less likely the group is to pull the rope far enough to obtain the marbles - so there is risk involved. Some group members may decide they don’t care enough about the outcome to do any work on the project; they make up the laziest of group members. Others may act opportunistically, gauging the difficulty of different aspects of the project and only pitching in when it is easiest or most convenient for them. Other members may be dedicated to the project because they want to ensure that they get something out of it; whether that is a good grade, improved skill sets, an impressed professor, just to put in their best effort, or all of the above can differ based on the student and on the project. The students who put in the most work may also be those who are the most risk-averse; if they don’t put in their fair share, then determinance of the grade is in large part up to the rest of the group. The members who do not contribute as much are the ones more willing to accept that risk.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The article talks about the idea of hitting the “shared sacrifice” button in people’s minds in order to get them to “share the spoils”. In a group project scenario, the “share the spoils” button has been pressed by an outside force before group members had to even start thinking about what kind of sacrifices they might need to make. This alters the group’s motivations and puts sharing sacrifice on the back burner. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Giving the entire group the same grade is also a form of turning shared group efforts into a transaction. The group is rewarded for completing the project, which, similar to the ideas of article on selfishness vs empathy/altruism, turns it into a utilitarian transaction. This puts group members in selfish frames of mind, encouraging them to think “How can I maximize my grade using the least time and energy?” When group members think about using less time and energy, it makes sense that they will also think less about how to help their fellow group members - their mindset is not focused on compassion and gratitude, but on efficiency and outcomes. To get rid of the “shared grade” idea could change group members’ motivations for the better. The question, then, is how to grade the members of the group and the project itself without undermining the human propensity for compassion and altruism.</span></div>
Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-48355604326492923592016-10-16T14:32:00.001-07:002016-10-16T14:32:37.707-07:00Risk & Uncertainty<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-4ee663c0-cf68-c48d-6576-802c64be5db9" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a freshman in college, I had lots of ideas for what I wanted my career to look like, but no solid idea or plan of what I actually wanted to do. I thought of many things but nothing seemed exactly right to me. I came in as an Engineering student, but switched to the division of general studies shortly after. I have explored a different major pretty much every semester, including English + Secondary Education, Pre-dental, Psychology, Architecture, and finally Economics. I have joined clubs and organizations in many different realms - I even became a CA (similar to a TA) for an introductory computer science class and was a member of the pre-law honors society. After all of this, I have discovered more of what I like and do not like, and learned even more about myself. However, I still don’t fully know what I want my career to look like, or “what I want to be when I ‘grow up.’”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One thing I do know is that I want to do something that makes me happy. To me, this means working in a field that is interesting to me and that pays decently well while leaving room for me to pursue other things (hobbies, fitness, family, etc.) As a college freshman I thought so much about how to make that tangible - I tried to find the “right answers” and figure out all the specifics of what my career, job, and salary would look like so I would never have to be uncertain.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unfortunately, the certainty that I strove for is impossible to find. Instead of searching for perfect, simple answers to complex and ephemeral problems, I have learned (and am still learning) to be content with uncertainty. One way I do this is by focusing on the things that I already know and by keeping an open mind to explore the things I am passionate about.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After reading the book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Choose Yourself!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> by James Altucher (as well as other similar books), I have been more comfortable with the idea that doing the things I want most now will lead to happiness and success later on. The book emphasizes doing only the things you feel excited about and to make time for only the people and places and events that you really want to. As a dedicated student who has always strived to exceed the expectations given to me by my parents, teachers, and society, I found this idea liberating. Before, I was so wrapped up in achieving goals that were set for me and looking for the answers. At the end of the day, I didn’t know what to major in or focus on career-wise; I just thought “I don’t really know what I want to do, but it’s definitely a good idea to get good grades and build a resume that recruiters want to see so I’ll just do that.” I spent so much time on these things that I never really got to explore my own passions and interests until I read this book. Since then, I have shadowed teachers, dentists, endodontists, and lawyers; participated in job shadows for large corporations, small companies, and start-ups; and completed a month-long Architecture boot camp.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Exploring as much as I did helped me manage the “risk” of taking classes without knowing what I want to do after graduation and helped me figure out where and how to direct my future. There is still plenty of uncertainty ahead of me, so for now I am just trying to make the most of my college experience by doing valuable things that I love. I am pursuing a minor in Art and Design, working as a Resident Advisor, and planning to study abroad in the fall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I chose these things mostly just because I am drawn to them; the practical value is just an added bonus. I can definitely say that I love each of these things (my minor, my job, and the chance to study abroad), but there were other things I did or considered doing before coming to this point. Now, I weigh each option individually when deciding whether to pursue it, but I don’t even weigh things that I would not enjoy doing - those get tossed out right at the beginning. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Overall, the techniques I have used in college to manage risks associated with an uncertain future include exploring many fields and pursuing the ones I find myself most passionate about. I am not as concerned about financial uncertainty for now because I am focused on increasing my human capital wealth. Exploring the things I love and succeeding in my classes now will pay dividends for the rest of my life. Most importantly, these things will help me find a job that will support me financially and help me grow intellectually so that I won’t have to worry too much about the future.</span></div>
Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-15194453975956786262016-10-08T13:47:00.002-07:002016-10-08T13:48:12.257-07:00Synthesis/Connecting the Dots<b id="docs-internal-guid-ced3a76c-a60c-5407-c886-983907e735cb" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ced3a76c-a60c-5407-c886-983907e735cb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After reading through all of my blog posts in order, I saw several connections, common themes, and a basic logical progression of thoughts that built upon each other. Common themes included reflections on experiences from my own life, especially during high school. They all related in some way to the efficiency (or lack thereof) within an organization. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-ced3a76c-a60c-5407-c886-983907e735cb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These common themes worked as connections to tie together a thread of ideas that progressed with each new post. I started off with the general, explaining my experience in an organization (the track and field team). I answered basic questions about what the organization was like, how it functioned, and what I got out of it. In my next post, I spoke on opportunism - a behavior quite common in most organizations. I shared a time when I did not display opportunistic behavior (a National Honors Society election) and contrasting my actions with a person who did behave opportunistically (one of the students I was running against). I lost the election to my opportunistic peer - this led me to beg the question: is opportunism good? As I write this reflection, I am thinking about whether opportunism is beneficial in some cases but not others. How does it effect the common good (in this case, the Honors Society as a whole)? Rachel (the winner of the election) went on to practice opportunism in her day-to-day responsibilities as an NHS leader. This helped the society deliver a successful 5k run for charity in which over 100 students raced and raised funds. </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-ced3a76c-a60c-5407-c886-983907e735cb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did not think of this at all when I was writing my opportunism post, but while reflecting, I asked myself how the idea of opportunism might relate to my experience on the track team. I thought of one example: in my junior year of high school (my first year on the varsity team), the varsity girls were supposed to meet on Saturday morning at a nearby hill to train on an incline. I showed up most Saturdays, along with two or three other girls, but the senior captains never showed up. Back at school on Monday, they were the ones responsible for telling the coach who showed up for the Saturday hill run. They asked me and the other juniors who showed up, then they proceeded to tell the coach that they showed up along with whoever else actually came. The seniors behaved opportunistically, taking advantage of their positions as senior captains to make their lives easier. In my opinion, this behavior had negative externalities for our team as a whole; the girls who actually showed up were given less credit than what they deserved, and the team was less cohesive. The seniors were supposed to be leading the workouts, but the juniors were left to figure it out on their own.</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ced3a76c-a60c-5407-c886-983907e735cb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this case, the senior captains’ opportunistic behavior existed in direct opposition to teamwork (the topic of my next blog post). I gave the example of the team of lifeguards I was part of over the past few summers. I emphasized the ways that the lifeguard team worked systematically to achieve desired outcomes. This worked well most of the time, but humans are imperfect, and even with a near-perfect system, performance sometimes fall short. This was something I did not go into depth on in my original blog post, but it is something I realize after reading my teammates’ and professor’s comments.</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-ced3a76c-a60c-5407-c886-983907e735cb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our most recent post was on transfer pricing. I had a hard time seeing how Illinibucks would be effective and how exactly they would be used; even so, the idea of transfer pricing is an interesting way to look at solving inefficiencies in organizations. If I had to write another post on transfer pricing, I would look at the ways it might be used in organizations other than Universities (particularly the organizations I have been part of/written about recently).</span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-ced3a76c-a60c-5407-c886-983907e735cb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In short, I believe that the blog prompts were artfully arranged so that each idea complements or contrasts the next; they were created to allow, upon deeper reflection, new ideas to form out of the connection/synthesis of all posts. I learned even more after reading over my posts, finding common themes, and synthesizing ideas. Though this method of learning has been really helpful, in some ways I still find it hard to connect the different ideas we are learning about in class. I am not sure which ideas are the most important/which I should emphasize over others. I also feel a bit uncomfortable with the terminology and would like to take a bit of time out in class to look over the most important concepts in a manner more objective than discussion. I think one way to do this outside of class would be to write a blog post about an article we found (on a credible source such as the New York Times, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, etc.) and directly connect it to the themes we discussed in class. The prompt would be focused on defined and specific terminology/definitions or economic models that we would try to connect to an article. I think that the prompts have been pretty useful so far, this is just an idea for something new.</span></b></div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-16774844325572352192016-09-30T13:20:00.001-07:002016-09-30T13:20:58.258-07:00Transfer Pricing with "Illinibucks"<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In order to fully determine what Illinibucks (bucks) are and how they work, we must first answer some questions. Is every student given the same amount of bucks? Are students given the opportunity to purchase more bucks? Can students transfer or trade their bucks? What happens if multiple students use their bucks to move to the head of the same line?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are difficult questions to ask since the Illinibuck system seems vague and almost counterintuitive. How would the University deal with multiple students using their bucks to get ahead in the same line?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will imagine a scenario to illustrate how Illinibucks might work. In this scenario, I would set up Illinibucks so that every student is given an equal amount to use each semester. If a student has leftover bucks at the end of the semester, those will roll over to the next semester. Students would not be able to purchase more bucks in a given semester because it would give wealthy students an advantage over other students. Transferring bucks to another student is also not allowed because it would encourage an informal buying and selling market (which would also give advantage to students with more money). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students would be able to use their bucks to purchase “spots in line” for housing sign-up, course registration, and appointments with academic advisors. They could also use their bucks to move to the front of long lines in the dining halls, bookstore, and to get into shows/concerts that may be happening on campus. Having many options from which students can choose to spend their bucks helps minimize the problem of too many students going to the front of the same lines. Even so, students who choose to go to the front of the same lines would have two options. The first option would be to move to a special “fast” line consisting of all the students who have used their Illinibucks to get to the front of a line. The second option would be to bid for spots ahead of the fast line. Students could allocate more bucks to get higher up in the line than those who already paid. The first student in line would be the one who bid the most. This allows students some extra degree of choice in deciding how to allocate their bucks and also solves the problem of who will be first in line.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the prices are too low, almost everyone will choose to be in the fast lines. This would then encourage more bidding because the fast line will not give students much of an advantage. If the prices are too high, then there will be less bidding and each fast line will be shorter. The prices would have to be set in a way that gave the fast line students an advantage but still encouraged some bidding.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this scenario, I would be likely to spend most of my bucks on choosing classes. Since I am at the University primarily to take classes toward my degree, getting a spot in the best ones is very important. I imagine that many other students would feel the same way, so the price of early course registration would likely be much higher than the price of cutting the line for the bookstore or getting an appointment with an academic advisor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I question how this system would work alongside other systems that the University has in place for allocating “spots in lines.” For example, honors students get to register for classes earlier than other students, and seniors get to register before freshmen, etc. I think it might work best if honors students had separate lines for other honors students and bid for higher spots within the honors line. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall, the Illinibuck system could work with a lot of planning and a trial period, but I think our current system is better. It seems cumbersome and somewhat arbitrary to have students pay for spots in line using Illinibucks that are given to all students.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-1ec00df1-7cbf-630f-446a-1614bcd5a8ba"><br /></span>Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-4046457065403198512016-09-25T20:30:00.001-07:002016-09-25T20:30:13.021-07:00Teamwork<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During high school, I worked as a lifeguard at my local public swimming pool. Our goal was to keep the pool safe and make sure that any struggling swimmers were helped as quickly as possible. In total, there were 25 guards working at the pool in a given summer. Only 10 worked each shift - one for each guard chair plus a “deck” guard and one in the office. We rotated between chairs every twenty minutes in an order that allowed us to vary the pace of work (the guard chairs in the deep and and the kid section were the most difficult, while the slides and the zero-depth zones were some of the easiest. The last ten minutes of every hour was “adult swim” time, meaning the guards were on break. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each shift, we were under the supervision of one manager (usually an older teenager who had been promoted after working at the pool for several years) and one of two head managers. On a day-to-day basis, we guarded the pool while the managers did busy work in the office. Once a week, however, we were required to attend one hour of in-service training in order to maintain our guard skills.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A month before the pool opened each summer, we spent several hours a week completing training. The training consisted of CPR and AED certification, teamwork exercises, drills on the rules of the pool, and in-water training. We went through “scenarios” of every possible accident that could happen at the pool, from drowning to choking to bee stings. The weekend before the pool opened (usually around memorial day), we went through rigorous skill tests. All 25 guards were split into three teams. One at a time, teams would take their positions in the guard chairs while the other lifeguards pretended to be pool-goers, purposely breaking rules, running, and splashing to distract us. The head manager would secretly instruct one guard to pretend to drown (this person would be the “GID” - Guest In Distress. It was a sort of euphemism for the one pretending). That person would swim normally in the pool for about five minutes, then go in front of one of the lifeguard chairs and start pretending. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then, the lifeguard who was closest to the GID had to activate the EAP (emergency action plan) by giving the whistle three long blows. Next, all the other guards would hear this whistle and blow their own whistles to get everyone out of the pool. Strong verbal communication was necessary here, as guards couldn’t leave their chairs to help with the rescue until all swimmers were out of their zone (each guard was in charge of his or her own zone and had to “scan” it repeatedly in 8-second repeats to ensure the safety of swimmers. Two zones overlapped so that someone was almost always checking every area of the pool).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once everyone was out of the pool, the other lifeguards could join in the rescue. By this time, the “primary guard” (the one who first activated the EAP) was probably out of the water with the GID in tow. The other guards needed to collectively call 911, grab the oxygen tank and defibrillator, and help the primary guard carry out water rescue. As soon as the primary guard and the GID were out of the water, another guard would take over to check the GID’s pulse and lead the team in CPR. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The structure of each lifeguard team was an all-channel network. There was no telling who the primary guard might be if a scenario were to arise. We all had to communicate quickly and effectively (through whistles, commands, and collectively counting chest compressions during CPR) to make sure rescues went smoothly. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The pool also functioned as a basic hierarchy in that lifeguards reported to managers and head managers, and the head managers effectively reported to auditors. Auditors were insurance representatives who stopped by the pool without notice at least once a month. They dressed like regular pool guests and hid cameras strategically under towels and in bags. They videotaped each lifeguard “scanning” the pool to make sure they were following strict standards. Once the auditor finished recording everyone, he or she announced his/her presence and it was time to begin a series of rescue scenarios. The auditor would tell the head manager which scenario to go through, and the guards were videotaped while completing each rescue. If steps were followed incorrectly or if the rescue was not completed successfully, we risked failing the test. If a pool failed twice then they could be shut down by the insurance company. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The features of high-functioning teams were, for the most part, all exhibited on our lifeguard teams. We shaped purpose in response to demand; we had to practice and perform rescue scenarios together on a daily basis to prove to the auditors and managers that we could keep the pool safe. This common purpose was translated into specific and measurable goals: each guard had to scan his or her entire zone in eight seconds, conscious GIDs had to be removed from the pool within two minutes of blowing the whistle, and unconscious GIDs had to be removed in just one minute. The teams were of manageable size - ten guards at the pool for each given shift and 25 guards in all. The one feature we were lacking in was the “mix of expertise.” Since Lifeguarding was a minimum-wage job designed for teenagers, no one really had expertise. We all learned the same skills during the first month of training. More experienced guards tended to be the experts in difficult rescue scenarios, but we were all aware of the same information.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What we excelled in, however, was a commitment to strong relationships and team accountability. It was essential that every guard communicated openly and efficiently with the others. If we were not actively listening and watching the pool and fellow guards, we would miss a literal life-or-death opportunity. We held ourselves collectively accountable by completing CPR as a team and talking through our actions out loud (for example, the guard in charge of the defibrillator would repeat the voice commands of the machine, saying “Safe to touch the patient” or “Shock delivered. Step away from the patient”). Everyone would count the CPR compressions and breaths together, and if one person was not counting, one of the other guards would yell “count!” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our structured rescues which focused on strong communication definitely made sure that guards were held accountable for rescue performance. It also reminded us that we are a team, and the job cannot be done unless everyone works together. To be a good teammate meant following the rules, speaking up, and acting quickly in case of a dangerous situation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<br />Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-36861971050746294652016-09-16T21:46:00.001-07:002016-09-16T21:46:03.080-07:00Opportunism<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I was in my senior year of high school, I ran for a position on the executive board of our high school's National Honor Society chapter. I ran against nine other people, and four of us would be elected; one for each of the societies four pillars. We each had to prepare a speech and come up with a plan for how we wanted to lead the society.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A week after we prepared our speeches and plans, the honor society had a meeting to remind everyone to vote after school. All the candidates re-hashed their speeches and asked everyone to consider voting for them. Then, we all went through the school day, waiting until after school to submit votes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This was our opportunity for campaigning; we weren’t specifically told to campaign; it didn’t really occur to me to do anything extra since the election was not school-wide - only National Honor Society members could weigh in. One girl, I’ll call her Rachel, took it upon herself to make sure she won the election. She showed up to school early that day in a nice dress and tall boots. She brought enough posters to hang up in every classroom (even the ones she had never been in previously), all of which shouted “Vote Rachel Smith” in all-capital red white and blue. She walked around the halls all day during passing periods and after school, bribing people with candy. “I can only give you candy if you promise to vote for me” she said with a smile.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, opportunism is “the art, policy, or practice of taking advantage of opportunities or circumstances, often with little regard for principles or consequences.” The National Honor Society election was a circumstance for opportunism. Rachel saw that (most) high school students like candy and that the more often her name was seen/heard, the more likely she was to get votes. Rachel’s affinity for this form of political opportunism gave her a spot on the National Honors Society executive board. Alas, I did not do any extra campaigning and spent the year as a normal member of the society. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted a spot on the executive board, so why didn’t I practice opportunism like Rachel did? Like I mentioned earlier, it was partly because it did not even cross my mind to do so. Rachel always had an ambitious demeanor. She was ruthless in her quest to be a perfect college applicant, and one of our english teachers even called her the “Terminator.” She never hesitated to assert her own opinions and she was almost always right.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We were both relatively smart: honors students with top grades and lots of passed AP tests under our belts. Where we differed, however, was in our personalities and general ways of thinking. I was shy and soft-spoken in high school. I knew I would feel “slimy” advocating for myself as strongly as Rachel did - in my view, people should vote for those with the best speeches and leave it at that. The way I saw it was that anyone who campaigned for themselves so strongly would be seen as superficial. I thought that my strategy was superior because it was genuine and simple.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even so, after I thought about it, I saw the merit in Rachel’s strategy. The extra work she did showed dedication and drive. To someone like her, the way I handled the election may have seemed lazy and uncommitted. The two of us had different definitions of what was right, best, and ethical.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did not win the election - so does that prove opportunism to be the better strategy? This is a difficult question to answer. Rachel is currently studying on the pre-law track at a top-notch university and spending summers in the nation’s capital. Her personality traits will certainly serve her well in this kind of environment. The field of politics seems to necessitate opportunism; if you don’t shamelessly advocate for yourself, you will get lost because there will always be someone else willing to do so for themselves. Can success exist without opportunism? Is it possible to to find survive in a capitalist society without it?</span></div>
<br /><br />Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-48832952814470216032016-09-10T14:14:00.003-07:002016-09-10T14:14:53.053-07:00Experience in Organizations<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I was in high school, I was a member of the HS Girls Track and Field team. My freshman and sophomore years I ran on the Junior Varsity (JV) team and my junior and senior years I was part of Varsity. The track team would practice monday through friday after school from 3:00 to 5:30pm. On Saturdays, we either traveled to another school to compete in an invitational meet or met at our own school for a morning practice. Most people did not come to practice on Saturdays, except the Varsity team (even though everyone was supposed to). The organization that was our track and field team was led by a head coach along with one coach for each subteam (sprinters, throwers, jumpers, and long distance. I will focus on the distance team i this post because I only raced and practiced with them.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I gave a lot of time and effort to being on the track team. I was slightly less involved my freshman year, but after that I came to practice every single day except in extenuating circumstances. Being part of distance track meant more than just coming to practice during the track season. I, along with most everyone else on the team, was also involved in summer training (which met every morning from 7-9), the cross country team (which was a similar time commitment to the track season), and winter running club (met every day for practice but there were no competitions). Unless someone was especially talented or already committed to a different sport for one of the four seasons, everyone had to run during all four seasons to hold a spot on the Varsity team. We had 7-9 girls on the Varsity XC team with slightly more on the distance track team because there were more events. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My coaches faced a transaction cost in getting everyone to come to practice. One of my coaches acted passive-aggressively toward a student after she missed practice but did not do much else. My other coach did fun things to get us motivated to come to practice every day. She came to practice every Saturday when there were ten-or-so of us there and bugged the rest of the team on Monday about not showing up. She made a list of excuses that people had given and titled it “Why I Will Not Make it to State 2014.” People started giving outlandish excuses like, “I was making cookies with my grandma”, “I was cleaning my room”, or “I played Dance Dance Revolution instead.” It turned into a game where people were made fun of for skipping practice. This effectively minimized the transaction costs she faced while also making the team more enjoyable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We did something different every day at training, but our weekly schedule was pretty much always the same. On Mondays and Wednesdays we would run timed repeats around the track. Each runner had her own goal times set up by the coach, and we were expected to hit those times during every workout. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we would go out in the neighborhoods for a medium to long distance run (40-65 mins). These were our “easy days” so we did not necessarily have to run at a certain pace. Some of the members on our team were so motivated, however, that they ran super fast on our easy days. On our Varsity team, pretty much everyone ran at the same pace in order to stay with the group. So those of us who were not as motivated to push ourselves on non-workout days were encouraged by the team dynamic to run faster. This served as a sort of positive peer pressure from the organization. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The track and field team also affected me in positive ways academically, physically and socially. Academically, it forced me to manage my time wisely because I usually would not get home until about 6:00pm. I would eat dinner and get to work right away. Physically, it of course kept me in great shape. Beyond that, we had weekly meetings on Wednesday nights discussing healthy habits (eating, sleeping, rest & recovery) and motivational strategies. Our distance coach also designed and printed books for each of us with space for meal diaries, workout logs, “How am I feeling today?” journals and goal setting. The meal diary made me more mindful of what I was eating and kept me accountable for making healthy choices. Socially, I made some of my best friends on the team and it was an environment where everyone did healthy things (running, weight lifting, journaling) together. Spending so much time with the Varsity team and going through such tough workouts was a great bonding experience.</span></div>
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Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-72958877735862357352016-09-02T17:00:00.000-07:002016-09-03T16:57:15.795-07:00Joan Robinson Bio Sketch<br />
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Joan Robinson</h2>
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Joan Violet Robinson was a British economist born on October 31, 1903. She graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1925 with a degree in Economics. She married fellow economist Austin Robinson and had two children. She went on to teach at the University of Cambridge from 1931-1971, but she did not become a full professor until 1965. She was also part of the "Cambridge Circus", a group of scholars who helped John Maynard Keynes develop his theory on full employment. She was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize because of her work in the field, but she never won, quite possibly because of her strongly left-leaning political views or her gender.<br />
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Robinson's work was highly influential in the field of Economics. Her book <i><u>The Economics of Imperfect Competition </u></i>contributed heavily to the idea of monopolistic competition. It is one of the main reasons why most economists believe that industries/firms are neither perfectly competitive or completely monopolistic. Robinson was also the first to define macroeconomics, which was later described in one of Keynes' books. <br />
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Robinson's work is especially important because she questioned norms (in Economics and in the world as a whole) and shared ideas which sparked debate. For example, she claimed that capital cannot be fully aggregated or measured. She also insisted that economics is about real world problems. She brought attention to many issues in the world, including the dangers of capitalism and the arms race. She did not go easy on herself and encouraged students to work hard and admit to what they did not know. <br />
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I only heard about Robinson briefly before this course, when my AP Economics teacher in high school told us that it was actually a woman (Robinson) who first defined macroeconomics. Her work will be very influential/important in class as we discuss the problems organizations face and think about how things "could have been" in contrast to what they are. Robinson's influential work questioned existing standards in Economics, and hopefully we will continue to question the standards that organizations hold themselves up to.<br />
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Sources:<br />
<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joan-Robinson">https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joan-Robinson</a><br />
<a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Robinson.html">http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Robinson.html</a><br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/11/obituaries/prof-joan-robinson-dies-at-79-cambrdige-university-economist.html">http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/11/obituaries/prof-joan-robinson-dies-at-79-cambrdige-university-economist.html</a>Joan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.com1