The Big Bang Model Essays - Physical Cosmology, Astronomy, Physics

The Big Bang Model It is always a mystery about how the universe began, whether if and when it will end. Astronomers construct hypotheses called cosmological models that try to find the answer. There are two types of models: Big Bang and Steady State. However, through many observational evidences, the Big Bang theory can best explain the creation of the universe. The Big Bang model postulates that about 15 to 20 billion years ago, the universe violently exploded into being, in an event called the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, all of the matter and radiation of our present universe were packed together in the primeval fireball--an extremely hot dense state from which the universe rapidly expanded.1 The Big Bang was the start of time and space. The matter and radiation of that early stage rapidly expanded and cooled. Several million years later, it condensed into galaxies. The universe has continued to expand, and the galaxies have continued moving away from each other ever since. Today the universe is still expanding, as astronomers have observed. The Steady State model says that the universe does not evolve or change in time. There was no beginning in the past, nor will there be change in the future. This model assumes the perfect cosmological principle. This principle says that the universe is the same everywhere on the large scale, at all times.2 It maintains the same average density of matter forever. There are observational evidences found that can prove the Big Bang model is more reasonable than the Steady State model. First, the redshifts of distant galaxies. Redshift is a Doppler effect which states that if a galaxy is moving away, the spectral line of that galaxy observed will have a shift to the red end. The faster the galaxy moves, the more shift it has. If the galaxy is moving closer, the spectral line will show a blue shift. If the galaxy is not moving, there is no shift at all. However, as astronomers observed, the more distance a galaxy is located from Earth, the more redshift it shows on the spectrum. This means the further a galaxy is, the faster it moves. Therefore, the universe is expanding, and the Big Bang model seems more reasonable than the Steady State model. The second observational evidence is the radiation produced by the Big Bang. The Big Bang model predicts that the universe should still be filled with a small remnant of radiation left over from the original violent explosion of the primeval fireball in the past. The primeval fireball would have sent strong shortwave radiation in all directions into space. In time, that radiation would spread out, cool, and fill the expanding universe uniformly. By now it would strike Earth as microwave radiation. In 1965 physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected microwave radiation coming equally from all directions in the sky, day and night, all year.3 And so it appears that astronomers have detected the fireball radiation that was produced by the Big Bang. This casts serious doubt on the Steady State model. The Steady State could not explain the existence of this radiation, so the model cannot best explain the beginning of the universe. Since the Big Bang model is the better model, the existence and the future of the universe can also be explained. Around 15 to 20 billion years ago, time began. The points that were to become the universe exploded in the primeval fireball called the Big Bang. The exact nature of this explosion may never be known. However, recent theoretical breakthroughs, based on the principles of quantum theory, have suggested that space, and the matter within it, masks an infinitesimal realm of utter chaos, where events happen randomly, in a state called quantum weirdness.4 Before the universe began, this chaos was all there was. At some time, a portion of this randomness happened to form a bubble, with a temperature in excess of 10 to the power of 34 degrees Kelvin. Being that hot, naturally it expanded. For an extremely brief and short period, billionths of billionths of a second, it inflated. At the end of the period of inflation, the universe may have a diameter of a few centimetres. The temperature had cooled enough for particles of matter and antimatter to form, and they instantly destroy each other, producing fire and a thin haze of matter-apparently because slightly more matter than antimatter was formed.5 The fireball, and the smoke of its burning, was the universe at an age of trillionth of a second. The

the endangered environment essays

the endangered environment essays The old cliche out of sight, out of mind is the best way to summarize most of the worlds perspective on the environment. It is most unfortunate that almost all of the people on earth cannot see first hand the rapid destruction of the homes of countless species. People do not and cannot see the holes in the ozone layer or the pollution in the water. Most people have never seen in person the trees of an entire valley cut down or the coastline blackened by spilled oil. Since the Industrial Revolution the earths ecosystem has experienced a rapid decline. People are using vast amounts of resources at rates that will be nearly impossible to neither maintain nor replenish. There is also the cost of using and refining these resources, which is the lower quality of air, water, and earth, the extinction of various species, and the continued drastic decrease of finite resources of that we have come to depend our whole economy on. Every year more forests are cut down, more chemicals poll ute the air, and more toxins fill the waters. This trend has continued for more than a century and a half and continues even today. The degradation of the environment continues and we have endangered it. One of the most prized and coveted resources on earth is oil. It is often referred to as black gold since oil is shipped to and consumed all over the world. It is the greatest source of energy that people have. It is used as fuel for cars, trucks, airplanes, and many other vehicles as well as a major generator of electricity in many areas. Nevertheless, it is used in vast quantities and must also be shipped in vast quantities. The most economically efficient way to do this is by using what are known as supertankers. Supertankers are huge, ocean faring vessels that transport in the tens of millions of gallons of oil, and when these supertankers have accidents, they can be environmentally catastrophic...

Technology and change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Technology and change - Essay Example Cell phones, especially GPS phones raise lots of concerns over the privacy issues. Consumers are often not aware that their movements are monitored. Their secrecy and private life will be in jeopardy while they are using such GPS mobile phones. Women and girls can be traced and their private life can be exploited by intruders. Blackmailing and robbery can be accomplished using the GPS. Security is another concern. â€Å"Government officials and communications experts are assessing the public safety and security implications of a newly posted online article that provides directions for making cheap devices that can jam Global Positioning System (GPS) signals. The Phrack article provides a detailed guide to building a low-cost, portable GPS jammer out of components that can be easily obtained from electronics supply houses. (Bob Brewin) As per this article, an average person with slight knowledge in electronics can make GPS jammers without much effort. In the modern world of highest terrorist activities, GPS can act as a blessing and a curse at the same time. â€Å"Global Positioning Systems (GPS) reveal a persons location. This type of location data helps police with their investigations, such as tracking down a criminal or even someone who is lost or missing. They can act as a safety device to protecting your family and loved ones. Location technology also helps locate stolen cars.†(Brad Seabourne  ). For example, suppose a person with a GPS phone is being kidnapped. The police can identify the location of the person who is being kidnapped with the help of the GPS system easily. GPS can provide valuable information to the drivers such as total miles driven, speeds that it was driven, travelled routes and current location. The driver can now find their exact location and get directions, and more over they can have it delivered by voice with the help of

Employment relationship Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Employment relationship - Assignment Example Based on this research industrial relations are considered to be a multi-disciplinary field that studies the various facets of employment relationships. The predominance of non industrial employment relations has made the term employment relations more meaning and importance. The examination of various employment situations and conditions and also the ones which does not come with a unionized workforce is studied under the field of employment relations. The three main faces comprising employment relations are science building, ethics and problem solving. In the face science building, employment relations are considered to be social science which understands the various employment relationships and institutions through rigorous and high quality research. In the face of ethics, industrial relations are a reflection of very strong normative principles on employment relationships and workers. This is especially with regards to the treatment of workers as a mere commodity in favor of cons idering them as human beings having human rights in democratic communities. ‘Human relations’ is a term which refers to the entire field of relationships prevailing out of the collaboration between men and women in their recruitment process in the modern industry. It is considered to be that particular part of management which is directly related to the management of organizations and enterprises including skilled workmen, machine operators and managers. It not only deals with the relationship existing between employers and the state but also workers organizations and the relationships existing between occupational organizations. Most importantly, the problem solving aspect of industrial or employment relations seek to create and design such institutions and policies which help in better working of the employment relations. Scholars have brought forth various frameworks and theoretical perspectives as per their understanding and analysis of the workplace situations and relations. In this context mention must be made of the two main theoretical perspectives, namely, unitary and pluralist perspectives respectively. The above two approaches have their own perspectives and interpretation of workplace conflicts, job regulations, role of unions etc. The main purpose of the project is to explore the different perspectives and evaluate their presence in modern organizational settings. It tries to understand the ideologies that underpin the managerial perspectives and the way they reflect in organizational life. The extent to which each of the perspectives predominates over the other is explored in the project (Wilton, 2010, p.36). Unitary perspective One of the most competing approaches towards the study of employment relations is based on the conservative ideological position called ‘unitary’. The most distinguishing characteristic which differentiate the unitary ideological perspective is the assumption that every work organization is consi dered to be an integrated entity which has a shared goal and a common purpose. Employment relationship according to the unitary perspective is based on the mutual harmony and cooperation of interest between the organization and its employees (Bray, 2011, p.21). It does not consider the possibility of conflicts between capital owners and workers. They are all considered to be belonging to the same team and having the very same objective which rules out the possibility of conflicts. Wherever there is prevalence of an industrial conflict, it is either treated as a temporary phenomenon or the result of abnormal behavior (Green, 2011, p.245). This behavior is commonly considered to be raised by trouble makers, bad communication and poor management. Moreover, in such cases unions are considered to be always being in competition with the management in order to gain commitment and loyalty of the employees (Bray,

Elisa aims and method need to be paraphrase Essay

Elisa aims and method need to be paraphrase - Essay Example This difference is made clear through the drawing of a standard curve, by making use of concentrations that are known; belonging to antibodies of Rabbit IgG. e. Incubation was done on different amounts of rabbit IgG. Micotiter plates were then cleaned by use of washing buffer, three times; and washed again after blocking them with blocking buffer. They then were refrigerated, ready for use in the practical. 1- For the monoclonal antibodies, the left half of the plate got used.As in the illustration below in a picture with blue colour; in the first column, 200ul of monoclonal mouse anti-rabbit IgG was added. 100ul of diluents buffer PBS was then filled to columns 2 and 6, for the monoclonal antibodies as in the below illustration. 2- Then, 100ul of mouse anti-rabbit got transferred from A1 to A6 inorder to have the sample diluted and from well A6 100ul of mouse anti rabbit IgG antibody thrown away. A repeat of the process was done on the rest of the

Transactional Vs Transformational Leadership

Transactional Vs Transformational Leadership This essay is required to conduct a better understanding of leadership styles transactional and transformational leadership styles from researching on Richard Branson and Steve Jobs success, and discuss about different types of changes (incremental and radical changes) may occur in an organisation in order to learn change management methods can be applied to a real case (Virgin Group). Although both of the excellent leaders exhibit characteristics of both transactional and transformational leadership styles, this essay will identify Steve Jobs as a transactional leader and Richard Branson as a transformational leader with three reasons for each statement. This essay will identify and describe six examples of changes (incremental and radical) for each leader (three examples each type). At last, this essay will discuss about the concepts of change management and explain Kotters 8-Step Change Model by applying to a real case (Virgin Group). Transactional Leadership VS Transformational Leadership Good leadership is the key to the success of an organization. Transactional leadership is performance-oriented and transformational leadership is people-oriented. To be more specific, transactional leadership involves reinforcement to monitor and justify followers performances by using reward and punishment, while transformational leadership tends to inspire and motivate the followers loyalty and concentration by leaders charisma. Steve Jobs as Transactional Leader Transactional leaders characteristic behaviours are: (Barbuto, 2005) Contingent Reward Contingent reward is actually a usual way that most of the managers use to motivate teams, create positive competition and improve effectiveness. Steve Jobs had the impressive ability to notice talent and active employees and allocate them to the right place in the company. Each year, Jobs took his top 100 people on a retreat. It is not only a reward as a vacation, but also an acknowledgement from STEVE JOBS! In my opinion, acknowledgements from successful genius would be the best reward for my hard working. Management by exception Transactional leaders take actions based on the exceptions (performance) of the employees. Steve Jobs categorised his followers as either geniuses or bozos, and quickly firing those who fall in the latter camp (Greene-Blose, 2012). Another characteristic of transactional leadership would be the desire for control which is typical Steve Jobs style. His favourite presentation tools were a whiteboard and a Magic Marker, which gives him fully control in the conference. After his reinventing Apple, Jobs had several weeks of product review sessions. Finally he run out of patience and shouted the team to stop, grabbed a Magic Marker to the white board and wrote down four words: Consumer, Pro., Desktop and Portable. Then he said:Here is what we need! (Isaacson, 2012) This is Steve Jobs, full of power and passion, who gave clear incentives and strategies to his followers with his wisdom and visions. Richard Branson as Transformational Leader Transformational leaders characteristic behaviours are: (Barbuto, 2005) Idealized influence Richard Branson has become a role model for his followers inside or outside of his Virgin Empire by his own passionate and fearless life style. With his own words, You want to create something you are proud ofà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ That has always been my philosophy of business (Branson), Richard Branson broke many world records such as the fastest recorded Atlantic crossing by boat, the first Atlantic crossing by hot-air balloon, etc. He proved that anything is possible to his followers and the rest of the world with real examples. (Ocker, 2008) Inspiration motivation Richard Branson is a visionary leader with dreams and relentless work attitude which make those dreams come true. At the early stage of Virgin Group business, he once said:I want Virgin to be as well-known around the world as Coca-Cola. (Branson) After decades of time, the brand of Virgin have become world well-known, and covers many different areas of business which Coca-Cola wound not dare to try. Those kinds of ambitions and courage ties his group together and close, and leads him to keep on improving Virgin Group services and productions. Individualized consideration Richard Branson business maxim is staff first, customers second and shareholders third (Locke, 2009). One of his most famous and interesting story would be the lawsuit against British Airways for its protracted libel actions and ended with a settlement of about  £600,000 total. After Richard Branson got the money, he divided it to all his employees for their hard working. It was not only a reward, but more like sharing a triumph. On the other hand, the major reason of Richard Bransons business success is that he takes care of customers needs with innovations and consideration, such as placing a rubber ducky in each bathroom of Virgin-owned hotels in order to make guests feel ate home, putting Listening Posts in their record stores and allowing customers to listen to entire CDs before purchasing. (Richard Branson Virgin) In general, transformational leadership style is considered more as a friendly and flexible way to organize a company, while transactional leadership is considered more tough and efficient. It is hard to say which one is better. All the good leaders all over the world (include the two above) have the characteristics of the both leadership styles., such as Steve Jobs charismatic characteristics and spiritual motivating speech skills (Transformational), and Richard Branson strict management ways on the lower level positions in the organisation (Transactional). Transformational leadership does not replace transactional leadership but improves the effectiveness of transactional leadership from a different angle. (Bernard, Bass, Riggio, 2005) Incremental Changes VS Radical Changes Changes are inevitable in human lives as well as in business operations. Incremental change takes place over a long time period for development purposes, while radical change is more often triggered by a crisis or a business opportunity. There are several differences listed in the following table. Incremental Changes Radical Changes Reasons Business development Expansion Dealing with crisis Seizing a significant business opportunity Period Long period of time Short period of time Examples Improvement Such as TQM, new system implementation Revolutionary changes Such as restructuring, merger, take-over Approaches types May be small, slow, on-going May be onetime events, quick Respond and effect Hardly noticed by the management level Immediately adapt May cause resistance to changes Steve Jobs Incremental Changes Example1: Pixar In 1986, Steve Jobs bought The Graphics Group from Lucasfilm for $10 millions, changed the name to Pixar and started his career in animation manufacturing. With his visionary plans and technology support from his computer company NeXT, Pixar developed a software package called RenderMan (which has been widely accepted and used in filmmaking industry). RenderMan was implemented into the existing Pixar production line slowly in order to improve quality of the products. After ten years time, Pixar finally achieved an amazing success in the animation filming industry. It kept producing a series of animation films, beginning with Toy Story (1995), which led Pixars worth to over $1.5 billion. It took 10 years to implementing and perfecting the new software into production and transferring Steve Jobs leadership style into Pixars existing operation, and achieves a remarkable improvement at the end. This is an incremental change made by Steve Jobs. Example2: Digital hub strategy After Steve Jobs returning to Apple in 1997 as an interim CEO, he successfully brought Apple back to profitability with a amazing consumer desktop computer iMac. By facing negative predictions about proclaiming PCS would disappear within a couple of years, Steve Jobs continuously led Apple to keep on perfecting i products with the meaning of internet, individual, instruct, inform and inspire as the same way Apple always do. (Steve Jobs introductory 1998 iMac slide show) In 2001, Steve Jobs unveiled the Digital Hub Strategy to the public and in the next 10 years time he kept on launching a series of new products which extremely changed and led the trade of the whole world. (Kurian, 2012) There was an interesting event that Steve Jobs called himself as the iCEO of Apple instead of interim CEO humorously which entertained the public very much (Macworld San Francisco 2000). It was also a smart way to promoting i products while teasing with the board of Apple for rehiring him as a temporary executive officer. This huge successful change took 10 years to be accomplished followed by Steve Jobs leadership piece by piece. It maintained the old producing direction and improved production qualities. It was a long period on-going process of implementing Jobs wisdom into Apple Company. Example3: Retirement from Apple Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but he kept on denying any serious problem. That is why everyone was surprised when Apple announced that Steve Jobs would not go on stage for the Macworld keynote in 2009, and he took six months off at the same year. Jobs finally resigned as CEO of Apple in 2011 but remained as the Chairman of the companys board, and he passed away after 6 weeks. (Kurian, 2012) There may be some radical changes involved for damage control purpose, but in general, Steve Jobs took care of his retirement carefully and smoothly to avoid negative impact within 3 years time. For instance, he distributed his responsibilities to other executives step by step, and before his final resign, he strongly recommended Tim Cook in written, that letter was released to the public later in order to retain faith. The whole process was carefully planned and implemented in a long time step by step. In my opinion, it can be an incremental change. Steve Jobs Radical Changes Example1: Macintosh VS Lisa In the early 80s, Apple was creating a business-oriented computer named Lisa under Steve Jobs supervising, but later after that, Steve Jobs thrown out of the Lisa project because of his bad temper. He was so angry and decided to take revenge by developing a small project called Macintosh in order to destroy the sales of Lisa. (Kurian, 2012) It was a radical strategy. Macintosh had user-friendly interface (point-and -click) which inspired other computer manufactories and changed the direction of computer industry since then, but it was not as welcome to the market as Jobs expected though. At that time, IBMs PC was more compatible with its cheaper price. Because this action was taken rapidly without well planning and careful market researching, Macintosh project failed. Example2: Staging a Coup There was another revenge taken by Steve Jobs after his removal from Lisa project, he tried to stage a coup. As we all know, he failed again. (Kurian, 2012) It was a restructuring plan, and he took actions rapidly. But without endorsement from Apple board of directors and support from other colleagues, he got fired from his own company. Example3: Reinventing Apple By 1996, Apple rehired Steve Jobs as an informal adviser to the CEO. At that time, Apple was keeping on losing money and Steve Jobs staged another coup. He successes this time and became an interim CEO in 1997.The first thing he had done after his promotion is cutting off the production lines and focused on four products. This effective decision brought the lost confidence back to the Apple community (Kurian, 2012). In the meantime, Jobs took other actions such as announcing a new slogan Think Different and launched an amazing project which brought Apples resurgence lately, the iMac. (Edwards, 2008) Those actions and decisions above are radical changes (restructuring and redesigning the production processes). They were new strategies to the company for solving a financial crisis in a short time period. Richard Branson Incremental Changes Example1: Virgin Atlantic There are some unique features Virgin Atlantic has while other airways may not have can be considered as incremental changes. Such as, serving a cup of ice cream while passengers watching movies during travelling in order to provide a better service. Virgin Atlantic does not provide meals for short distance flight in order to reduce ticket price. This kind of services is provided for improving quality of service. Example2: Virgin Group Because Richard Branson received a lot of support from his family and friends during hi early period of business stage (borrowed money from his auntie and supported by John Lennon), the whole Virgin Group services can be considered as a long term process for implementing Richard Bransons plan of giving back to the society and helping those people who has ambitious but doesnt have opportunities. Such as, Virgin Money provides a set of formalised documentations help people who need loans. Although Virgin Money U.S. did not work well in USA, Richard Branson helped millions of people with his good heart in UK. Those actions can be considered as Incremental Changes. Example3: Eco-friendly efforts In 2007, Richard Branson launched Virgin Earth Challenge dedicating in to environmental issues. He made several decisions that supervised the whole world, such as a $25 millions prize for inventors who comes up with a viable solution for scrubbing carbon gases from atmosphere. He also pledged to reinvest all profits from Virgin transportation business over the decade into developing ecologically benign fuels. This kind of actions may not affect other Virgin companies, but they will improve Virgin Groups reputation, it is also a long time period project. Richard Branson Radical Changes Example1: Virgin Records Shop At the beginning, Richard Branson started his records business as mail ordering company in London, and it went well. After a postal strike, the mail order business was crippled. Richard Branson was forced to seek new outlets and he opened his first retail store in Oxford Street in 1971. This was a strategy for dealing with a crisis situation, and operated immediately. It changed Virgin Records business process and structure. Example2: Selling Virgin Music Group Selling Virgin Music probably would be the hardest decision Richard Branson has ever made in his whole lifetime. This decision was made in order to get money to take Virgin Atlantic back into private ownership (Vinnedge, 2009). This change was forced by a financial crisis and included restructuring process. Example3: Closing Virgin Money U.S. Richard Branson launched a loan servicing company called Virgin Money U.S. in America in 2007, and began its withdrawal after 2 years (Lepro, 2010). Its social loans were transferred to Graystone Solutions. This time, Richard Branson misjudged the market and had to make the decision in order to limit the damage. Other reasons of this collapse might be the bad economy and different culture in America. This change included restructuring and take-over in a short time. To sum up the above examples and explanations, incremental changes are normally well planned and taken over by pieces, there is less possibilities of failure. Radical changes are immediate responses for a crisis or significant opportunity, there are chances of failure. Change Management in Virgin Group Story of Virgin Mobile In 2007, Virgin Group announced the completion of its biggest challenge which brought over 10 million customers and 13,000 employees merger of NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile under the Virgin Media brand. It is known as the largest Virgin Company in the world. This operation took more than two years to complete the whole the merger, and Virgin Group handled it carefully, especially on employees resistance. Reasons of employees resistance to this change and strategies It is necessary for leaders to understand that resistances to changes are normal. In order to deal with those obstacles, leaders have to identify reasons of employees resistances firstly and develop different strategies for different situations. Some common reasons are following: Fear Mostly, employees fear comes from uncertainty about their career. In this situation, employees were worried about if there would be a layoff or if they were qualified for the new company. Strategies: Virgin Group kept employees involved during managing changes. The high level of the management went done to the front line staff and listened to the staffs ideas and problems, and shared their own experiences. Richard Branson took care of individual needs carefully. Meanwhile, he also announced that if the employees no longer have the enthusiasm, they would be better to find a new job. As long as the employees performed with full responsibilities, they would always be considered as a part of the company. This kind of instructions increased the sense of the urgency, and motivated employees to move on positively. No faith in new process Former NTL and Telewest employees might have uncertainties about the new process of Virgin Group. Because NTL and Telewest Company had several years of struggling with the bad economy environment, they could not be sure whether the new company would lead them to improve the organisational performance. Strategies: Richard Branson gave responsibilities to his employees, and went to the front line personally to inform clear instructions. Establishing clear instructions and explanations, and demonstrating a picture of a better future would increase employees faith and certainty of the new process. Comfort personal preference Former NTL and Telewest employees had their own ways of daily operations, and the new company brought its new ways of doing business, so they might have the difficulties to adopt the new culture. Such as, those staff had their old way of dealing with customers calls by following the instructions and scripts strictly, while Richard Branson believes that each customer would have his/her unique problem, staff should help different customers differently. Strategies: Richard Branson threw away all the scripts and told call-center employees to help customers within one call if possible. In order to support their work, he allocated necessary resources to the font line. Lack of knowledge Although some former NTL and Telewest employees were expert in their old company, they might need to start from the beginning since the new company had its unique ways of doing business. Strategies: For this kind of anxiety, Richard Branson responded with three words only: Live and Learn! He provided resources and training programs for employees in order to create a positive learning environment, and he also encouraged communication among different levels of the management to understand individual difficulties. Lack of trust Virgin Group has different diversity of businesses and it used to prefer small piece of business, whether Richard Branson has the ability to lead the large company to make profit and keep growing would be unpredictable. This is the reason that some employees might have difficulties to adapt the changes. Strategies: Richard Branson kept developing new products and services, and led the company to profitability, such as more packages of Virgin Broadband, more channels and TV programs for Virgin Media Television, and etc. Those successes brought back the trust in several years, not immediately. Application of Kotters Change Model Create Urgency At this stage, it is necessary to deliver a message that the whole company really needs this change. The company has to provide solid reasons and convincing dialogues support this decision. To Kotters belief, this stage is the most important stage; lack of preparation would easily lead to a project failure. In Virgin Medias case, leader should show people NTL and Telewests poor performance reports and most importantly, the potentials, because no one will have faith in a failed business. With a brief introduction of development scenarios, leader should emphasise the opportunities and benefit from this merger. Form a Powerful Coalition In order to influence people to accept the change, leader needs a group of key people from different department to support the change management process. They dont necessary have to be who has legitimate power, but also can be expert, and other influential people. In Virgin Medias case, leader should select powerful and influential people from ex-NTL and ex-Telewest Company, and select good communicators from Virgin Mobile, in order to organise a supportive team. Once organised, the team needs to work together and continuing to create urgency in their own working areas. Create a Vision for Change The next step would be generating an overall vision about the change, including values and reasons of the change, short summaries, and strategies to execute that vision. In Virgin Medias case, leader should have a clear idea about what to do with ex-NTL and ex-Telewest, and why Virgin Mobile needs to conduct a merger with them. As the matter of the fact, Richard Branson was trying to build the first quadruple play  [1]   media company in UK, and after couple of years hard working, he did it. Communicate the Vision After creating the vision, leader should deliver the message to the team members, and with their help, the message can be distributed to all aspects of the company. The message should not be sent through meetings only, most importantly through daily communications among the whole company. In Virgin Medias Case, Richard Branson tried to communicate with employees as much as possible and motivate them to maintain in a positive working attitude. Those ideas and visions were implanted into employees mind during those communications. Remove Obstacles In order to ease employees resistance to changes, leader should avoid having resistance to employees resistance. Leader should be willing to listen and understand employees difficulties and find a way to help them walk through it. In Virgin Media case, Richard Branson provided clear instructions to all employees, and went to the front-line in person to listen to employees. He allocated necessary resources to them and tried to create a learning environment, in order to improve performance. Create Short-term Wins Celebrations for short-term wins would be the easiest and most efficient way to prove that we are doing the right things and we are doing things right. It is not only for motivating employees passion of working, but also for gaining trust. In Virgin Medias case, leader should recognize and reward people for their excellent performance and making changes happen, and encourage them to keep on working positively. Build on the Change Kotter believes that it is very important for leaders to avoid celebrating too early and being complacent about current short-term success. There would be always rooms for improvement. In Virgin Medias Case, Richard Branson kept on producing and developing new products and services, and tracking on employees performances all the time. He went through daily operations in details in person to seek for ways of improvements. Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture Formalising the changes and including them as part of organisations culture would be the last step of change management process. This step can be considered as a closure and promotion. In Virgin Medias case, Richard Branson announced Virgin Groups success to the public all the time through different kind of channels, such as TV, radio, Virgin websites, blogs, magazines and etc. Conclusion After researching on Steve Jobs and Richard Branson life stories as a leader, this essay is conducted in order to gain a better understanding about the concepts of being an excellent leader. Leadership Style Steve Jobs was considered as a tough and strict (even dictatorial) leader, but he was also a respectful leader who could inspire and motivate followers by using his wisdom and charismas. Richard Branson is considered as gentle and flexible leaders, but he is very strict on day-to-day operations. As a leader, being transactional can improve employees performance while being transformational can improve effectiveness. Therefore, there is no one simple leadership style for one organisation. Both of the leadership styles are crucial to a business success. Types of changes Incremental change may takes place over a long time period for development and improvement purpose, while radical change may be triggered by a crisis or a business opportunity and generated in a short time period. Because incremental changes are normally well planned and taken over by pieces, there is less possibilities of failure. Radical changes are initiated immediately after realising a crisis or significant opportunity, so without a careful plan and on-going monitoring there are chances of failure. Change Management It is important to understand that employees resistance to changes are natural, but how to manage those negative feelings are critical. In general, leader should keep employees involved in the decision making, address their problems and seek for solutions, create a positive learning environment and make the change happen by working with employees as an example. Change management processes should be carefully planned and operated, especially the preparing stage (Create Urgency). A powerful coalitions positive support would make the operations accomplished smoothly, that is why selecting the right team member is very important. Leader and coalition should lead by examples, communicate with employees and deliver visions as much as possible. Do remember celebrating on short-term wins and establish big victory formally as companys culture.

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Reginald Freeman Dr. Elaine Labach QM-3345-XTIA 12/13/2013 Big Easy Bold Taste Test The purpose of this study is to prove that this author’s spouse who claims she is an expert in tasting certain expensive coffee beverages cannot tell the difference when a less expensive substitute is prepared in the same manner and served to this self-proclaimed expert. Many people claim they can tell the difference between certain coffees, such as Folgers vs. Maxwell House, Starbucks vs. Seattle’s Best vs. Starbucks, and so on. For this project, the author intends to prove that his spouse cannot actually tell the difference between her favorite expensive Keurig brewed Emeril’s Big Easy Bold and any other brand coffee when both are prepared in the exact same manner and served side by side. To make this test more interesting and inviting the author and his spouse or test subject made a little wager that if she could achieve a 75% accuracy rate throughout the course of the experiment then she would receive the tablet of her choice in addition to her Christmas g ifts versus as a part of her Christmas gifts. On the flipside of this wager, if she could not achieve the 75% accuracy mark, then the author would receive permission to upgrade his ticket choice for a 2014 Dallas Cowboys game. Results of this wager are revealed at the end of the project. In order to properly conduct this experiment a proclamation or hypothesis must be made. Null hypothesis: The author’s spouse cannot tell the difference between Keurig brewed Emeril’s Big Easy Bold coffee and any other brand coffee brewed in the same manner. Alternative hypothesis: The author’s spouse can tell the difference between Keurig brewed Emeril’s Big Easy Bold coffee and any other brand coffee br... ... Once steps 2a and 2b are complete taste exhibit A. Swish in mouth and either swallow or spit in sink. 4. Repeat steps 2a and 2b. 5. Taste exhibit B. Swish in mouth and either swallow or spit in sink. 6. Report to test administrator which coffee is Emeril’s Big Easy Bold for results to be recorded. Appendix 2 Coffee Tasting Results Table Date Morning Emeril Other Evening Emeril Other November 25, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ November 26, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ November 27, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ November 28, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ November 29, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ November 30, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 1, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 2, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 3, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 4, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 5, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 6, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 7, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ December 8, 2013 ïÆ' ¼ ïÆ' ¼ Totals 7 7 6 8