Breaking the chains of psychological slavery Essay

Breaking the chains of psychological slavery - Essay Example The author of the paper has presented his agreement or disagreement with the views presented by Akbar in the first three chapters of the book. The Psychological Legacy of Slavery In the first one of series of essays presented in Akbar’s book, Dr. Akbar defines the misery of blacks over the period of those 300 years, in which the black raced experienced brutality and humiliation in the hands of whites. According to the author, the blacks were forced into slavery which left behind deep psychological trauma in the mindset of black people and socially isolated them. Akbar states that, despite of the fact that world has acknowledged the brutality of slavery experienced all around the world, they still do not know or do not want to know the root cause of problems faced by black people, i.e. the slavery. The problems identified by Akbar pertaining to black peoples’ attitude, were directed towards their behavior at workplace, leading teams, feeling inferiority complexes and how the community divides them from white people. Akbar argues that the negative impact of slavery on black peoples’ attitude towards life can also be noticed in the way they form families and perceive discrimination on the basis of race and color. In my personal opinion, I would like to disagree with Akbar when he suggests that the effects of slave past can be noticed in the attitude towards profession. These days, blacks are dominating major positions in a number of key businesses in the world. On the other hand, blacks are provided with equal opportunities to excel in their profession and achieve their assigned targets. Another factor that has been identified with relation to Black’s attitude towards community division, I would like to agree with Akbar here. This is because still there are evidences where whites are discriminated on the basis of color and race. The recent example is of major sporting events like football leagues and hockey matches. But, due to prevalen ce of law and anti-racial regulations implemented by the government and by employers at workplace, Black people are now encouraged to report that to law enforcing organizations. Liberation from Mental Slavery The second chapter of the book discusses how to break the mental chains of the slavery and its adverse impact on the mind set-up of individuals. Based on Akbar’s idea of faith, the author argues that some of the time, people believe what is not actually practical. Similarly, blacks were sometimes were provided with false and rumored news about the whites and vice versa. I agree with the point raised by Dr. Akbar about faith. Faith is something that is meaningless and limitless. Faith reflects the level of trust an individual have for another individual. Based on faith, people make decisions that are critical to the situations in their lives. In this manner, to ensure successfully achieving objectives or to make something happen in your favor, one must have faith. Similar ly, if individuals’ belief that they are going to get freedom, they first must have faith on their belief, so as to ensure that full commitment and honesty is reflected in our efforts towards achieving freedom. Coming back to the denial of slave mentality of blacks, Akbar states that to make freedom possible, the blacks must have to believe that they are going to achieve freedom. This freedom gave their confidence level a boost which proved to be a vital weapon in their efforts to achieve freedom. Giving the example of Harriet Tubman’s efforts to free slaves, Tubman expresses her faith that she is going to free slave, which other wise would not have been possible in the absence of faith and

International Strategic Planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

International Strategic Planning - Essay Example Strategic planning and management functions are all the more important in case of large organizations. Other functional management areas like Human Resources, Finance etc. deal with only a part of the organization or its activity. At times two or more such areas may need to take assistance from each other. But strategic planning and management relates to the management of the organization as a whole. Different set of persons may contribute in different proportions towards making strategic moves. Strategic decisions are concerned with the issue of setting a direction for the organization to move or the course the organization will follow Though very crucial, yet preparing 'strategic moves' for future often is not based on hard facts, but on presumptions. It involves past experience, forecasting and 'surround-effect'. The input from different sources are integrated into one comprehensive plan in order to manage the operations, marketing, production, human resources, marketing communica tions, technology implementation, diversification, mergers & acquisitions etc. Multinational Enterprises with stakes in many markets, different sets of individuals, cultures etc. need to take care of the variations in perceptions and practices in order to remain relevant to the desired areas of operations. In general the planning process begins by taking stock... International strategic planning is the process through which multinational enterprises are supposed to evaluate their performances in the past, make an objective assessment of their corporate strengths and weaknesses, and then chalk out strategies for future operations, which also involves processes like selection, recruitment, allocation of resources and assessing the market positions. Blaney (2001) for example, states that 'long-term planning is about making decisions. It is not about day dreaming. It is a practical exercise in decision-making to try to ensure that the organization goes from where it is now to where it wants to go in a given time-period'. Strategic planning and management can be therefore described as what Bernard (1962) called 'maintaining the organization in operation'. Strategic planning, in general, is carried out by the top management, with strategic inputs from different departments. For multinational enterprises, such a planning is done at corporate headquarters together with senior managers from domestic and foreign operating subsidiaries. In these competitive times, when market dynamics do not allow plans to last long enough, most of the MNEs try to keep permanent planning staff for providing timely inputs to top level managers in order to devise strategies. The planning staff is supposed to gather demographic data, economic data, marketing potential, remuneration statistics etc. to the top level executives; who in turn come out with strategic plans accordingly. The top executives responsible for devising international strategies for MNEs, must also be aware of different political systems, government structures, legal systems, multiple currencies, accounting systems besides the