Human Service Integration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Human Service Integration - Essay Example Funding streams and federal mandates contribute to the confront of integrating services by pulling a human service agency in diverse directions. As a result, "Ms. Jones" walks into a human service agency office a whole person and the system virtually breaks her and her family into pieces in order to serve her, consistent with the structure of most human service programs. (Reitman, 2005) Despite and perhaps because of these challenges, we know human service agencies can no longer afford not to integrate services. The lives of children and families literally rely on the extent to which human service agencies integrate services for better performance. Although service integration is well established in theory, making it an operational reality has remained elusive over the last 20 years, but not for lack of effort or creativity some agencies have made phenomenal progress toward service integration, despite complex and ever-changing political, economic, demographic, and technological conditions. One-stop shops have emerged, joint planning has been initiated, co-location of two or more service agencys staff has been implemented, standard initial screening tools and eligibility processes have been established, and the merging of data systems is ongoing in many jurisdictions. While there have been successful pilot programs over the years, there have been few broadly implemented system changes that have brought service integration pilot programs "to scale." Historically, pilot programs and studies of best practices have not been widely replicated, not because they were "bad" strategies, but rather a critical component was missing: high -performance leadership. (Atkinson, 1999) Although we traditionally associate "leadership" with the work of the chief executive, the missing component in successfully integrating services is leadership work performed throughout the agency. An agency with sufficient leadership capacity to

Most dangerous game Essay Example for Free

Most dangerous game Essay In the short story,† The Most Dangerous Game†, by Richard Connell, the author uses irony in the short story to support the theme of the book – the roles of hunter and hunted frequently reversed. In the short story, Rainsford, a big game hunter, believes that he is being persuaded by General Zaroff hunt humans with the general. However, Rainsford realizes the truth – he is going to get hunted by Zaroff, not hunting with him. â€Å"You don’t mean – â€Å"cried Rainsford. †My dear fellow,† said the general, â€Å"have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? †(11)is an example of situational irony because the reader didn’t expect Rainsford, the big game hunter, to become hunted . The quote supports the thesis because it shows the quick reversal of the role of hunter and hunted in the short story. This quote shows that the role of hunter and hunted are not set in stone; Rainsford realizes that he is losing a role that he had always assumed he would always have. He is big game – not a big game hunter. However, the fluidity of the roles of hunter and prey also works to Rainsford’s favor. After jumping into the ocean, Rainsford swims to Zaroff’s lair and confronts him in a duel. † I congratulate you,† He [Zaroff] said. †You have won the game. † Rainsford did not smile. †I am still a beast at bay†(15) shows the change in the roles of Zaroff and Rainsford. Rainsford infiltrated into Zaroff’s home and is now getting ready to kill the general, regardless of the fact that the â€Å"game† is over. It is what the reader least expects, thus a piece of situational irony because prey run away and get hunted down and killed by the predator Instead Rainsford becomes the hunter, and now his demands rules supreme. Zaroff was ambushed by Rainsford and is now at his mercy. He is now the prey, and the rules that he made while hunter are irrelevant. This situation was clearly different from page 11, where the general cheerfully informed Rainford that he was going to be hunted down and killed, thus supporting the thesis that the roles of the hunted and the hunter are changed around. This shows that the author used irony to show that the roles of predator and prey are interchangeable.

The Drug Policy System In Portugal Criminology Essay

The Drug Policy System In Portugal Criminology Essay In contrary to popular believe, it is not the Netherlands that has the most liberal drugs law, it is actually the Portugal. With its reputation of being the first European country to abolish all the criminal penalties for the personal possession of drugs (decriminalising) and at the same time enabling them to manage and control their drug problem effectively than every other country in the West, it is impossible to deny that Portuguese is a model for drug policy in the Europe. In this assignment, this will be discussed further in depth along with the comparisons of Portugal with the other (European) countries that has different drug policies in order to support this argument. CONTENT There are different types of drug control method used by different countries all over the world. There are the prohibition of drugs, the legalisation and finally, the systems of drug policy (such as decriminalisation, harm reduction and medicalisation). The prohibition of drugs is mainly done by countries such as Sweden, United States of America (USA) and Islamic countries where they criminalised drugs by penalising the drug user. The next method of drug control, legalisation of drugs as we speak are not yet done by any countries in the world as many are usually against this idea. However, Uruguay has proposed the legalising of marijuana in order to stop drug traffickers problem in their country (Cave, 2012). The other drug control method is a system of drug policy reform that is done by Portugal which is to be studied in this essay. This drug policy reform system consists of three aspects which are the decriminalisation of drugs, looking the drug issue in a medical perspective (medi calisation) and also harm reduction programs to lower the harm done by drug use. Some other countries that have also decriminalised drug use are as follow: Netherlands, Spain and Czech Republic, although they are being carried out differently in each country. On the 1st of July 2001, Portugal began a significant drastic policy change in its effort to reduce the escalating number of drug users and the problem related to drug use (particularly in the 1990s- which this problem was seen to worsen) in the country. The flagship of the new policy is to decriminalise the use and possession of drugs for personal use, introduced as a new law, Law 30/2000. Under this new law, the personal use and possession of drugs are made to be only administrative offenses rather than criminal offences. Portugal in the liberal drug policy coupled its decriminalisation with a public health reorientation with treatment and harm reduction put central in dealing with its drug problem. This decriminalisation also separates the drug user from the criminal justice system by identifying the drug user as patient, a health and social problem. In addition to this, the drug user will not have any criminal record for their drug offences but rather, an administrative offence. This distinguishes the drug policy from Spain where the policy is de facto decriminalisation where the drug user will still be judged by the criminal court. It is the stigmatisation that arises from conviction of criminal onto the drug user is what that Portuguese policy explicitly aims to avert. This medicalisation view at the same time is also a great measure to help the society out in order for it to develop as the effects of criminal conviction on the drug user will apparently be complicated once they are back in the soc iety such as in terms of seeking for employment and also, the loss of the drug users social esteem and friends or family (Pager, 2003). Together with that, the avoidance of stigma to the drug users will also make them more likely to seek for treatment and eventually have a better chance to succeed. In dealing with the administrative offences, each of the eighteen districts in Portugal will have at least one committee that deals only with drug use in that district ( however, larger ones will have more than one committee). In general, the committees will consist of three people; two people from the medical sector (physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, or social workers) and another with a legal background. They are also better known as the Commissions for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction (Comissà µes para a Dissuasà £o da Toxicodependà ªncia), the CDTs. People who are found in possession of drugs will be referred to the CDTs by the police. The person will then be expected to appear before the CDT within 72 hours after found by the police. The CDTs use targeted responses to drug users, including sanctions such as community service, fines, suspension of professional licences and bans on attending designated places. But their primary aim is to dissuade new drug users and to e ncourage dependent drug users to enter treatment. Towards this end they determine whether individuals are occasional or dependent drug users and then apply an appropriate sanction (Hughes and Stevens, 2007). However, the committee cannot mandate compulsory treatment, although its orientation is to induce addicts to enter and remain in treatment. Additionally, because the committees will see the users repeatedly, they would build up a relationship of trust with the addict. This kind of treatment to the drug user is more likely to succeed rather than other methods as the drug user enter the doctor-patient relationship on a voluntary basis and they are also given the choice to proceed with it or not, hence empowering them (Merril et al, 2002). This is done differently in other countries such as in Sweden, where treatment is quite inaccessible as drug users will be more likely to be given penalty for drug offences and can only undergo free treatment by applying to their local social wel fare board, but since the treatment is expensive, only a few thousands of applications are approved every year due to limited resources (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2007). In addition to its medicalisation view and the law changes done by Portugal to combat its drug use problem, harm reduction programs were also seen to be put central in their new drug policy. Drug treatment in Portugal can be classified into four main categories the outpatient drug treatment, the day care centres, the detoxification units and the therapeutic communities. All of the centre provide both psychosocial and substitution treatment. Day centres offering outpatient care and withdrawal treatment are provided by both public and non-governmental services. Inpatient psychosocial treatment mostly consists of therapeutic communities and is mainly available in private services. There is also short-term and long-term residential psychosocial drug treatment provided (The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2011). As of 2011, there are about 40 projects that deal with drug users in order to make the drug use activity safer (Vale de Andrade and Carapinha, 2010). As h arm reduction acknowledges that the drug users are in most cases unable to go on abstinence but still need to be helped, the common methods to reduce harm consists of the following: needle exchange program in order to reduce the inevitable risks commonly associated with needle sharing (such as HIV) and also, special designated injection sites with medical supervision to educate drug users the safer injection techniques and to get them off the streets. Additionally, methadone and buprenorphine  subscriptions are also used so as to help street heroin addict in reduction of their number by curbing cravings (Christie et al, 2008). This measure of harm reduction and treatments provided by the country has seen a positive outcome as there have been significant reductions in Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C for people in the treatment and also, between the year 1999 2003 there was a 17% reduction in notifications of new, drug related cases of HIV (Beagrie, 2011). The effect of decriminalising also increased the number of people going in seeking for the treatment voluntarily. The treatment will also take place faster and increase the effectiveness as the drug users do not have to wait for the long process going through law enforcements such as that in Sweden and Spain. Although the prohibition of drug possession is done through administrative regulation, rather than criminal penalties, one of the many 13 objectives of the strategy, is to increase the enforcement of laws prohibiting trafficking and distribution of drugs in Portugal (Moreira et al, 2007). Before the new drug law was introduced in 2001, the time and resources of the justice system were greatly stretched when tasked with combating drug consumption. For instance, in 2000, 7592 charges for drug consumption were made by police, putting a huge strain on the courts and prisons. One year after the policy changes, 6026 users, instead of going through the traditional route of prosecution and incarceration, were referred to dissuasion groups. This not only lessened the burden on the justice system, but also allowed the police to focus on the real criminals in the drug industry. Charges for trafficking increased by 11% when compared to the four years prior to decriminalisation (Hughes and Steven s, 2007) and the police were able to target traffickers instead of low level users. By combining decriminalisation with alternative therapeutic/educational responses to drug dependency, the burden of drug law enforcement on the overall criminal justice system is greatly reduced  (Beckley Foundation, 2012). Furthermore according to research, drug treatment is the most cost-effective way of addressing drug problem compare to imprisoning the drug user which is very expensive. Moreover, drug treatment was found to be able to cut crime by 80%, other than its ability to help the societys health by decreasing the risk of contracting drug related disease such as HIV and hepatitis. However, this policy is not effective at the moment in country like United States and Sweden as there is a severe shortage drug treatment programs provided by the countries and the fact that treatment is not made free of charge as it is done in Portugal (News Briefs, 1998). The decriminalising of drug has also been proven to diminish the size of the black market for drugs in the Portugal. This is done by stealing the consumers of the drug dealers, which are actually the real criminals here in the war against drug. The Portugal government supplied the drug substitutions for free of charge as a part of their drug treatment hence there is no demand for the drugs supplied by the dealers. As there is no more demand in the black market drug dealing, they are mostly will be out of business, therefore will eradicate them (Swan, 2012). In another argument regarding the decriminalising of drug in Portugal and the black market is that by bringing drug (replacements) into the legitimate economy, it will also ultimately separate the drugs from the black market itself. This will greatly reduce the risk by the black market dealers where hard drugs are often pushed onto buyers, who are only in to buy less dangerous drugs than promoted by the dealers. This will help a l ot in decreasing the risk of exposure on the drug users to a more dangerous drug. In essence, this will also help the removal of the gateway effect in which this undermines many arguments against the decriminalising of drugs (such as the Swedens zero tolerance for drugs) policy and shows that users will not be forced by dealers to buy cocaine, for instance, when all they want is marijuana (Herrington, 2012). Furthermore by making the drug substitutes available, it will bring to an end to the common association of drug taking and being cool or the forbidden fruit theory among the younger group. The usual use factor for drugs for them is usually peer pressure, to be accepted by others and look or feel as cool as the other youth who are also taking drugs. This is usually caused by the desire to do something different or rebel out of the norm. Therefore, by making drug replacements available, drug taking will no longer be an activity that is attractive or unordinary for them (United Nat ions Office on Drugs and Crime, 2012). Ever since this new drug policy came into place in the year 2001, numerous positive evaluations have been observed instantly regarding the drug use problem across the country. One of the primary indicators on drug use available in Portugal concerns the lifetime prevalence amongst school student. According to the statistics collected the changes in lifetime prevalence of drug use among students aged 16-18 has gone down in the year 2003 comparatively before the new policy was introduced in the year 1999. The decrease of prevalence for the number of the usage of heroin for the students is 2.5% in 1999 and 1.8% in 2003. Whereas, for cannabis it is seen to be increasing, as in 1999, the number is 9.4% and in 2003, 15.1%. These figures suggest that, while cannabis use among young people may have increased, heroin use has decreased. Although some argued that this decline is not statistically significant for Portugal, the neighbouring country, Italy however saw an increase during the same pe riod of the decline in Portugal intravenous drug use (Beckley Foundation, 2012). This just strengthened the argument that this new policy works up to a certain extent instantaneously after its introduction. Also, as desired with the substantial improvement of drug user to seek for treatment, the Portuguese authorities have recorded a reduction in the numbers of heroin users who are entering treatment for the first time. It seems that initiation into heroin use is falling, while cannabis use is rising towards the levels which are also experienced in some other European countries. This indication is supported by the pattern of referrals to the CDT (IDT, 2007) in which it was found that there is about 28% increase between the year 2001 and 2005 for the referral of cannabis drug user while for heroin a decrease of 55% was seen in terms of the referrals to the CDT. As there has been an increase in the young people appearing before CDTs for cannabis, and a decrease in those appearing for heroin the explanation for this is it is a part of the corresponding trend increase as part of the other European nations. This increase is also because of the increasing self-reported drug use due to the reduced stigma attached to the drug use compared to pre-decriminalisation (Hughes and Stevens, 2007). As more people are seeking and undergoing drug treatment, the amount of addiction was also seen to decrease and more importantly, this also enable the country to manage and reduce the harms related to drug use as Portugal has had a serious problem with the transmission of HIV and other blood borne viruses. For instance during the year 1999 Portugal had the highest rate of HIV amongst injecting drug users in the European Union (The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug, 2000). This is why the major target of the Portuguese public health approach to drug use is the harm reduction, with opiate substitution treatment and needle exchange being an important element of the Portuguese response. As a result, between the year 1999 and 2003, there was a 17% reduction in the notifications of new, drug related cases of HIV (Tavares et al, 2005). Likely for the same reasons, since 2000, there were also reductions in the numbers of tracked cases of Hepatitis C and B in treatment centres nat ionwide, despite the increasing numbers of people in treatment (Greenwald, 2009). According to Greenwald (2009) beyond the disease, the mortality rates of the drug related was also found to be decreasing as well. In absolute numbers, drug-related deaths from 2002 to 2006 for every prohibited substance have either declined significantly or remained constant compared with 2001. In 2000, for instance, the number of deaths from opiates (including heroin) was 281. That number has decreased steadily since decriminalisation, to 133 in 2006. This fact is also supported by other findings that the total drug related death in the country almost halved between the year of 1999 and 2003, which are 369 and 152, respectively. The large drop in deaths is also associated to decline in the use of heroin. This fall in deaths related to opiates (heroin) has been linked to the big increase in the numbers of heroin users who have entered substitution treatment (Tavares et al, 2005), as substitution treatment has repeatedly been found to be effective in reducing the mortality rate of th e opiate users. It is also an indication of the falling levels of heroin use (Hughes and Stevens, 2007). Unlike the Netherlands and Switzerland, the fears of drug tourism with the decriminalisation of drugs have turned out to be completely untrue as this has simply not been the case. In accordance to this, approximately 95% of people sent to CDTs were of Portuguese origin, which implies that tourists are not travelling to the country to abuse its liberal approach to narcotics (Beckley Foundation, 2012). After five years since the introduction of this new policy, both the general and the youth populations prevalence of drug use in the country are below European Union (EU) average. Also, the overall population prevalence of drug use is actually the lowest compare to the other EU nations, of below 10% as the highest is above 30% for Denmark. To make it better by and large, the usage rates for each category of drugs is found to be lower in the EU than it is in the non- EU states with a far more criminalised approach to drug usage such as the USA which has the highest level of usage for ille gal cocaine and cannabis in the world. With the USA approach to drug criminalisation that appears to cause a higher drug usage rates among Americans, and also this trend in general, appear to be worsening, contrasted with the far better rates in decriminalised Portugal. This suggests that severe criminalisation laws against drug use do not necessarily produce lower drug usage, as instead data suggest that the contradictory may be true (Greenwald, 2009). However, too liberal effort in order to combat the drug use such as the Netherlands lenient way of dealing with soft drugs policy is proven to be ineffective as well as even though they too, decriminalise drugs like Portugal, they do not actually practice and make the harm reduction and CDT programs in dealing with the drug users in its drug policy. Along with this, contrasting to Portugal, they in a way legalise the selling of certain drugs through the coffee shops hence, attracting drug tourists from all over the world. As a confir mation, the drug lifetime experience prevalence of the Dutch population is on the average, not the lowest along with the fact that Netherlands is the most crime-prone nation in Europe with most of its drug addicts live on state welfare payments and by committing crimes (World and I, 2012). Additionally, the number of drug induced deaths recorded for Netherlands is higher than that in the Portugal which is 129 in the year 2008, compare to only 94 in the Portugal (The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2011). CONCLUSION The drug policy system in Portugal is definitely a model drug policy for the Europe as can be analysed throughout the essay. Although it is liberal in its own way, it still try to reduce as much as it can the prevalence of drug use along with putting harm reduction and treatment programmes central in its war against drugs. The Portuguese policy tries to avoid the use of harsh policy such as criminalising as done in countries like Sweden and the USA as it is proven to only backfire. Other than that, it is also not as liberal as it is done in the Netherlands where, certain drug use are treated in such a lenient manner which is also proven to be ineffective comparatively to the one done by Portugal. Moreover, with the successful and positive evaluations ever since the policy was implemented in 2001 that managed to bring out a country that was once the most problematic in the EU in terms of its drug use, to the current lowest drug use overall prevalence, it is doubted why it will not wor k for the other European countries where the social-economic background is mostly similar.

Malcolm X :: essays research papers

Malcolm's life is a Horatio Alger story with a twist. His is not a "rags to riches" tale, but a powerful narrative of self-transformation from petty hustler to internationally known political leader. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Louise and Earl Little, who was a Baptist preacher active in Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, Malcolm, along with his siblings, experienced dramatic confrontations with racism from childhood. Hooded Klansmen burned their home in Lansing, Michigan; Earl Little was killed under mysterious circumstances; welfare agencies split up the children and eventually committed Louise Little to a state mental institution; and Malcolm was forced to live in a detention home run by a racist white couple. By the eighth grade he left school, moved to Boston, Massachussetts, to live with his half-sister Ella, and discovered the underground world of African American hipsters. Malcolm's entry into the masculine culture of the zoot suit, the "conked" (straightened) hair, and the lindy hop coincided with the outbreak of World War II, rising black militancy (symbolized in part by A. Philip Randolph's threatened March on Washington for racial and economic justice), and outbreaks of race riots in Detroit, Michigan, and other cities (see Detroit Riot of 1943). Malcolm and his partners did not seem very "political" at the time, but they dodged the draft so as not to lose their lives over a "white man's war," and they avoided wage work whenever possible. His search for leisure and pleasure took him to Harlem, New York, where his primary source of income derived from petty hustling, drug dealing, pimping, gambling, and viciously exploiting women. In 1946 his luck ran out; he was arrested for burglary and sentenced to ten years in prison Malcolm's downward descent took a U-turn in prison when he began studying the teachings of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam (NOI), the black Muslim group founded by Wallace D. Fard and led by Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Poole). Submitting to the discipline and guidance of the NOI, he became a voracious reader of the Qu'ran (Koran) and the Bible. He also immersed himself in works of literature and history at the prison library. Behind prison walls he quickly emerged as a powerful orator and brilliant rhetorician. He led the famous prison debating team that beat the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arguing against capital punishment by pointing out that English pickpockets often did their best work at public hangings!

Leadership Process Essay

First Section Leadership is a process by which one person influences the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors of others. Leaders set a direction for the rest of us; they help us see what lies ahead; they help us visualize what we might achieve; they encourage us and inspire us. Level 5 leadership refers to the highest level in a hierarchy of executive capabilities that we identified during our research. Leaders at the other four levels in the hierarchy can produce high degrees of success but not enough to elevate companies from mediocrity to sustained excellence. And while Level 5 leadership is not the only requirement for transforming a good company into a great one—other factors include getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and creating a culture of discipline—our research shows it to be essential. Good-to-great transformations don’t happen without Level 5 leaders at the helm. They just don’t. (Traylor, 2001) The Level 5 leader sits on top of a hierarchy of capabilities and is, according to our research, a necessary requirement for transforming an organization from good to great. But what lies beneath? Four other layers, each one appropriate in its own right but none with the power of Level 5. Individuals do not need to proceed sequentially through each level of the hierarchy to reach the top, but to be a full-fledged Level 5 requires the capabilities of all the lower levels, plus the special characteristics of Level 5. (HBR, 2001) It differs from other leadership styles as the leaders come from the grass root of the organization. Meaning, it is the leader who has grown and developed from the ground level of the organization and has gradually escalated towards the top most level. This allows an employee to go through all phases and nurture to the top level of the organization i.e. CEO level. A few years ago in Strategy & Leadership, Michael Raynor debunked the premises on which the shareholder-first model rests, and a few months ago Michael Porter criticized the current belief that looking beyond the business is bad for business. In the January/February Harvard Business Review he argues that companies should be considering other stakeholders, and so generates economic value by creating societal value. These respected thinkers offer another answer to the question about the purpose of a business: the firm should see itself as an interdependent part of a community that consists of multiple stakeholders whose interests are integral to business success. In this view, an enterprise can be seen as a system of long-term cooperative relationships between affected parties. (Collins, 2001) These include the firm’s managers and employees, customers and clients, investors, suppliers, the towns, states and nations where the firm is located or sells goods and services and even future generations of stakeholders. In such a system, stakeholder influence generates pressure for the organization to behave in ethical and environmentally and socially responsible ways, and in turn, this interdependency helps the firm be sustainable and resilient. This alternative approach to leadership is variously referred to as ‘‘sustainable,’’ ‘‘Rhineland’’ or ‘‘honeybee’’ leadership. By sustainable we don’t just mean a firm is being green and socially responsible. Research and observations in over 50 firms around the world, including in many listed corporations, suggest that sustainable leadership requires taking a long-term perspective in making decisions; fostering systemic innovation aimed at increasing customer value; developing a skilled, loyal and highly engaged workforce; and offering quality products, services and solutions. (Caroselli, 2003) Second Section In 2005, Lee Scott, ex-CEO and President of Wal-Mart Stores and now Chairman of its Executive Committee, announced that the company would essentially adopt sustainable leadership principles going forward, although he did not use that term. Financial performance was solid, but the company was the target of many complainants – employees, local communities, suppliers, and environmentalists. Scott decreed that Wal-Mart, one of largest Fortune 500 corporations, would become more ethical, and more socially and environmentally responsible. The company would use its political might to benefit ordinary Americans in healthcare and energy savings, and make people’s lives better. Scott even advocated paying more for products from ethical suppliers – an extraordinary reversal by an enterprise built around a low-cost strategy. In the years since, Wal-Mart has experimented with environmentally-friendly stores and other socially-responsible measures. Interestingly, its bottom line has not suffered during this process, posting net sales increases for the past five years, according to Wal-Mart’s 2009 annual report. In recent months, in a move to improve the healthiness of its products, the firm announced plans to reduce the fat and salt in its house brand groceries and cut prices on fresh produce. (Shaw, 2005) A considerable body of evidence shows that sustainable practices are more likely to enhance business performance than the shareholder-first approach. First, various writers have examined and compared the Anglo/US system with its Rhineland counterpart, concluding that Rhineland principles are more sustainable and lead to better outcomes than the shareholder-first approach. Second, Avery and Bergsteiner have gathered extensive evidence for each of the individual practices in their pyramid model, showing how they are more likely to contribute to positive business outcomes than their counterparts under the shareholder-first model. For example, a major difference between shareholder-first and sustainable practices lies in whether they retain people or lay them off when times get difficult. Staff retention is regarded as a foundation element in the pyramid because conditions aimed at keeping staff can be initiated at any time. However, retaining staff supports various higher order outcomes in the pyramid; it allows knowledge to be retained, and supports quality, trust, and innovation, for example, and enhances financial performance, as well as staff and customer satisfaction. Similar cases can be made for the other 22 elements. (Cooke, 2008) What senior executive would reject these as legitimate goals for an enterprise seeking to both thrive and endure? To some cynics, sustainable leadership – a management approach aimed at delivering better and more sustainable returns, reducing unwanted employee turnover and accelerating innovation – sounds too good to be true. They dismiss it as just another form of humanistic management, merely good management practices, or as following old-fashioned values. There is some truth in each of these characterizations. Certainly, sustainable leadership embraces aspects of humanistic management in that it includes valuing people and considering the firm as a contributor to social well being. The individual practices of sustainable leadership are not new: B Warren Bennis advocated recruiting, training, and employing an effective top leadership team rather than just relying on the heroic CEO. He also proposed that firms become financially transparent as a step to becoming more ethical. B Peter Drucker wanted managers to promote change and allow innovations to come from all over the organization, thereby enabling ordinary people to make extraordinary things happen. B Stephen Covey urged using the knowledge and engagement of a firm’s employees. What is new is the understanding that these practices form a self-reinforcing leadership system that enhances the performance of a business and its prospects for survival. What is also significant is that sustainable leadership practices are diametrically opposed to the typical shareholder-first approach, which business schools, management journals, the media, and many practitioners continue to promote. (Branson, 2010) Sustainable leadership in practice Sustainably-led organizations have been identified across different sectors, countries, institutional contexts, and markets. Examples of successful enterprises that consistently embrace sustainable leadership principles abound, particularly among privately-held firms and SMEs. Unlisted companies displaying virtually all of the 23 characteristics of a sustainable enterprise include: in the USA, WL Gore & Associates (Goretexw and other products) and SAS (software); in Germany, Giesecke & Devrient (bank notes and securities) and Ka ¨rcher (cleaning solutions); and in Switzerland, Endress & Hauser (flow technologies) and Migros (retail conglomerate). However, it is likely to be more difficult for listed corporations or private equity groups to operate on sustainable principles because of the pressures on them to achieve short-term performance goals. Yet numerous listed enterprises manage to operate sustainably, if necessary by standing up to or managing their relationships with the financial markets. Well-known examples include Germany’s Munich Re from the finance industry; Colgate (consumer goods) based in the USA; Britain’s BT Group (telecommunications); the Thai construction corporation, Siam Cement Group, and its competitor from Switzerland, Holcim. (Streshly & Gray, 2010) Third Section There are many obstacles in changing to sustainable leadership. First, sticking with conventional wisdom is comfortable and easy – it’s business as usual. Second, change is disruptive and initially creates both financial and intangible costs, although as the Wal-Mart case shows these may not slow growth and profits. Third, most people disregard hard evidence and make their decisions on the basis of ideological beliefs. Managers are no exception to this human foible despite their training and experience in decision making. Fourth, major change involves risks, bringing with it the chance of a drop in short-term performance, so stakeholders need to be prepared to focus on the long term. Finally, radical change can take a long time to embed and then maintain. A major Australian bank converted from a shareholder-first strategy to a sustainable leadership model. The change took a decade to take hold, with outstanding results, but unraveled in only a few years to under a new CEO with a different agenda. The choice to adopt a more sustainable strategy, one that research and practice show leads to higher resilience and performance over the long term, remains in the hands of each executive team. Unfortunately, executives remunerated on a short-term basis may have no incentive for seriously pursuing long-term change, to the detriment of shareholders and other stakeholders. This is where the fundamental short-term focus of the shareholder-first or business-as-usual model begins to destroy shareholder value and endanger a firm’s very survival. (Brown, 2005) References Branson, D. M. (2010). The last male bastion: gender and the CEO suite in America’s public companies. Taylor & Francis. Brown, M. T. (2005). Corporate integrity: rethinking organizational ethics, and leadership. Cambridge University Press. Caroselli, M. (2003). The business ethics activity book: 50 exercises for promoting integrity at work. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Collins, J. C. ( 2001). Good to great: why some companies make the leap–and others don’t. Harper Business. Cooke, P. (2008). Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Non-Profits Make a Difference and Other’s Don’t. Gospel Light. Shaw, K. A. (2005). The intentional leader. Syracuse University Press. Streshly, W. A., & Gray, S. P. (2010). Leading Good Schools to Greatness: Mastering What Great Principals Do Well. Corwin Press. Traylor, P. S. (2001). IT Takes Two. CIO Magazine , Vol.15, No.4, November 15

Global Warming Problem/Solution Essay

For the past two centuries, at an accelerating rate, the basic composition of the Earth’s atmosphere has been materially altered by the fossil-fuel effluvia of machine culture. Human-induced warming of the Earth’s climate is emerging as one of the major scientific, social, and economic issues of the twenty-first century, as the effects of climate change become evident in everyday life in locations as varied as small island nations of the Pacific Ocean and the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The â€Å"greenhouse effect† is not an idea which is new to science. It has merely become more easily detectable in our time as temperatures have risen and scientists have devised more sophisticated ways to measure and forecast atmospheric processes. The atmospheric balance of â€Å"trace† gases actually started to change beyond natural bounds at the dawn of the industrial age, with the first large-scale burning of fossil fuels. It became noticeable in the 1880s, and an important force in global climate change by about 1980. After an intensifying debate, the idea that human activity is warming the earth in potentially damaging ways became generally accepted in scientific circles by 1995. Addressing the consequences of global warming will demand, on a worldwide scale, the kind of social and economic mobilization experienced in the United States only during its birthing revolution and World War II, and therein lies a problem. The buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a nearly invisible, incremental crisis. Carbon dioxide is not going to bomb Pearl Harbor to kick start the mobilization. Author Jonathan Weiner observes, â€Å"We do not respond to emergencies that unfold in slow motion. We do not respond adequately to the invisible† (Weiner, 1990, 241). It has been said (not for attribution) that the best thing which could happen to raise worldwide concern about global warming would be a quick collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which would raise worldwide sea level a notable number of feet over a very short time. When stock brokers’ feet get wet on the ground floor of New York City’s World Trade Center, all the world’s competing economic interests might mobilize together and provide the sociopolitical responses necessary to address the atmosphere’s overload of greenhouse gases before it is too late. The same water that could lap at the ground floor of the Trade Center also would ruin most farmers in Egypt and Bangladesh and slosh in the lobbies of glass towers of Hong Kong and Tokyo. Perhaps, only then, might all of humankind heed the implications of Chief Seah’tl’s farewell speech a century and a half ago. We may be brothers (and sisters) after all. So far, humankind’s collective nervous system—national and international leadership, public opinion, and so forth—hasn’t done much about global warming. As of this writing, the flora and fauna of the planet Earth are still in the position of a laboratory frog submerged in steadily warming water. This is not a secret crisis, just a politically unpalatable one. Al Gore, in Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, raised a sociopolitical call for mobilization against human-induced warming of the Earth: â€Å"This point is crucial. A choice to ‘do nothing’ in response to the mounting evidence is actually a choice to continue and even accelerate the reckless environmental destruction that is creating the catastrophe at hand† (Gore, 1992, 37). In his book, Gore, then a U. S. senator, called for a â€Å"global Marshall Plan,† to include stabilization of world population, the rapid creation and development of environmentally appropriate technologies, and â€Å"a comprehensive and ubiquitous change in the economic ‘rules of the road’ by which we measure the impact of our decisions on the environment† (Gore, 1992, 306). Eight years after Gore issued his manifesto, fossil-fuel emissions had risen in the United States. Gore had captured the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States, and global warming had slipped from campaign radar. From this vantage point, one imagines the world lurching through the twenty-first century as global public opinion slowly galvanizes around year after year of high temperature records, and as public policy only slowly begins to catch up with the temperature curve. The temperature (and especially the dewpoint) may wake the global frog before he becomes poached meat. Whatever the outcome of the public policy debate, the odds are extremely high that the weather of the year 2100 will be notably warmer than today, as greenhouse â€Å"forcing† exerts an ever-stronger role in the grand dance of the atmosphere which produces climate. Ross Gelbspan observes, â€Å"Global warming need not require a reduction of living standards, but it does demand a rapid shift in patterns of fuel consumption—reduced use of oil, coal, and the lighter-carboned natural gas to an economy more reliant on solar energy, fuel cells, hydrogen gas, wind, biomass, and other renewable energy sources. It is doubtful that capitalistic market forces will bring about this shift on their own, because market prices of fossil fuels do not incorporate their environmental costs. † (Gelbspan, 2004) George Woodwell has been quoted as saying, â€Å"[For] all practical purposes, the era of fossil fuels has passed, and it’s time to move on to the new era of renewable sources of energy. † The other alternative, says Woodwell, is to accept the fact that â€Å"[t]he Earth is not simply moving toward a new equilibrium in temperature†¦. It is entering a period of continuous, progressive, open-ended warming† (Gordon and Suzuki, 2001, 219). In Jeremy Leggett’s opinion, â€Å"The uniquely frustrating thing about global warming—to the many people who see its dangers—is that the solutions are obvious. There is no denying, however, that creating the necessary changes will require paradigm shifts in human behavior—particularly in the field of cooperation between nation-states—which have literally no precedent in human history†¦. There is no single issue in human affairs that is of greater importance. † (Leggett, 2000, 457) According to a Greenpeace Report edited by Leggett, â€Å"The main routes to surviving the greenhouse threat are energy efficiency, renewable forms of energy production†¦less greenhouse-gas-intensive agriculture, stopping deforestation, and reforestation† (Leggett, 2000, 462). Greenpeace also recommends redirecting spending away from armaments and toward development of a sustainable energy for the future of humankind (Leggett, 2000, 470). Of the broader picture, Michael MacCracken writes, â€Å"The underlying challenge is for industrialized society to achieve a balanced and sustainable coexistence with the environment, one that permits use of the environment as a resource, but in a way that preserves its vitality and richness for future generations†¦. The challenge [is] to transform our ways before the world is irrevocably changed†¦ toward displacing militarization and the ever-increasing push for greater national consumption as the primary driving forces behind industrial activity. † (MacCracken, 2001, 35) According to Donald Goldberg and Stephen Porter of the Center for International Global Law: â€Å"The Clinton administration has bungled repeated chances to initiate domestic measures. For example, recent legislation proposed by the White House to restructure the electric utility industry could have been crafted to require utilities to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency lobbied hard for the authority to impose a cap-and-trade program on utilities’ CO2 emissions, similar to the trading system that has lowered sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions in a cost-effective way. This was a golden opportunity, as the restructuring bill is projected to save the average consumer roughly $200 a year, which would have more than offset the cost of reducing GHG [greenhouse-gas] emissions. Unfortunately, the White House chose to forgo this opportunity. † (Goldberg and Porter, 1998) According to Goldberg and Porter, loopholes in the Kyoto Protocol, adopted at the insistence of the United States, permit richer countries to avoid many of its mandated emission reductions by purchasing allowances from other countries through the protocol’s â€Å"flexibility mechanisms. † The Buenos Aires Climate Conference (1998) negotiated a mechanism allowing trade in greenhouse gas emission rights in two markets. The first market would allow â€Å"sellers,† nations which exceed greenhouse gas-reduction targets set in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, to offer their rights for sale to â€Å"buyers,† countries which have not met their targets. The second market, the Clean Development Mechanism, will allow industrialized countries to meet part of their greenhouse-gas-reduction quotas by transferring clean technology to poorer countries so that antipollution projects can be carried out there. â€Å"If it buys all (or most) of its reductions,† Goldberg and Porter write, â€Å"the United States will not get its own house in order. In the long run, efficiency and productivity in the U. S. economy will suffer because domestic industry will be shielded from any incentive to adapt† (Goldberg and Porter, 1998). Under these provisions, the United States could â€Å"purchase† emission reduction credits from nations, such as Russia and Ukraine, which reduced their greenhouse-gas emissions during the 1990s because their economic infrastructure collapsed. The continuing political wrangling over the Kyoto Protocol illustrates why the world is responding so slowly to the impending crisis of global warming. Climate diplomacy remains an arena dominated by competition of special (mainly national) interests. Meanwhile, a few countries, most of them in Europe, are taking steps to mitigate greenhouse forcing on their own. While British emissions of greenhouse gases by the year 2000 had fallen between five and six percent compared to the Kyoto Protocol 1990 targets, emissions in the United States rose 11 percent between 1990 and 1998. Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions rose 13 percent during the 1990s, while several European countries (including Britain) made substantial progress toward meeting the goals of the Kyoto Protocol by reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions as much as 10 percent compared to 1990 levels. Denmark (which produces less than one percent of humankind’s greenhouse gases) underwent something of a mobilization against global warming during the 1990s. Denmark was planning â€Å"farms† of skyscraper-sized windmills in the North and Baltic seas that, if plans materialize, will supply half the nation’s electric power within 30 years. The Danish wind-energy manufacturers’ association believes that electricity produced through wind power on a large scale will be financially competitive with power from plants burning fossil fuels, which will be phased out if wind power proves itself. Svend Auken, Denmark’s environmental and energy minister, said that with half of his country’s power coming from Norwegian hydroelectric plants and the other half from wind power, the country is planning to meet its electricity needs within three decades while reducing carbon dioxide production to nearly zero. The wind farms must prove their endurance in winter storms and stand up to the corrosion of seawater, but if they can, Denmark’s windmills will prevent the production of 14 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. While the fossil-fuel economy remained firmly entrenched in most of the world at the turn of the millennium, gains were being achieved in some basic areas of energy conservation. In 1994, for example, the average person in the United States was recycling 380 pounds a year, up from 62 pounds in 1960, a 613 percent increase (Casten, 1998, 101–102). Following the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1972, the United States also made a concerted effort to limit the production of nitrous oxides by gas turbine engines. Before regulation, the typical gas turbine engine emitted 200 parts per million (p. p. m. ). Since then, several technological innovations have reduced emissions to below 10 p. p. m.. Technology was being developed in the late 1990s which could reduce the rate to two to three p. p. m. (Casten, 1998, 117–118). The problem is at once very simple, and also astoundingly complex. Increasing human populations, rising affluence, and continued dependence on energy derived from fossil fuels are at the crux of the issue. The complexity of the problem is illustrated by the degree to which the daily lives of machine-age peoples depend on fossil fuels. This dependence gives rise to an array of local, regional, and national economic interests. These interests cause tensions between nations attending negotiations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The cacophony of debate also illustrates the strength and diversity of established interests which are being assiduously protected. Add to the human elements of the problem the sheer randomness of climate (as well as the amount of time which passes before a given level of greenhouse gases is actually factored into climate), and the problem becomes complex and intractable enough to (thus far) seriously impede any serious, unified effort by humankind to fashion solutions. References Casten, Thomas R. (1998). Turning Off the Heat: Why America Must Double Energy Efficiency to Save Money and Reduce Global Warming. Amherst, N. Y. : Prometheus Books. Gelbspan, Ross. (2004). A Global Warming. American Prospect, 31 (March/April). Goldberg, Donald, and Stephen Porter. (1998). In Focus: Global Climate Change. Center for International Environmental Law, May. Gordon, Anita, and David Suzuki. (2001). It’s a Matter of Survival. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gore, Albert. (1992). Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Leggett, Jeremy, ed. (2000). Global Warming: The Greenpeace Report. New York: Oxford University Press. MacCracken, Michael. (1991). Greenhouse Gases: Changing the Global Climate. In Joseph P. Knox and Ann Foley Scheuring, eds. , Global Climate Change and California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 26–39. Weiner, Jonathan. (1990). The Next One Hundred Years: Shaping the Fate of Our Living Earth. New York: Bantam Books