Twelve years a Slave

Discuss about the Organization Behaviour for Age Factor.

It is a movie about a Blackman by the name Solomon Northup. This guy is a teacher by profession and also an artist who plays the violin. The gentleman is captured and sold as a slave to the United States of America. The movie is essentially about the mistreatment of slaves majorly back people under the hands of the white people.

When we did watch the movie with a colleague, he was of the opinion that age is a non-issue as far as slavery and forced marriage are concerned. Actually, one of the characters sold as a slave is Patsey. She is a young African woman who Mr. Epps takes as a wife. It is an abuse of human rights. The slaves were not spared, and they were working under severe conditions in cotton picking on the European firms.

The movie captures to a large extent the way society treats individuals based on their gender orientation. The colleague of mine is of the opinion that both individuals’ men and women suffered equally at the hands of the masters and he disliked the behaviour of the masters towards the servants. It is one of the reasons that made him hate watching this movie. To this, I’m of contrary opinion since it was evident that Patsey and other women had to endure the suffering so as to clearly paint the exact picture and bring out the pains that people under slave trade underwent through.

The setting of the movie is in the United States. When watching this movie my colleague was if the view that the movie could have been shot in Africa since it focuses on slavery hence didn’t see the beauty in it since most slaves are from Africa. But, I was quick to counter that by educating him that the most slavery instances were reported in the United States and even presently many people face other forms of slavery.

The Main character in the movie Mr. Solomon Northup is a teacher by profession. Despite this, the gentleman is not spared from the hard work and the cruelty of the masters. This aspect real angers my colleague. I usually find this interesting since it brings out the true nature of the settlers. They did not care the level of education one had and even expertise. To them, a black man is just as good as a slave. The slaves’ education background did not have any impact on the wider view of the white people. The chores they were performing after all involved among others cotton picking which did not require any education requirement (Deepti et al.2016).

Age Factor

The movie Twelve years a slave clearly outlines the plight that refugees had to go through in the United States of America. The characters of the film Patsy and the others apparently bring out what he slaves in the United States had to go through. My colleague didn’t like watching the movie simply because he lost interest because it was majorly focusing on the past. To me, it was real interesting to look at the movie since it is crucial for us to know where we are coming from for us to define our future.

The movie instils a broad range of values that we need to embrace in the modern society. It is very clear that slavery didn’t end altogether. To this day there are dominant forms of slavery in the form of forced labour, domestic servitude child labour, sexual enslavement and even bonded labour (Kowske, 2007, p.31-41). Hence, as far as my colleague will insist on the movie having no lessons to learn from it, there are numerous lessons that one can actually since presently countries like Pakistan India and Mauritania currently experience the same. In the present world for instance cases of child soldiers exist. This is a case where individuals kidnap children and use them as soldiers to fight legitimate governments so as to get into power (Frost, et al. 2007). It was so absurd that my colleague was not able to see through this and realize the current application of the movie in the present times.

The white people chose to believe only those scriptures from the bible that applied to their current predicament. This movie clearly brings outs the subjective thinking of the white people. My colleague was of the view that the movie failed to appeal to him since he never subscribed to the gospel of quoting Bible verses before administering punishment. To me is not the case from my end since the white people have been using the approach from the time immemorial to rule the black people.

Ways Best Companies Motivate Employees

They trust and empower their workers

Employees are highly motivated when they are trusted and empowered by their managers. The staff will go an extra mile to ensure the performance is improved as they feel to be appreciated and important in the company setting. Give the employees a chance to have more of a say in the way they feel they need to carry out their duties.

Sex

Appropriate communication from the management in will enhance improved performance among the staff. The management should encourage to have regular face to face communication with their workforce and consider the way the approach them in solving any outstanding issue. Employees need to know that they are valued, and this is clearly brought out in the way managers communicate with them (Byrd, 2007).

Managers can’t expect their employees to work hard if they don’t do it. Hence, for the workers to be motivated in carrying out their duties, they need to be the first ones to show the way regarding how to achieve the set goals by focusing on the organization mission. Management should also organize frequent sessions to inspire their workers for them to be motivated.

Most staff will be highly motivated when they are assured of some room for personal growth. Best companies in the world ensure their employees are working towards climbing the career ladder. It is achieved through regular training of the staff by the companies to enhance their skills in managerial levels.

Trait theory proposes that an individual is deemed to be a leader by possessing certain traits or characteristics to lead. Hence, to it, individuals are born possessing the leadership capabilities. It is not, however, applicable in all circumstances.

On the other hand, the behavioural theory proposes that a leader is not necessary born with the leadership qualities but one acquires them through the set of actions one takes in different situations of various organization settings.

 It is evident that the most applicable theory of leadership is that one who advocates for the behavioural training of individuals to make them better leaders.

An organization can apply both methods to get people who can lead it. It is by observation to identify those with leadership skills and after that providing them with the necessary training.

Organisations can select and effective leaders by following these steps:

First it needs to examine the kind of workers it has and also do a clear evaluation of the available resources it can commit to train new individuals .This is in the form of time, energy and money. Next step is to identify individuals with characteristics in the organisation that are already successful. The organisation, needs to put more emphasis on the kind of training these individuals have gone through, their education background, the number of years they have been working and also what motivates them for it to develop another crop of leaders.

Background of the Film

Thirdly, the organisation should embark on practising leadership development. This should start with a small group of individuals before it is rolled to the other departments the selected group should be trained on team building   , conflict resolution, effective business communication, time management, relations with others and goal setting .If the trained individuals come out as effective leaders then the approach should be applied to other individuals in the organisation.

An example of this is where an organisation for instance a firm identifies an employee in the accounts department with desirable qualities and then takes him through the training process described above. If the individual emerges out as a successful leader, then the approach should be embraced by the organisation and utilised for training purposes.

Sustainable innovation entails the bringing together into common use ideas concepts practices and products that contribute to social cohesion and economic viability. Recently, several changes have been made to enhance the sustainability of the environment. Some of them include:

Blue-gen. It is onsite electricity developed to provide clean power to the people. This energy is cheaper than the one of geothermal and environment-friendly.

The innovation of good phone; It is a smartphone innovated that accounts for conflict-free resources improves worker welfare and enhances e-waste management.

It entails development of new sets of playgrounds that energize the children using them. The playgrounds are usually taken good care of specific government resources. To a larger extent they have been the source of re-known sports people.

Disruptive innovation entails the use of innovation-driven growth by both the large and the upcoming companies. Examples of disruptive innovation include;

This Company has completely revolutionized the transport system. It has made the booking of rides faster easier and convenient by use of the internet more specifically mobile application. Therefore, it has disrupted the old-fashioned way of one walking to an airport or bus station to book for a ride.

Another case of disruptive innovation is the introduction of online learning by several universities. It is an easy way to an individual being able to carry out other engagements and at the same time continue with his or her studies at the right moment.

The way the media operate currently is far much different than it used to. Nowadays individuals can get breaking news on El time basis. It has therefore necessitated the media to make use of social media and online newspapers to meet the needs of their clients.

I totally concur with all these disruptive innovations since they have real contributed to improving the way individuals, interact, get information and to a larger extent improved the economy around the world.

Cultural relativism refers to the beliefs, customs, and ethics being about an individual his context. Relativism advocates for the fact that no culture is superior to the other (Mazur, 2010, p.5-11). What is morally right in one culture or setting can be completely wrong in the face of another cultural background. Interpersonal skills, motivation approaches, leadership styles, conflict management structure and training techniques are all culturally relative (Mele, 2013, p.681-690). It is because all of them differ to a large extent from one social setting to another. All the cultures are worthy.

References

Byrd, M. (2007). Educating and developing leaders of racially diverse organizations. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 18(2), 275-279.

Deepti .M,Dave.H.(2016).The Best Leadership Style for a Culturally Diverse Organization: International Research Journal of Management & Social Sciences Volume (1) Issue

Frost, J., & Walker, M. (2007).Leadership culture – cross cultural leadership: Engineering Management, 17(3), 27-29.

Kum-Lung, C., &Teck-C.L. (2010). Attitudes towards business ethics: Examining the influence of religiosity, gender and education levels. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 2(1), 225-232

Kowske, B. J., & Anthony, K. (2007). Towards defining leadership competence around the

World: What mid-level managers need to know in twelve countries: Human Resource Development International, 10(1), 21-41

Mele, D. (2013).Cultural diversity and Universal Ethics in a Global World: Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 116, p. 681-687

Mazur, B. (2010). Cultural Diversity in Organization Theory and Practice: Journal of Intercultural Management Vol. 2, No. 2, November 2010, pp. 5–15

Okoro, E. (2012). Cross-cultural etiquette and communication in global business: Toward a strategic framework for managing corporate expansion. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(16), 130-138