In it to win it

Candidates in the presidential election definitely have there own sets of objectives when it comes to winning the election. In the article Mitt Romney talks about how he does not want everyone to go to college as a response to Obama's opinion that everyone should have some sort of post high school learning. Romney is a republican and he wants to win republican votes, so why would he not want everyone to go to college. The answer to this question is made up of many parts. First if not everyone goes to college, that means that only the selected few who can afford college will go. If this is true and the selected few can find resources to go to school, then there will not be as much taxes allocated to post highschool education. The amount of state schools will drop severely and taxes that were previously spent toward state colleges will be spent on other things that benefit the big business outlook. Another motive to say that not everyone needs to go to school is to collect the votes of the citizens who decided against going to college. By saying that everyone should go, you would be putting down the decisions made by many working class Americans. These voters also do not want to pay taxes toward sending other people to school when they decided to or even were not able to attend college. Many republican business owners also rely on unskilled laborers to run their business (Mcdonald's for example) and if the entire work force was educated and skilled, these business would have no workers. In our type of government there is only room for two major political parties and by having only two, each candidate is forced to choose one side or another to every issues that differs from their opponent. The fact that this happens just shows that each politician is just trying to absorb the votes that their competitor missed. This style of getting elected proves that people are only in it to win it and are willing to say and do anything that gets them elected.

My chart shown above shows the outcomes of invading Afghanistan and if each path is followed it would have made more sense not to invade than to invade. We already suffered a loss and then we suffered more. The only reason that we did invade was strictly and emotional aspect.

College or no college?

The decision that I was faced with four years ago was to choose whether I wanted to go to college or not. Looking back I can remember my parents saying that college was the only thing that would get me ahead in life and that if I went directly into the workforce that I would be limiting my potential. The ultimate outcome would be that I would get a great paying job where I am happy to work and that would be rated at 100. The next outcome would be that I would get a bad paying job where I was not happy and I would rate that as a 0. Going to college and not going to college would lead to the same possibilities, but going to college should have strengthened my odds in getting a good job. If I went to college the odds of me getting a good job would be 50% and getting a bad job 50%. Now if I didnt go to college, my odds would be 20% and 80% respectively. That means that going to college would give me a path score of 50 and not going a score of 20. It seems that going to college would be the better choice path. After starting the job search though... I find that my probabilities may have been slightly off considering I am yet to find a job thus far.

Motivation

Motivation is what drives people to create and produce. People typically do not do things for the sake of doing them. There is always motive for getting something done or accomplishing a task but what motivates people to be productive? Being a college student, I would argue that my number one motivation is monetary. At this point I have grown accustomed to being poor about 90 percent of the time and I have stretched my money as far as it would possibly get me but I work had to make money and the more money I am offered the harder I work. This is true of me now because I do no have much money but in the future I am sure it will be other things that motivate. In my experiences I have found that another create motivator is the feeling of accomplishing a task that at first might have seem impossible. The harder my classes are in school, the more effort that I put into being successful in that class. The joy of getting an A in my entrepreneurship classes as compared to getting an A in introduction to literature are a lot different. Being able to do something that other people failed at is a motivation. Everyone gets an A in introduction to literature but not everyone gets an A in entrepreneurship so there is more motivation to get the A in entrepreneurship and set my self apart from the crowd. Motivation is tricky when you are a leader and the only way to motivate people is to ask them what they want and when you find out what the bigger picture is, you can use their responses to figure out the best way to get people to accomplish the most possible.

Followers

The best leaders have the best followers. Every good leader surrounds themselves with people that help balance out their weaknesses. If you start a company you are most likely to be successful if you can properly analyze your strengths and weaknesses. Once you know what you are good at, it necessary to align yourself with people who have other strengths. Group think is a big problem in corporations. This occurs when there are either too many similar personality types or when employees are to afraid to astray from the consensus of the group. By aligning yourself with a diverse group of people, a company will be able to better review all the alternatives. Keeping the status quo is what causes many companies like general motors to go under due to the unwillingness to change with the times. The problem that non of the lower level employees would voice their opinions and drive the company forward was detrimental for GM. Followers in the article are told to be self motivated individuals that move toward a common goal . This in no way makes the employees brainless slaves. The less the lower level employees contribute their ideas, the less likely the leader will know how to change for the better. Some people are more comfortable being followers but in no way does this mean that they are not an essential part of the company.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity can be manipulated in the modern business market. The idea of kickback money and gifts without strings attached is used to pressure people into making purchases that they do not necessarily want to make. When a sales person takes you out to dinner and pays, there is pretty much the expectation that the costumer will there by purchase a product or service from the sales person. Although it is not a direct trade of services or goods, the typical American was raised with the idea that noting comes free and sales people often exploit this concept.
In my line of work, my boss purchases from many sales people and these sales people often bring in doughnuts and pretzels before they come in to pitch a sale. After consuming their "free" gift, my boss will then feel more pressured to buy from the sales person even if their product or service is not as superior as another. Around the holidays there is also a lot of card receiving in our company from all the sales people. The vending machine guy in particular bought my boss a forty dollar gift card to the Texas Road House just as a friendly gesture, but was that all the gift card really meant. Although this is a common practice among smaller corporations, some larger corporations like P&G have taken any of these practices away in order to be as professional as possible.

Women Leaders

Sandberg talks about women in the workplace in the video and the issue of equality in the workplace. The strangest thing that Sandberg says in her speech is that it was the women's fault more than the man's fault that women are not equally represented in the corporation. Women are always underestimating themselves and cutting themselves short and this type of behavior is what leads to a lack of self esteem. This lack of self confidence makes it so woman are not pursuing raises and promotions as much as men are. The issue of why woman are not equally represented in the upper management levels of the workforce in my opinion is not a current prejudice, but rather because we are recovering from a former prejudice. Back in the 60's and 70's, it was unheard of for a woman to be a CEO of any firm and today it really is not a big deal. I would say that the average man or woman would not care what sex there boss is and currently the only reason there is an inequality is because woman are still comfortable with the power yet and the people electing individuals to run many companies are the same people they were around in the 60's and 70's and might be stuck in there old ways. The biggest thing that will push women to that next step will be an increase in confidence and just basically the passing of time. In time things will balance a little better when it comes to equal representation of men and women in the higher levels of the workforce.