How to Celebrate Even the Biggest Mistakes!

How to Celebrate Even the Biggest Mistakes! Big Mistakes in Big Companies In a famous 2010 tale, Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh chose not to fire an employee who had made a $1.6 million mistake. In another story, a CEO actually thanked the IT guy who caused the company’s site to go down (causing a loss of thousands of dollars per hour) for uncovering a systematic weakness that needed to be fixed. See Top 5 Reasons to Celebrate Mistakes at Work. My Blog Mistake I did not know these anecdotes until I sat down to write this blog about mistakes. Last week, as many of you are aware, I wrote a draft of my blog and sent it to my assistant with a request that she come up with an appropriate title for the article. She offered six suggestions, with her top pick being â€Å"3 Trends Effecting LinkedIn That You Need to Know.† I wrote back the following: I chose #3 [3 Ways LinkedIn Times are a Changin’] and updated the title on WordPress. Note it would be Affecting not Effecting!! The next thing I knew, the blog had gone out to my e-list with the original subject line, the word â€Å"Effecting† intact. Oops. The emails rolled in: I noticed a spelling mistake in your subject title. It should read 3 Trends Affecting LinkedIn†¦. I see this error a lot, but thought you might want to make a note of it. It should be 3 trends AFFECTING Did you use effecting rather than affecting on purpose? Living â€Å"Above the Line† My first response was â€Å"This is bad.† I mean, here I was, a writer and editor, making an error that I’ve actually blogged about in the past! See Top 7 Grammatical and Spelling Errors of 2012. But as I aim to do in my life, I looked at where the opportunity was in the face of this breakdown. I’ve taken plenty of personal growth courses where we are coached to say things like â€Å"Yay! I made a mistake!† So how could I, dare I say, celebrate this initially embarrassing mistake in my blog title? I issued a correction as soon as possible, thanking my readers for their eagle eyes and explaining what had happened. I did my best to convey an understanding that mistakes happen, and that I probably need another round of editorial proofing before sending out my blog. One message from a reader confirmed I had done the right thing: Love the graceful save you did on this you got it goin on, as they say, girl. Always a fan. When I can ever get a moment I want to work with you to update my LI profile! In the grand scheme of things, this was a small mistake. While I feared I might lose clients over it, since people count on me to know English grammar and spelling, I hope my correction set the record straight. No one was injured or taken advantage of as a result of this mistake. Celebrating Mistakes! Mistakes are the way we learn most in life. Looking back, I can see that my mistake last week was a testament to my ability to trust another person to do work for me! It would not have happened if I had not expanded my business to the point where I need an assistant. The mistake also showed me that many of my readers care and are paying attention. And I was given the opportunity to â€Å"play above the line,† issuing a correction that was gracious and non-blaming. I got to show my commitment to quality, and that I was unwilling to let something like this error go unaddressed! I recently spoke with someone who told me about a $250K mistake she once made at work. When she went to her boss expecting to be fired, she had another thing coming. He appreciated her honesty and let the monetary loss roll off his back. As he said, he could always make another $250K, but he would not be able to get her back. That’s how I feel about what happened with my assistant. I wouldn’t let this one mistake color my undying appreciation of what she does for me and how responsible she is when she does make a mistake! In fact, in the midst of writing this blog, I took a break to apologize to her for my initial â€Å"This is bad† response. I have a lot to learn about celebrating my own mistakes and the mistakes of the people around me. And I’d love to hear what you have learned in your life! How have you celebrated mistakes? How could you or someone around you have done better in their response to a mistake? I look forward to hearing what you have to share!

The Future Tense With Will and Going to

The Future Tense With 'Will' and 'Going to' The future in English can be rather confusing. There are two future forms used in most conversations: the future with will and the future with going to. The main difference between the two forms is that going to is used for plans and intentions made before the moment of speaking, and the will to speak about the future at the moment of speaking. Study these basic forms and then use the referenced resources to practice these forms. Teachers can print out these materials for use in-class, or find help with how to teach future forms, as well as the lesson plans suggested below. The Future With Will There are two basic future tenses used to describe things that happen in the future. Besides these two there are some other future tenses which can be started on the advanced future tenses page. The first future tense is the future with will. Use the future with will to talk about an event in the future that you have just decided to do, for predictions and for promises. Examples: I think Ill go to that party next week.The economy will get better soon.Yes, I will marry you. Future With Will Structure: Positive:  Subject will verb I, You, He, She, We, They will come to the party. Negative:  Subject will not (wont) verb I, You, He, She, We, They wont have time tomorrow. Questions:  Question word will subject verb What will he, she, you, we, they do? The Future With Going To The future with going to is used to express events you have already planned in the future and your intentions for the future. We sometimes also use the present continuous for planned events in the near future. Examples: Shes going to attend university and study to become a doctor.Were going to make the presentation next week. Future With Going to Structure: Positive:  Subject to be going to verb I am going to attend the meeting.He, She is going to attend the meeting.You, We, They are going to attend the meeting. Negative:  Subject to be not going to verb Im not going to visit Rome next year.He, She isnt going to visit Rome next year.You, We, They arent going to visit Rome next year. Questions:  Ã‚  (Question word) to be subject going to verb Where am I going to stay?Where is she, he going to stay?Where are you, we, they going to stay? Additional Future Tense Resources Here is an in depth guide to   both the future with will and with going to.Take the  Future Forms Quiz for Advanced LearnersResource for ESL Teachers. This intermediate lesson focuses solely on the future with will and going to and  includes a step by step guide through the lesson and handouts to use in class. Activities With the Future With Will and Going to Some activities that will help you practice: Planning a Party - Dialogue concentrating on the future with will and going to.The Meeting - Dialogue with schedules, future plansThe Oregon Weather Forecast - Dialogue with the use of the future with will for predictions, weather vocabularyEnglish Tenses Timeline Chart - study how the future forms with will and going to relate to other tenses on a timeline.

Case study ---Twinkie-eating vultures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Case study ---Twinkie-eating vultures - Essay Example A vulture capitalist is an investor who has used sections of the terms of an investment deal in a company to grab rights of the company or the valuable parts of the company (Cyr, 1998). This is a sharp contrast to a venture capitalist who always invests in the company likely to excel in the market and bring profit to the investor. The case of Hostess Brands Inc is run by vulture capitalists who are always looking for ways to invest in a company that will likely not bring profit in the present so that they bring out the takeover clauses which will end up in the forfeiture of the company’s assets. This will make the vulture capitalists sell off the parts constituting the company and this will make them earn profit while the company collapses. This is according to Goldstein (2011) explanation. Twinkie-eating Vultures With the hobbling of the Hostess Brands Inc.; the media through the vulture capitalists have been informing the masses that the products they use to get from the Hos tess Brands like Twinkies, Ding Dong and Ho Hos since they believe that the Public Sector Unions are solely responsible for the collapse of the company. This is the first tactic that the vulture capitalists use when they are blaming the other concerned parties for the collapse of the firm or company in this case they ensured that Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union were blamed for the collapsing and meltdown of Hostess Brands Inc. The work of BCTGM is to represent the interests of employees within the organizations. In the Hostess case the BCTGM was very influential on the employees’ interests in the company and as such it can be deemed that the conservatives who are the vulture capitalists had seen this as a controversy and as such they had to take the blame for the Hostess Brands Inc. shortcomings. According Kotz (1994) the public unions are always highly controversial among the conservatives who always advocate the downsizing of the public sector and will always blame the unions for their losses and deficit. The union itself was represented in the Hostess Company by around 5,600 employees and this can be argued that they did not bring the company down. Instead the managers left in charge are responsible for being incompetent and bringing the company to a close as they had announced. To the capitalists the employees were of no importance to the employers not with the sacrifices they made on behalf of the company. The union which has the mandate to put the interests of the workers before anything else took a great exception on the Hostess Brands Inc. The BCTGM workers never inquired on getting more money from the company, neither did they ask for any benefits to be accorded to them nor did they ask for better pensions. The union workers’ basis was that they wanted to ensure that the company in the end should have had a great turnover and mobility. This would have brought the company to a profit making fir m. One of the main emphases in any company should be the contested exchange logic. The logic of contested change basically implies that when it comes to labor the production process must not be perceived as the combination of labor in conjunction with non-labor inputs instead it should be seen as also the process whereby the labor on actual work is also derived from workers. With