Problem Solving and Decision Making Strategies

Problem Solving and Decision Making Strategies Background Problem solving and decision-making are important skills for business and life. Problem solving often involves decision-making, and decision-making is especially important for management and leadership. There are processes and techniques to improve decision-making and the quality of decisions. Decision-making is more natural to certain personalities, so these people should focus more on improving the quality of their decisions. People that are less natural decision-makers are often able to make quality assessments, but then need to be more decisive in acting upon the assessments made. Problem solving and decision-making are closely linked, and each requires creativity in identifying and developing options, for which the brainstorming technique, as this thesis is particularly useful. Collection of data and findings of RH cars There are two types of data collection methods; they are primary data collection and secondary data collection. Primary Data Collection: Primary data collection can be deemed as bespoke and therefore time consuming and costly. Secondary Collection Data: Secondary data include general reports supplied to an enterprise by various data services. Such reports might concern market share, retail inventory levels and consumer buying behaviour. The data collection for any car manufacturer can be used questionnaires to collect data in conjunction with published sources such as annual reports, price lists, and actual sales records. For cost reasons it could not conduct observations of on the-job application, interviews, or focus groups. Instead, rather ascertained the key metrics that would drive business impact (number of units sold and margin per unit realized) from the questionnaire and then validated the metrics with actual figures confirmed by the client. One key survey is the monthly Customer Satisfaction Index, tracked by RH Financial, which directly measures end customer satisfaction regarding the financial services obtained in the dealership. These provide the management team with data. The actions that need to be taken to drive these metrics the right way are sometimes more elusive in an industry that has very little customer contact once an account is set up. Survey methodology and frame used A systematic method for gathering information from (a sample of) individuals for the purposes of describing the attributes of the larger population of which the individuals are members. The attributes attempt to describe basic characteristics or experiences of large and small populations in our world. RH survey features Information is gathered by asking customer questions. Information is collected either by having interviewers ask questions and record answers or by having people read or hear questions and record their answers. Information is collected from only a subset of the population to be described (a sample)rather than from all members. Surveys are used extensively in car manufacturer industry to assess attitudes and characteristics of a wide range of cars and also new models. When information is obtained, or data is measured, the method, or process used to gather information, greatly affects the results. The extreme complaints might not represent the attitudes of the whole group. Similarly, measuring or counting data depends on the instrument or method used. The basing judgments on customer complaints alone ignored the general population of other opinions, which should be judged together, such as in a statistical sample of the whole statistics. A questionnaire for a particular purpose Please select which best represents your views. 1. Overall satisfaction All things considered, please rate your overall satisfaction withà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ 1a RH Credit Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 1b Your selling dealership Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 1c Your vehicle Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 2. About your finance/lease contract Please rate your satisfaction with 2a Finance/Lease transaction overall Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 2b Ease of obtaining financing Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 2c Speed of approval for financing Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 2d Explanation of financing terms and conditions at the dealership Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 2e Ease of understanding the content of your finance contract Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 2f Timeliness of receiving your Welcome Pack/your contract Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 2g Accuracy of documents we sent Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 3. Contact with RH Credit 3a Have you contacted RHCredit with a question or problem related to your contract Yes No 3b Your contact experience with RHCredit Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied Thinking about the representative you dealt with, how satisfied are you with theà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ 3c Ease of making contact with the right person/employee to answer your question or resolve your problem Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 3d Courtesy of the representative Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 3e Responsiveness of the representative Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 3f Representatives ability to answer your question completely and accurately3h Representatives follow-through on promised actions Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied Thinking about your most recent contactà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ 3g How many times did you contact RHCredit before your question or problem was resolved Completely Satisfied Very Satisfied Fairly Satisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 4. Future intentions Based on your experience, would youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ 4a Recommend RHCredit to a friend or family member Definitely Would Probably Would Might or might not Probably would not Definitely would not 4b Recommend your selling dealership Definitely Would Probably Would Might or might not Probably would not Definitely would not 4c Recommend your make/model of vehicle Definitely Would Probably Would Might or might not Probably would not Definitely would not Summarizing data using representative values, and use the results to draw valid and useful conclusions for RH Cars. The root-cause analysis helped RH to identify key factors that tend to lengthen decision cycles. They included inadequate training in the clear communications of alternatives, absence of a good model of teamwork, and a control-oriented management philosophy. Decision-making increasingly happens at all levels of a business. The Board of Directors may make the grand strategic decisions about investment and direction of future growth, and managers may make the more tactical decisions about how their own department may contribute most effectively to the overall business objectives. But quite ordinary employees are increasingly expected to make decisions about the conduct of their own tasks, responses to customers and improvements to business practice. This needs careful recruitment and selection, good training, and enlightened management. Types of Business Decisions Programmed Decisions can be written down into a series of fixed steps which anyone can follow. They could even be written as computer program Non-Programmed Decisions. These are non-standard and non-routine. Each decision is not quite the same as any previous decision. Strategic Decisions. These affect whether to take over Company A or Company B Tactical Decisions. These are medium-term decisions about what kind of marketing to have, or how many extra staff to recruit Operational Decisions. These are short-term decisions, about which firm to use to make deliveries. Analyse data using measures of dispersion, and use to inform RH cars. A proper description of a set of data should include both of these characteristics. There are various methods that can be used to measure the dispersion of a dataset, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. These statistics describe how the data varies or is dispersed (spread out). The two most commonly used measures of dispersion are the range and the standard deviation. Rather than showing how data are similar, they show how data differs (its variation, spread, or dispersion). The study of dispersion is very important in statistical data. If in a certain car Manufacturer Company like RH there is consistence in the wages of workers, the workers will be satisfied. But if some workers have high wages and some have low wages, there will be unrest among the low paid workers and they might go on strikes and arrange demonstrations. It is reasonable to expect greater dispersion of wage increases to be associated with higher monetary incentives, but also with increased percep tions of unfairness. The authors analysis of linked employer-employee data from Denmark for the years 1992-97 shows that the dispersion of wage growth within firms generally had a negative association with firm performance. The results are robust across industries and categories of firm size, but are mainly driven by white-collar rather than blue-collar workers. Quartiles, percentiles, correlation coefficient Quartiles: One of the three numbers (values) that divide a range of data into four equal parts. The first quartile (also called lower quartile) is the number below which lies the 25 percent of the bottom data. The second quartile (the median) divides the range in the middle and has 50 percent of the data below it. The third quartile (also called upper quartile) has 75 percent of the data below it and the top 25 percent of the data above it. See also interquartile range and percentile. Percentile: A score equal to or greater than 97 percent of those attained on an examination is said to be in the 97th percentile. Percentiles are values that divide a set of observations into 100 equal parts. The percentile rank is the proportion of values in a distribution that a specific value is greater than or equal to. For example, if an individual received a mark of 95% on a math test and that mark was greater than or equal to the marks of 88% of students then that mark would place that individual in the 88th percentile. Correlation coefficient: A measure that determines the degree to which two variables movements are associated. Statistical measure of the degree to which the movements of two variables are related. n statistics, a measurement of the degree to which two things vary together. The maximum value for a correlation coefficient is 1.00, which occurs when two variables have a perfect positive correlation. A negative correlation coefficient indicates two variables that have an indirect relationship. 3.1 A range of graphs using spreadsheets line, pie, bar charts The following figure shows the auto sales in July 2009: Car cost can be divided into following major factors: Below is a graph of about lease is probably the way to go at cars. Get in for a couple or three years while the car is new (i.e. is at the most reliable part of its lifespan), then get out. Problems of cars on the road is given below: 3.2 Spreadsheet graphs to assist in forecasting for specified business information Half of the respondents in a European survey listed fuel consumption as a priority when buying a new car. The survey was performed in March and April 2007 and included respondents from twelve European countries. Safety, price and reliability were named by more than half of the respondents as a priority. Priorities when buying a new car Q: Which are your priorities when buying a new car?    Share of European Respondents Safety 73.1% Price 63.7% Reliability 57.8% Fuel Consumption 49.7% Comfort 36.9% Design 18.3% Size 17.9% Exhaust Gas 15.6% Color 3.4% . Surveys are constructed also to find out the target audience needs of the car such as luggage space, passenger seats, also size of the car. These are some interesting things that I picked up during the people study done through interviews and surveys: The highest priority of people is Cost and Efficiency. This is shown in the graph I generated according to the results of the surveys. 30.44% of the answers I received out of the 40 people who filled the surveys are related to cost and efficiency. 13.77% of the answers are actually stating the customers are happy with their cars efficiency. However on the other hand, 16.67% of the answers state the opposite. The main complaints of people who have cost issues with their cars are: The petrol is costing too much. The car requires servicing quite often and the cost of the service is expensive. The car parts are expensive when you need to replace them. On top of all those costs, they still need to pay for car insurance and registration. The second highest priority is the Exterior of the car. The answers shown in the survey reach to a conclusion that: More people are moving to small and more compact vehicles and they actually like the fact that their cars are compact. A few people actually want small cars because of the fact that they are easier to drive and park. This is a very interesting point because not only small cars are easier to drive and park but they also reduce congestion on the road. Less congestion means less traffic and also more parking space. Some people are happy with how their car looks but they do not really like the fact that the car gets dirty. This shows that quite a lot of people do not enjoy washing their cars and this could mean two things. First, the people actually do not see the interaction with their cars as an enjoyable activity and they see their cars just as a utility to take them from A to B. Second, It could also mean that they enjoy the interaction but they do not have the time to do the car washing due to their other priorities. Whichever reason, the interaction of people and cars should be more enjoyable to make more people want to buy a certain car. Preparing a formal business report RH has instituted a number of business practices with suppliers designed to increase collaboration, provide for data transparency and expand the volume of business with select suppliers, while building a more sustainable business model. They have also been able to reduce the total number of production suppliers eligible for major sourcing from RH from 3,300 to approximately 1,600 suppliers today, with a further reduction to 750 suppliers planned. We have paid specific attention to strengthening their minority and women suppliers which currently account for about $4 billion of their annual $35 billion of purchases from U.S. supplier locations. Our consolidation efforts have resulted, and will result, in more business for our major suppliers, which will increase their financial strength. Moreover, as RH moves aggressively to global vehicle platforms, sourcing to common suppliers for the total global volume of a vehicles components is dramatically increasing, meaning that a smaller number of suppliers will receive a greater volume of the purchases made by RH to support our global vehicle platform. RHs dealers are a source of strength, especially our rural/small town dealers, who represent the face of RH in communities across the U.S. and provide employment, tax support, community leadership and customer service. At their current and expected future market share, they clearly have too many dealers and therefore have made it increasingly difficult to sustain a healthy and profitable dealer network. To address this overcapacity, RH is partnering with our dealers and are downsizing and restructuring the RH, Lincoln and Mercury network in our largest 130 metropolitan market areas to provide targeted average-year sales for RH dealers at 1,500+ units and Lincoln Mercury deal ers at 600+ units, resulting in sustainable profits in both good and bad years. We are doing this while maintaining customer convenience factors such as driving distance, location, and appealing facilities. We have joined with our dealers to fund these consolidation actions jointly to protect our representation in the marketplace. To further reduce costs, RH recently made several significant changes to our Compensation and Benefit plans, including: (i) eliminating merit increases and bonuses due to be paid in 2009; (ii) suspending the Companys 401(k) matching contribution, and Company-paid tuition assistance and dependent scholarships; (iii) capping retiree life insurance at $25,000; and (iv) improving the costeffectiveness of benefit programs through more efficient plan offerings and increased employee cost sharing. With respect to the hourly work force in the United States, RH and the UAW agreed to a transformational labor agreement in 2007, the benefits of which are only beginning to be realized. Under this agreement, our hourly labor cost disadvantage compared to the transplants will be substantially reduced, although not completely eliminated. These labor costs savings should begin to materialize as they have the opportunity to bring workers into the workforce at the new wage levels Product excellence through leadership in fuel economy, innovation, quality, safety, and leading edge comfort and convenience technology; Substantial and continuous improvement in engineering and investment efficiency facilitated by leveraging the global assets of One RH and a reduction in the number of vehicle platforms, engines, transmissions, and customer offered complexity; and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Significant improvement in the profitability of small cars. Balanced Portfolio. They are leveraging our global product strengths to deliver six new world-class small and medium sized vehicles to the United States over the next four years. This will enable our car and crossover product segment mix to increase from 48% to 60% and result in volume and share growth. They are targeting sales leadership in people movers and crossovers through addition of new vehicles (such as the RH Flex) and redefining existing vehicles (such as the RH Explorer). Management information systems and information processing tools for operational, tactical and strategic levels of the organization The Concept of management information systems originated in the 1960s and become the byword of almost all attempts to relate computer technology and systems to data processing in business. During the early 1960s, it became evident that the computer was being applied to the solution of business problem in a piecemeal fashion, focusing almost entirely on the computerization of clerical and record keeping tasks. The concepts of management information systems were developed to counteract such in efficient development and in effective use of the computer. An organization must control the operations in the light of the plans and targets developed in the planning process. The car manufacturer must know if manufacturing operations are in line with the targets and if not, he must make decisions to correct the deviation or revise his plans. Similarly the wholesaler will want to know the impacts that his commissions have had on sales and make decisions to correct adverse trends. The municipal corporation will need to control the tendering process and contractors who will execute the pumping station plans. Generally, MIS is concerned with planning and control. Often there are elaborate systems for information that assists operations. For example, the car manufacturer will have a system for providing information to the workers on the shop floor about the job that needs to be done on a particular batch of material. There may be route sheets, which accompany the rate materials and components in their movement through various machines. This system per se provides only information to support operation. It has no managerial decision-making significance. Generally MIS has all the ingredients that are employed in providing information support to manager to making planning and control decisions. Managers often use historical data on an organizations activities as well as current status data make planning and control decisions. Such data comes from a database, which is contained in files maintained by the organization. This database is an essential component of an MIS. Manual procedures that are used to collect and process information and computer hardware are obvious ingredients of an MIS. These also form part of the MIS. In summary, when we say that an MIS is an integrated man machine systems that provided information to supports the planning and control function of managers in an origination. It does the following function. Sub serves managerial function Collects stores, evaluates information systematically and routinely Supports planning and control decisions Includes files, hardware, software, software and operations research models. Effective management information systems are needed by all business organization because of the increased complexity and rate of change of todays business environment. For Example, Marketing manager need information about sales performance and trends, financial manger returns, production managers needs information analysing resources requirement and worker productivity and personnel manager require information concerning employee compensation and professional development. Thus, effective management information systems must be developed to provide modern managers with the specific marketing, financial, production and personnel information products they required to support their decision making responsibilities. Iinventory control systems in Organisation An inventory control system is a set of hardware and software based tools that automate the process of tracking inventory. The kinds of inventory tracked with an inventory control system can include almost any type of quantifiable good, including food, clothing, books, equipment, and any other item that consumers, retailers, or wholesalers may purchase. Modern inventory control systems are almost exclusively based on barcode technology. Though barcodes were initially developed to automate the process of grocery store checkout, their ability to encode a wide variety of alphabetic and numeric symbols makes them ideal for encoding merchandise for inventory applications. Inventory control systems work in real-time using wireless technology to transmit information to a central computer system as transactions occur. Inventory control systems are employed in a wide variety of applications, but they all revolve around tracking delivery of goods to customers. Inventory control is crucial in retail stores, especially those with a large number or variety of merchandise items for sale. Inventory control is also used in warehouses to track orders and shipments, and for automated order processing. Other important applications of inventory control systems are in manufacturing, shipping, and receiving. Inventory control is important to ensure quality control in businesses that handle transactions revolving around consumer goods. Without proper inventory control, a large retail store may run out of stock on an important item. A good inventory control system will alert the retailer when it is time to reorder. Inventory control is also an important means of automatically tracking large shipments. For example, if a business orders ten pairs of socks for retail resale, but only receives nine pairs, this will be obvious upon inspecting the contents of the package, and error is not likely. On the other hand, say a wholesaler orders 100,000 pairs of socks and 10,000 are missing. Manually counting each pair of socks is likely to result in error. An automated inventory control system helps to minimize the risk of error. In retail stores, an inventory control system also helps track theft of retail merchandise, providing valuable information about store profits and the need for theft-preventi on systems. Automated inventory control systems work by scanning a barcode either on the item. A scanner is used to read the barcode, and the machine reads the information encoded by the barcode. This information is then tracked by a central computer system. For example, a purchase order may contain a list of items to be pulled for packing and shipping. The inventory control system can serve a variety of functions in this case. It can help a worker locate the items on the order list in the warehouse, it can encode shipping information like tracking numbers and delivery addresses, and it can remove these purchased items from the inventory tally to keep an accurate count of in-stock items. All of this data works in tandem to provide businesses with real-time inventory tracking information. Inventory control systems make it simple to locate and analyze inventory information in real-time with a simple database search. Future planning for RH basis of the secondary data collected through presenting collected With the global economic crisis petering out, markets seem to be recovering faster than previously assumed, said Norbert Reithofer, BMWs chief executive. Across the car industry, luxury producers are reporting strong growth in new markets and a revival in company car sales in the US and Europe, where the segment did not benefit from last years scrapping incentives that skewed demand towards smaller cars. JD Power, the auto consultancy, estimates that global sales of premium and superpremium cars, which fell by 12 per cent in 2009 compared with the markets overall 2.5 per cent drop will rebound by 10 per cent this year, more than double the 4 per cent growth it projects for the overall market. BMWs sales rose 13.8 per cent to 315,614 cars in the quarter, mostly driven by more than doubled sales in China. Demand in China has influenced our performance . . . significantly, said Friedrich Eichiner, chief financial officer. BMW, which now sells one in five of its cars in Asia, became on e of several carmakers to announce further expansion in China this year when it unveiled plans to spend à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬560m on a second plant in Shenyang. BMWs arch-rival Daimler doubled its Chinese sales in the first quarter, which helped it to swing from a loss of  £1.4bn a year ago to an operating profit of  £1.2bn.China is now Daimlers third-largest market and one of its fastest growing.Mr Reithofer said the Munich-based carmaker had received an outstanding order income for its new 5 Series model.BMW said a refreshed model line-up also helped it cut back on incentives for car buyers.Arndt Ellinghorst, analyst at Credit Suisse, said: BMW is in the fortunate position that its product momentum coincides with the market recovery.BMW, which also produces Minis and Rolls-Royces, reiterated its target of an operating margin of 8-10 per cent in its automotive business by 2012 a goal described by analysts as ambitious.Lane sharing, Page 22 Car industry executives, when they gather at the Geneva auto show next week, can congratulate themselves on having weathered their sharpest crisis in decades without suffering the collapse they warned would jeopardise millions of jobs.The perennial sick man of manufacturing has survived the worst of the downturn, which began in 2008, thanks to tens of billions of dollars shovelled into the sector in the form of financial bail-outs, cash for clunkers consumer subsidies, and soft government loans.In one sign that the market is turning, US car sales after hitting a 27-year-low of 10.4m last year are now growing again.But the mood in Geneva will hardly be ebullient amid forecasts of a hollow recovery for a sector that has not cured itself of its chronic problems. Even as the US market revives, demand for cars in Europe is due to drop this year as cash for clunkers scrappage programmes come to an end.Dieter Zetsche, Daimlers boss, who heads the European industry group Acea, this week sp oke of a stoney road ahead for the industry in 2010. Analysts predict car sales in mature markets Europe, North America, and Japan will not return to their pre-crisis levels before 2013. If you look globally, the industry is very much out of intensive care but it still requires a lot of monitoring going forwards, says Calum MacRae, lead auto analyst with PwC.Worse, warn experts, European governments interventions in particular kept carmakers afloat without forcing them to address the overcapacity that always was and remains a leading source of their ills.On the contrary: France, Italy, Germany and the UK all overtly linked their aid to carmakers to the future of their plants.US carmakers, in deeper financial distress than their European or Asian competitors before the crisis started, cut capacity by 3.5m units in 2007-09, according to PwC. The US government forced GM and Chrysler to close plants as the price for their more than $60bn of bailout loans.In Europe, where most carmaker s cut shifts or put workers on shorter hours rather than shutting plants, just 1.2m units of capacity were cut, says PwC.Only two plant closures have been announced since the crisis began: of Fiats plant in Termini Imerese, Sicily, and Opels in Antwerp, Belgium. Jaguar Land Rover also said it would close one of its three UK plants this decade. The industrys structural problems mean carmakers will face intense competitive pressure even as scrappage subsidies are withdrawn. It looks like were past the worst but a slow recovery is almost a given, says Robert Schulz, analyst with Standard Poors.Frances PSA Peugeot Citroà «n, reporting earnings this month, said it expected Europes car market to contract by 10 per cent this year; its rival Renault said it would shrink by 9 per cent. Fiats shares have slumped this month after Italys government declined to extend the scrapping subsidies that fuelled demand for its cars last year.The ending of Germanys scrappage scheme alone is due to slas h tota

Observation Report

Observation Report The person observed for this report. She has been observed during two separate negotiations and this is a report on the observations made during them. This report will also provide interpretations on what has been observed. Observervation 1(Pub Brewery, Buyer) Body language Observee has her arms crossed and resting on the table. Her upper-body is leaning in slightly and she is making eye contact with the other party on a regular basis. She smiles on occasion and uses hand gestures whenever appropriate. She does not openly react surprised to unexpected information or demands from the other party.However, she does not have her heels on the floor, instead her feet are resting on their toes. Observee makes a professional, calm and friendly impression based on her body language. Although her heels are not touching the floor, this is somewhat understandable as she isn’t very tall. This makes it difficult for her to reach the floor with her heels while remaining in a comfortable position. Oral Communication Observee does not speak as often as her partner, the time she speaks is significantly less. However, whenever she does speak, she addresses the other party in a friendly tone and with professional vocabulary.She also concretely agrees to suggestions while in the middle game of the negotiation, instead of waiting for the end game to do this. Observee seems to not want to ‘waste’ time on superfluous conversation and instead says what she means clearly and concisely. This does not come across as unkind or emotionless, rather as direct. She also seems to be comfortable in letting her partner do the greater part of the negotiating and building on the points her partner makes. Questions The observee regularly asks questions. These questions are mostly closed questions.Observee seems to use these questions as feedback whilst paraphrasing, to see if she correctly understood the other party. Observervation 2(Cuddles LTD, Seller) Body l anguage Observee has her arms crossed and resting on the table. Her upper-body is leaning in slightly and she is making eye contact with the other party on a regular basis, this time she also spend a lot of time looking at her notebook. She also smiles frequently and uses hand gestures whenever appropriate. This time she has her heels on the floor, and is sitting on the edge of her seat.She still does not openly react surprised to unexpected information or demands from the other party. Observee still makes a professional, and friendly impression. She also seems more at ease and calm than in the previous negotiations. The time she spends looking at her notebook is used to make calculations concerning the negotiation, it should therefore not be interpreted as rude or as a sign of a lack of interest. Oral Communication Observee speaks more frequently than during the previous observation, the amount of time she and her partner speak is roughly equal.She addresses the other party in a fr iendly tone and with a professional and diverse vocabulary. She still concretely agrees to suggestions while in the middle game of the negotiation, instead of waiting for the end game. Observee seems to feel more comfortable taking the lead in the negotiation, she doesn’t dominate though. She leaves plenty of room for her partner and the other party to speak. She is pleasant to speak with and creates an atmosphere of harmony and trust. Questions As the observe speaks more frequently during this negotiation, there were more questions to be observed.She still predominantly asks closed questions, but she asks significantly more open questions than during the previous observation. Observee still seems to use the closed questions as feedback, to see if she correctly understood what the other party said. She seems to use her open questions to gather more information during the opening game. Negotiation style Ms creates the impression that she has a negotiating style which is very i nclined to compromise and is aimed towards making the other party feel comfortable during the negotiation.This creates a pleasant environment in which to negotiate, it does however not necessarily yield the best deals. Tips for her to improve would be for her to be slightly less lenient whilst negotiating and spend more time exploring other possibilities and agreements. She seems eager to move from her original position and agree to terms set by the opposing party. It would benefit her, and her deal, if she spent the entire middle game exploring opportunities and saving agreements for the end game. Other than these points, Ms seems to be a good and professional negotiator.

Hume and Kant on Free Will Essay

Abstract This paper is an attempt to show how Kant’s ideas concerning practical and transcendental freedom of the will was a significant correction to the parallel theories of Hume. It starts out by clarifying Hume’s critique of free will, especially as it appears in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. It draws the conclusion that Hume’s philosophy is espousing skepticism, and that Kant’s effort is to overcome this skepticism and restore trust in reason. The philosophy of Kant is outlined in order to make the last point. It is generally agreed that Kant supplied the definitive stamp to philosophy that ushered in the modern age. Hume, though enormously influential in his time, and a favorite in the French salons of philosophy, fell into disrepute in the Victorian era, and only since has become a subject of restored interest. Yet Hume is the philosopher cited by Kant as having stirred him from his â€Å"dogmatic slumbers’. He had espoused a philosophy of empirical skepticism, so thorough and devastating in its scope that it became impossible for Kant to remain in his settled certainties of Newtonian science. It was the spur that carried him on to compose the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), where reason is restored, and man is once more vindicated as a rational being. Just because he refuted and answered Hume’s skepticism does not imply that the latter philosophy is nullified. We must keep this in mind, that Hume’s skepticism is completely valid as far as sense experience is concerned, and Kant does not refute any part of this philosophy. What he does is posit a further dimension to human understanding, specifically, the synthetic a priori faculty of the mind, the existence of which Hume did not suspect. Only after this addition is the primacy of reason restored. So we cannot say that Kant has destroyed Hume’s philosophy, rather he has added to it. Central to Hume’s skepticism is his critique of â€Å"cause and effect†, which is spelled out to its most profound depths in chapter VII of the An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). The preliminary task is to outline the copy principle. The premise to this is that all knowledge begins from sense experience. Among such we are able to distinguish between primary and secondary sensations. The primary sensations are extension, motion, inertia etc, which are indeed the concepts that physics tackles. Color, taste, smell etc are said to be secondary sensations, composed or derived from the primary ones. The copy principle says that the primary sensations, though not delivering complete information from the material object – which is more poignantly described as â€Å"the object in itself – nevertheless is a faithful copy of it. This is why primary sensations are distinct and forceful presences in our mind. Secondary sensations are in turn copies of the original copy, and due to this derivative nature they lose distinctness to us. We will examine the copy principle of Hume in a moment. For the time being we accept it as such and consider the consequences. For Hume’s purposes, it has allowed him to refer to objects and their motions with confidence, and not to be held back by the validity of these concepts. For without the principle we don’t know as yet that objects are objects, and motion is motion, and we would have had to deal with a chaos of sense experience, and nothing meaningful to refer to it against (1993, p. 12). So now, with the copy principle of Hume as foundation, we proceed to talk about objects in motion. Next, we observe interdependence between objects, carried out in space and time. We â€Å"know† that motion in one object is â€Å"cause† to motion in another. A billiard ball in motion strikes another, and after impact the second acquires a velocity too, and the faculty of our understanding tells us, without the least inkling of doubt, that the impact imparted by the first ball is the cause of the second ball gaining motion. This understanding is so refined that we can, with a little help from Newton’s mechanics, predict the exact trajectory of the second ball by analyzing the trajectory of the first. We know it, but how do we know it? This is the crucial question for Hume. For if we do not have the answer we are left with skepticism. After impact with the first ball the second could have taken any one of an infinite number of trajectories. But it takes only one, and indeed we expect it to take only that one. A physicist may come along and try to convince us that it could not have taken any other trajectory because the laws of motion stipulates that, with the initial conditions given, the path it takes is the only possible one. But this is not an answer to the observer of the billiard ball, because he doesn’t care what the laws of physics are. If nature had followed another mathematical law then another outcome would have been just as valid. The observer could then have framed his conundrum differently: Of the infinite possible mathematical laws why just that one? There is nothing in the inner logic of the situation that dictates that the first ball should produce exactly the prescribed trajectory in the second. Hume said this about the experimental set-up, that we may try an experiment ten times, and may arrive at the exact same result ten times. But this does not prove that the specific outcome is inevitable. Not even if we confirmed the outcome a million times, because we would still only have a statistical probability and not a proof. Hume’s conclusion is that there is no rational link between cause and effect. Yet we expect effect to follow cause, immediately and irrevocably. If this is so then, explains Hume, it is a feeling transmitted to us by custom. What exactly he means by custom is left vague. He could not have meant anything other than â€Å"observing over and over again†, even though this fails to take into account new experience. He himself supplies a famous counterexample in the Enquiry. Some one who has experienced all the shades of blue, except for a tiny strip of the spectrum, is expected to report a gap when looking at the full spectrum of blue. But the fact is that he does not observe a gap at all, and recognizes at once the full spectrum of blue, even though he is experiencing a particular shade on blue for the first time. The recognition was instantaneous, and the eye did require â€Å"accustoming† beforehand. This readily disposes the theory of â€Å"custom†. Hume, however, continues to insist that our convictions regarding cause and effect can have no other source than custom. That the inference to custom is a vague one is made clear when he comes to consider free will. The very act of consciousness, he says, testifies to the existence of free will. But coming to reflect on how it is possible that we are able to willingly set our limbs into motion, and to move and external object thereby, it appears nothing less than miraculous. The mystery in nothing less than how one immaterial body imparts momentum to another: For first: Is there any principle in all nature more mysterious than the union of soul with body; by which a supposed spiritual substance acquires such an influence over a material one, that the most refined thought is able to actuate the grossest matter? (Hume, 1993, p. 43) The upshot is that we cannot explain free will, just as surely as we cannot explain cause and effect. ‘Custom’ was hesitantly introduced to explain cause and effect, and the same comes to the rescue of free will. As constant observers of nature we come to expect an effect to always follow a cause, and the same analysis ought to be applied to the orbit of human will. In all times and in all places humans have shown a constancy in their day to day affairs, which points to a constancy in human nature. The speculation concerning the scope of free will is overdone by the philosophers, maintains Hume. The exercise of free will, when looked at through the vista of human history, does not display divergence as much as it displays constancy. Hume broaches on the distinction between freedom and necessity to make this point clear. Inanimate objects convey to us most clearly the quality of freedom. We may describe an inanimate object as indifferent to the rest of the material universe, and in that sense free. But this freedom also entails necessity. The object is subject to the necessary laws of causation, and indeed is bound entirely by them. This is the relationship that binds cause and effect to inanimate objects, and is a relationship that is composed of both freedom and necessity. Hume transposes the same analysis to the relationship between human beings and free will. The will is indeed free, but being so implies that it conforms to human nature. He proposes the following definition: By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; this is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. (1993, p. 63) The notion of free will advanced here bears a crucial difference to the popular one, and begs to be spelt out. What Hume describes as free will is not a choice between course ‘A’ and ‘B’. Rather the choice is between ‘A’ and ‘not A’, the latter implying stagnation, not an alternative course. This is the entire extent of our free will. We choose either to move forward, or else to stand still. This is what Hume would describe as freedom to act. Free will, however, is in complete accordance with human nature, and therefore follows the laws of necessity, just as everything else in contingent reality. Free will urges us to act â€Å"freely†. With freedom to act we may respond to this urge, or we may desist. In the final analysis our understanding of free will hinges on custom, in the same way as does our understanding of cause and effect. The past is guide to the future in the probabilistic sense. Beyond probabilities we have no understanding of either, contends Hume. In order to enforce this skepticism he proceeds to dismantle the Cartesian theories that pretended to explain mind and matter interaction, especially the theory of occasionalism advanced by Father Nicholas Malebranche. In this theory God is made both motivator and executor of every act or incident that seems to be â€Å"cause†, while the circumstances which we call a cause are only occasions for God to act in such a manner. Hume complained that this not only made God a slave to his own creation, but it also eradicated free will, making everything â€Å"full of God† (1993, p. 47). By disposing summarily the Cartesian explanations of cause and effect Hume makes his skepticism complete. Kant overcomes this skepticism by revising the premise of Hume. The correction is made most forcefully in the opening to the Critique: Although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises entirely from experience.   For it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions and that which our own faculty of knowing (incited by impressions) supplies from itself†¦ (1999, p. 1) To be fair to Hume, he does consider this possibility, and ponders whether there is a blueprint in the mind where all ‘causes’ and all ‘effects’ can be referred back. (1993, p. 44). But he dismisses this idea when he realizes that a static blueprint can never account for the dynamic reality. However, the faculty that Kant is suggesting is not static, rather dynamic and creative, and here lies the crucial difference. In the technical terms of Kant it is the synthetic a priori faculty of the mind. This is distinguished from the analytic a priori faculty, such as logic. The rules of logic are extant in the mind (a priori), but form a self-consistent system (analytical), and therefore do not depend on sense experience. On the first instance it seems impossible that the mind can have a faculty that is synthetic a priori, where synthetic implies that it is creative. It entails that order is created out of the chaos of sense experience, and order that was not there before. But Kant also provides proof that the mind is capable of synthesis. Mathematical propositions are synthetic a priori, he contended. The proposition â€Å"3 + 5 = 8† may sound like self-consistent logic, but it is not really so. â€Å"8† is a completely new concept, and is not contained in either â€Å"3†, â€Å"5† or â€Å"+†. If we know that â€Å"3 + 5 = 8†, it is due to a synthetic a priori faculty in the mind. As Kant relates in the Prolegomena, when he realized that mathematical propositions are indeed synthetic a priori, it led him to ponder on what other such concepts the mind uses to facilitate understanding, and it appeared to him, in due course, that â€Å"cause and effect† was a concept of understanding that derives from the same faculty. He does not at all concern himself with material reality as a â€Å"thing in itself†, that which the materialist philosophers were after in order to provide a foundation to Newtonian science. Like Hume he maintains throughout that an absolute material reality is beyond knowledge, and to speculate on its existence was futile. We only need to consider what we perceive and what we do. He also shows that Hume falters at exactly those points where he cannot dismiss material existence in itself. The copy principle is slavish to a material object in itself. The object does not deliver copies to our mind; rather the mind provides the concepts of space in which we are able to conjure up material objects from sensory data. Both â€Å"space† and â€Å"time† are pure concepts of the mind, contends Kant, and like â€Å"cause and effect† are the tools by which we come to understand contingent reality (Prolegomena, 2005, p. 26). As soon as it is made out that we are the responsible architects of our own reality, and are not passive bystanders to an absolute material reality beyond our control, we suddenly discover ourselves as moral beings. Therefore the subsequent direction of Kant’s philosophy, after the metaphysics of understanding has been established, is towards a metaphysics of morals. And so emerges the crucial distinction that Kant makes between practical and transcendental freedom. To say that we have practical freedom implies we are able to understand the world, and by doing so we direct the will accordingly. We will do so of course for practical purposes – survival, utility, convenience, happiness etc. this would seem to cover the entire orbit of freedom. But Kant went on to demonstrate, in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), that such freedom is not actually freedom at all, and indeed is a binding. Thus far Kant is in concord with Hume. Now, the metaphysics of understanding, as spelt out in the Critique, is not the entire picture. The synthetic a priori faculty of the mind fashions understanding out of sensory experience. But such understanding does not lead to truth. As pure concepts of understanding space and time are both necessarily infinite. But because they emanate from the finite mind they are also finite. So in their very make-up space and time lead to contradictions. The same end must necessarily meet anything that takes place within space and time. So that matter is both infinitely divisible and also made up of concrete building blocks. As another example, we have free will, but at the same time everything is caused, so we don’t have free will. Such examples are put forward by Kant as pairs of â€Å"antinomies†. According to our understanding both consequences are valid, and yet they mutually contradict each other. All practical reasoning necessarily leads to pairs of antinomies. This must be so, because we reason by means of subject and predicate, where the subject is the cause of the predicate. But this subject is in turn predicate to another subject, and so on in an infinite chain of causation. If there was an ultimate subject at the beginning of this chain, we could have claimed to have discovered the final cause, and thereby have at hand a pronouncement of truth. But in contingent reality there is no such final cause. So whenever we try to make pronouncements of truth we must face contradiction. We cannot say that practical reason is false for this reason. Life is ruled by contingencies, and practical reason is to explain the contingent, or to facilitate such understanding. Absolute truth lies beyond all contingencies, and this is ruled by â€Å"pure† reason, explains Kant. It is not within the grasp of the human mind, yet it is the underpinning of the mind, and is the source of all innate faculties. The same analysis applies to practical freedom, which is but the corollary to practical reason. With practical freedom we choose our course according to practical reason, i.e. we are motivated by self-serving motives – happiness, honor, respectability, and so on. But in doing so we bind ourselves to those endless chains of contingencies, so that we are not really free. We chase material acquisition in order to be happy, and yet it always eludes us. The definition of freedom is to escape all contingencies, and yet by the application of practical reason we are mired more and more into contingent reality. Therefore we are not free. This is indeed a contradiction, one which Hume does not pay heed to. The very act of consciousness tells us that we are free, that out will is free. If practical reason does not embody this freedom, then surely pure reason must do so. By the same token, we are in possession of a transcendental freedom, which is a path that overcomes all contingencies, and is dictated by pure reason. Kant describes this path as the moral one. We recognize and follow this path from a sense of duty. To clarify what it is, duty is done for its own sake. There is no material motive whatsoever attached to it. Not for any particular good, it is done for the universal good. It is a categorical imperative, meaning that the very make-up of our being, or pure reason, dictates that we follow it. As an aid to identifying one’s duty Kant devised the following wording for the categorical imperative: â€Å"I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law† (Moral Law, 2005, p. 74). Kant is described as overcoming Hume’s skepticism. But it is questionable whether the latter is a skeptic at all. According to a contemporary, Hume’s philosophical paradoxes are delivered with a confidence that belies skepticism: â€Å"Never has there been a Pyrrhonian more dogmatic† (qtd. in Mossner, 1936, p. 129). A more recent reassessment of Hume is carried out by the German Neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer, who opines, â€Å"Hume’s doctrine is not to be understood as an end, but as a new beginning† (1951, p. 59). The nature of this new beginning is well articulated by Hume himself. â€Å"Indulge your passion for science,† nature tells us, according to Hume, â€Å"but let your science be human, and such as may have a direct reference to action and society† (Hume, 1993, p. 3). If we listen carefully, the moral note that Hume is sounding is hardly different from that of the categorical imperative of Kant. Not for the person’s sake, but for humanity’s sake. Not for the particular good but for the universal good. This is the essence of Hume’s projected â€Å"science of man†, as it is also the heart of Kant’s metaphysics of morals. References Cassirer, E. (1951). The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Trans. Fritz C. A. Koelln and James P. Pettegrove. Boston: Beacon Press. Hume, D. (1993). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. E. Steinberg (Ed.) Boston: Hackett Publishing. Kant, I. (1999). Critique of Pure Reason. W. S. Pluhar (Trans.), E. Watkins (Ed.) Boston: Hackett Publishing. Kant, I. (2005). Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. Kant, I. (2005). The Moral Law: Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated by H. J. Paton. New York: Routledge. Mossner, E. C. (1936). Bishop Butler and the Age of Reason: A Study in the History Of Thought. New York: Macmillan.   

Nursing As A Dynamic Career - 1203 Words

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