Boston Lyric Opera Essay Example for Free

Boston Lyric Opera Essay 1. BLO’s eight customer objectives The first objective is to gain generous contributions. The amount per donator, ration between new donators and new contacts (collection rate) and the total amount of the donators and contributions are ways to measure how this aspect is doing. Incentives for the staff should also be incorporated into these objectives, especially ones that steer the process towards multi-year support programs. To measure the board involvement and recruitment, it is important that the reputation of the new board member is blameless and since operating in Boston, a local person with strong ties to the community would be better. To measure involvement the easiest way is to look the member’s activity, how many times they’ve been in meetings and how they’ve acted to build strategy. For example number of new initiatives. Also hours spent educating the board members about strategy and vision could be one measurement. Building an artistic reputation is hard and so is measuring it. Reviews on papers give a sight how the opera is doing, but the best way to know is to make a consumer survey for example once a month. Also comparing the growth in visitors between BLO and other operas gives an idea. Rating different aspects is another way to measure the artistic view. Giving value for example to the lead singer or the orchestra will help to understand how the opera is doing on its main field. These measures aren’t very proactive though, but helpful anyway. One objective is to launch a residency program. Its success can be measured by the amount of acceptances to invites and by comparing the audience amounts to normal. Like when measuring artistic reputation, the best way to measure how exciting and diverse opera’s repertories are is to see reviews and audience amounts. The grading system works when the given grades are compared to the rivals’ same grades and the shows are compared. These are of course not proactive measures. BLO wants to collaborate with other major artistic institutions like museums and theatres. Also other operas and specially talents working in them are important. One way to measure collaboration is the amount of tickets to opera that our associates sell. How many per cent of the total amount of sold tickets is it and have these collaborations brought new visitors to BLO. Community support and focus on community programs can be measured with the amount of local donators and specially the amount of new supporters. Has the PR-campaign been affective? Have local companies supported the opera? This can be measured with the amount of companies. Measurements that measure processes in line with the strategy are not always easy to find and it usually takes a lot of time to find the right ways to use them. Often they need to be adjusted or reset to fit the strategy. The main challenge is to find measures that are pro-active and directive instead of controlling. 2. Boston Lyric Opera had not really measured their organizational performance before. This had ultimately caused lack of focus and limited accountability. Boston Lyric Opera was mainly led by qualitative values as quantitative measures and financials were not the topmost factors in decision making. The new general director Janice Del Sesto and BLO’s board acknowledged that there was a history of expensive opera productions and large losses in Boston’s opera scene and they had to adapt a new business philosophy in order to operate fiscally. Non-profit organizations often have a lack of focus and their strategy concentrates to too many things at the same time. Ken Freed, a BLO board member, acknowledged that a more formal strategic planning process was essential for BLO in order to avoid mistakes that several arts organizations had made in the past. They decided to adapt the Balanced Scorecard to focus their strategic planning process. Using the Balanced Scorecard, BLO and its employees could see their day-to-day activities within a bigger and more strategic context. They started the change by defining BLO’s mission, strategy, competitive advantages, and distinguishing characteristics that would make it unique. The biggest change here was BLO reshaping its strategy. They acknowledged that their most important â€Å"customers† in this situation are the people who resourced their organization. BLO received nearly 70 percent of their operating budget from sources other than ticket sales, mostly from donors and supporters. BLO decided to place donors and supporters as their main interest group in the Balanced Scorecard. They were the body that enabled BLO to carry out their mission and strategy. Even though Boston Lyric Opera is a non-profit organization and its output is intangible, its organizational performance can be measured by quantitative measures. The Balanced Scorecard would bring quantitative measures alongside the qualitative measures. The Balanced Scorecard required BLO to quantify their activities. BLO acknowledged that and they for example created a database where they linked quantifiable donor data to qualitative information about donor meetings etc. Basically, the Balanced Scorecard required BLO to be managed like a business. 3. Lyric Opera had a new question ahead of them. They had to figure out what they wanted to become. BLO’s existing strategy was not valid anymore as their operating expenses rose and revenues from ticket sales were limited. BLO decided to adapt the Balance Scorecard in order to set new strategic objectives and measure their performance against those objectives in order to overcome to challenges they were facing. Adapting the Balanced Scorecard, BLO was able to compose a clear and precise strategy. Actually, the strategy itself was quite complex and multidimensional but the Balanced Scorecard gave it a framework that presented the new strategy clearly. BLO set three strategic themes that they felt were important in reaching their goals and they had objectives and measures of success for all of the themes. Using the Balanced Scorecard and the strategy map, BLO was also able to communicate the new strategy clearly to their staff, stakeholders, and other associates. The fact that BLO now had sufficient information of their organization and operations, it could draw new donors to them. By using the Balanced Scorecard, BLO recognized their key success drivers and they started to focus on the activities that had the greatest impact on their goals. They all had a clear common goal and BLO’s staff worked cross-departmentally, motivationally to reach the goal of providing unique, uality opera in Boston. However Jessica Del Sesto and Sue Dahling-Sullivan faced some difficult challenges and barriers to capture the above-mentioned benefits. There was some opposition from a few board-members of changing the organization’s governance structure, adapting the Balance Scorecard and managing an art organization by quantitative measures. These â€Å"old school† members did not under stand that BLO could not compete with the great opera houses and they could not standout from the crow without differentiating in some way. Del Sesto and Dahling-Sullivan were still able to carry out the new strategy and capture the benefits to make BLO a highly successful arts organization. One of the most crucial parts of the adapting a new strategy was to communicate the strategy clearly to their staff, board members and other stakeholders. It is an unconditional requirement that people understand the new strategy and its benefits in order it to succeed. Del Sesto and Dahling-Sullivan used the strategy map in communicating the new strategy and it clearly presented the reasons and benefits of the new strategy and it lighten opposition substantially. . The departmental managers and the employees of BLO are more empowered after the BSC but the artistic leaders are less. The managers are now more empowered because every department now gets to plan its own scorecard, and describe the ways how the department would meet the high level strategic goals. The employees are with the scorecard more empowered, as they can see the w ork in a more strategic context and therefore set priorities more effectively themselves. However the artistic leaders felt that the scorecard and specially the repertory planning template could limit their opportunities in designing productions. . Del Sesto uses the BSC as a managerial system. The BSC purely concentrates on the big picture; everything is based to support strategy. Del Sesto believes that the BSC helps her to steer board members’ attention to proper tasks. Also, she thanks BSC for helping employees to think more strategically, and with greater clarity towards their objectives. All in all, Del Sesto is clearly more interested on the management aspect of the BSC. One explanation to this is that BLO is a nonprofit organization. Its reason to exist is not to make profit to its owners but to offer culture to the community. All the objectives connected to the three main points are easier to measure with controlling measurements. 6. Kaplan and Norton have studied the success of BSC implementations in different organizations. They have concluded five principals that contribute greatly to the success. These principals can also be found on BLO’s BSC implementation. The process started with planning. Group consisting members from all functions thought in several meeting how the BSC should be made and what BLO is now and what it wants to be. All possible views were brought to conversations and the members were challenged to use their imagination. As a result the group made three strategic themes which determined the main points to BLO’s future strategy. These three big themes were divided to smaller parts and brought to a form that is clear to everyone in the organization. This is similar to Kaplan’s and Norton’s principal 1, where the strategy is translated in to operational terms. The BSC was completed by determining the actions to be made so that the strategy can be fulfilled. After this all parts of the organization got to make scorecards of their own and were so committed to the strategy. The whole organization was aligned to meet the strategy (Principle 2). The project succeeded because BLO was able to find the crucial processes and finish them through. The personnel were part of the developing strongly. During the process of creating the BSC, the role of the entire staff in overall success was emphasized. This made them easier to adapt the new way of doing things and easier to understand the strategy and how it can be fulfilled (Principle 3). Often when BSC implementation fails it is because the scorecard is considered to be only management’s project, just a top-level adjustment. As always with large scale organizational changes, also this project faced some resistance. Some board members and artistic staff were unsure about the motives for changing the old customs. This problem however was solved, as the need for change was successfully communicated through various levels of the organization (Principle 5). Other crucial point which was done well was the targeting. The mission was announced clearly and the goals were easy to understand. The three major themes were chosen wisely and chopped in to smaller pieces well.

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Modern Slavery I. Introduction A. How would you feel like living in a world where all your freedom is taken away? B. In history class, we learned that approximately 150 years ago Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves, but we forget that modern forma of slavery still exist in our world today. C. At this moment, there are 27 million slaves in the world suffering from modern forms of servitude. D. First, I will explain this thesis statement in more detail, then I’ll describe how this changed the world and what government are doing to combat this international crisis. E. Now, let me start by giving some background information on modern slavery. II. Human trafficking is the modern form of slavery that occurs in many countries throughout the world affecting men, women, and children. A. Two basic forms of human trafficking are labor trafficking and sex trafficking. 1. Labor Trafficking: Using force, fraud or coercion to recruit, harbor, transport, obtain or employ a person for labor or services in involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery. Victims can be found in domestic situations as nannies or maids, sweatshop factories, janitorial jobs, construction sites, farm work, restaurants, and panhandling. (Williams, 2013) 2. Sex Trafficking: Involving commercial acts induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person performing the act is under age 18. Victims can be found working in massage parlors, on the streets, in brothels, strip clubs, and escort services. (Williams, 2013) B. Slavery exist in nearly every country, whether the countries are origin countries, transit countries, or destination countries and effects all men, women, and children. 1. Human trafficking is widespread – data taken from th... ...Council, China's Cabinet The mechanism will be conducive to curbing the rise of human trafficking cases and ensuring that victims of trafficking are rehabilitated and relocated in a timely manner, the plan noted. C. As you can see the United States, as well as many other countries, have made efforts to crack down on trafficking, educate vulnerable people, and rehabilitate the victims of these horrific crimes. V. Conclusion A. Modern slavery affects men, women, and children in every country throughout the world through one way or another, but finally government agencies or organizations are taking action to put an end to this international crisis. B. There are 27 million human beings that are bound to servitude through out the world today. C. The next time you enjoy sipping on you morning coffee, take a moment to think about the slave who made it all possible.

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Selected reading: Name your selected reading and page numbers here Keys to Effective Learning: p. 193 (Ch. 7) SurveyDescribe the value of surveying the reading. By surveying the reading I was able to get an understanding of what the reading would be about. I was able to identify that the main focus would be on classical conditioning and the effects that it would have. I was able to look for key bold words in the reading. QuestionWhat questions did you ask as you were reading? I asked if there were other forms of classical conditioning that I could relate to.I also asked what other variations could have been used in the experiments I asked the definitions and examples of conditioned and unconditioned responses ReadHow did surveying and questioning help you read better? Surveying and questioning helped me to grasp the main idea of the reading before reading through the article. I was able to know what I would be reading about and what key words to look for without having read the artic le multiple times. This skill will be an asset with future reading requirements. ReciteHow did you decide what parts of your reading you needed to recite?I recited the questions that I initially asked myself and went over the words that I was unfamiliar with. I learn better by writing. After answering the questions, I wrote them down along with the answers. ReviewHow often do you plan to review? I will review material immediately after reading and then come back to it periodically to prevent from forgetting. Certain topics will not need to be reviewed as often as others. Wrap-up questions: How successful was the SQ3R process in helping you grasp the concepts in the section you selected? Will you use SQ3R in the future as a way to master the content in academic readings?The SQ3R process was very successful. I am not a strong reader and using these guidelines gave me a very good baseline to use with future readings and grow from. These steps will help build a foundation for upcoming c lasses. Looking at an entire chapter or book can be overwhelming but by using these steps, it makes the tasks at hand more manageable. I look forward to strengthening my reading ability by using the SQ3R process.References Carter, C. , Bishop, J. , & Kravits, S. L. (2011). Keys to Effective Learning: Study Skills and Habits for Success (6th ed. ). : Allyn & Bacon.

The Origins of Human Sexuality - 2085 Words

The Origins of Human Sexuality In their book Homicide, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put forth a theory that challenges human societies common notion of human sexuality. They do this in an attempt to bring about a better understanding of homicide and male aggressiveness. According to Daly and Wilson, males instigate the overwhelming majority of dangerous altercations and they contend that this is due to status competition. Status competition is the idea that males must aggressively compete for sexual access to females in order to pass on their genes. Daily and Wilson cite the work of Charles Darwin, who in 1859 published a famous work on the theory of natural selection. The concepts presented in his book were later elaborated†¦show more content†¦This competition, according to the theory, makes the winners win bigger, and the losers#8230;more likely to be total losers. In their discussion of parental investment Daly and Wilson specify three different types of division. Larger females and smaller males characterize the first category called polyandry. In polyandrous species we see males making the larger parental investment, females being more combative, and males tending to out live their female counterparts. The second category is known as a monogamous breeding system. In this system the male and female parental investments are identical, the number of offspring each sex can have is identical and the fitness variances are equal. In monogamous species the male and female tend to be indistinguishable in that they are often the same size and carry the same markings. Monogamous species also have nearly the life expectancy. The final category is known as polygamy. Polygamy is a system in which the female makes the biggest parental investment. In polygamous species the male is often larger and more combative than the female and tends to live a shorter life. According to Daly and Wilson humans best fit into this last group. 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