TEDxHultAshridge eventâ€Provoking Change

As disruptive innovators, Provoking Change was a fitting theme for the recent TEDxHultAshridge collaboration held at our  Ashridge Estate Campus just outside London. Over 15 Hult research faculty from our campuses around the world came together to present TEDx talks on their areas of expertise. All of Hults research is primarily focused on tackling two challenges: Transforming Behavior and Creating Disruption. Subjects presented by our experts ranged from the importance of sleep, modern slavery in the supply chain, to philosophy and Artificial Intelligence. View the  TEDx Playlist here  to catch all of the talks from the day. See below five highlights from this inspiring day: How your power silences truth Leaders need their people to have the confidence to speak up and deliver sometimes uncomfortable truths about what is really going on in their organization. But getting others to open up is as much about you as it is about them. In this thought-provoking talk, Dr. Megan Reitz warns of the three traps we all fall into that have the effect of silencing others.  Do you know how scary you really are? Human values and power in a world of Artificial Intelligence AI is already being applied to everything from the environment and elder-care to peace-keeping and psychotherapy. But there is a potential dark side. One of the key issues facing industry today is the inability of robots to use morals or apply human values to their decisions and interactions. Global Professor of Strategy, Innovation, and Economics Dr. Olaf Groth believes we need to bring global stakeholders together to develop a new Magna Carta to drive transparent governance of AI in the digital age. Entrepreneurial success and self-confidence through rejection Professor of Entrepreneurship and former grizzly bear biologist Dr. Ted Ladd explores the role that rejection plays in shaping successful startups. Entrepreneurs who scientifically evaluate their ideas are likely to be significantly more successful than those who rely on instinct alone. And research shows that those who rejected ideas because their hypothesis didn’t stack up had an even higher chance of ultimately achieving success. So why is rejection more important than confirmation when it comes to successful entrepreneurship? Do business schools develop leadership capability? In this provocative talk, behavioral scientist Amanda Nimon Peters suggests that business schools need to rethink the way they develop leadership behaviors in their students. Typical business school programs are geared up to equipping students with knowledge and assessing them on their ability to demonstrate that knowledge. But knowing is not the same as doing, and there is now widespread acknowledgement that academic success is not necessarily a predictor of good performance in the workplace. Dr. Amanda shares insights from a major research study exploring the steps and time frames necessary for students to improve their leadership behaviors. The results are surprising—watch Amandas talk to uncover the three key implications for the way business schools should design their leadership programs. The business of sleep: The wake-up call If all employees slept for 7-9 hours every night for a year, it could save the UK a staggering  £38 billion. In this fascinating talk, Dr. Vicki Culpin highlights the cost to industry of a workforce where staff are under-performing because of the physical and emotional effects of sleep deprivation. She argues that this is a business issue as well as a personal one, and a situation that organizations ignore to their cost. Businesses need to examine their working practices, provide support and information for employees, and employ the same predictive maintenance techniques that are prevalent in manufacturing to the well-being of their people. Participants ended the day buzzing with their own ideas, challenged to think about what steps were needed to transform behavior and create positive disruption within their own organizations. You can watch all of the talks here. If youd like to speak to any of our faculty regarding their talks or subject areas please do  get in touch. To find out more about Hult’s global business programs,  download a brochure here. Step up your game with executive education at Ashridge agile business school. To find out more, take a look at our blog Hult undergrads build their leadership skills: The Ashridge Cohort Experience, or firm up your exec career footing with a Masters in International Business from Hult. Download a brochure or get in touch today to find out how Hult can help you learn everything about the business world, the future, and yourself. Hult Rotation offers you a chance to study in a truly global way. Our rotation program allows you to study and be immersed in some of the finest cities in the world. 📠¸: @jasminmanzano . Hult Rotation offers you a chance to study in a truly global way. Our rotation program allows you to study and be immersed in some of the finest cities in the world. 📠¸: @jasminmanzano . Each year, Hult seeks to enroll a talented and ambitious incoming class from all over the world. We look for diverse students with a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and interests—students who will thrive in our unique educational atmosphere. Are you ready for a truly global experience? 📠¸: @iambrunadiniz . Each year, Hult seeks to enroll a talented and ambitious incoming class from all over the world. We look for diverse students with a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and interests—students who will thrive in our unique educational atmosphere. Are you ready for a truly global experience? 📠¸: @iambrunadiniz . We’re excited to start 2020 on a ranking high! Hult is proud to have been placed #28 in Poets Quants 2020 rankings for Best Undergraduate Business Schools in the US. Taking a huge leap of 32 places from our 2019 position, we’re also very happy to have secured top positions in key categories like: life-changing experience, practicality of the degree, and global immersion. . With five global campuses, a student body of over 130 nationalities, and a learn-by-doing approach—Hult offers a student experience like no other. . We’re excited to start 2020 on a ranking high! Hult is proud to have been placed #28 in Poets Quants 2020 rankings for Best Undergraduate Business Schools in the US. Taking a huge leap of 32 places from our 2019 position, we’re also very happy to have secured top positions in key categories like: life-changing experience, practicality of the degree, and global immersion. . With five global campuses, a student body of over 130 nationalities, and a learn-by-doing approach—Hult offers a student experience like no other. . â€Å"I’m from an engineering background and needed a whole new skill set for the industry I wanted to switch to. I learned a lot about myself and how I deal with being out of my comfort zone. I learned both soft and hard skills, from how to work in very diverse teams to key accounting metrics and strategy. I was surprised by how weak I was at certain tasks in English or how strong I actually was in other areas. Hult gave me opportunities to try new things and meet people from places I never thought I would have friends. . My internship experiences gave me the chance to broaden my view of different cultures and different companies. I had the opportunity to work and live with people whose values differed from people in my home country. I thought that this would be difficult, but it gave me the chance to reflect on my own values and assess if they were a result of my home country environment or if they were intrinsically mine. . Diederick ter Kulve (@diederick.terkulve) Netherlands Masters in International Business . â€Å"I’m from an engineering background and needed a whole new skill set for the industry I wanted to switch to. I learned a lot about myself and how I deal with being out of my comfort zone. I learned both soft and hard skills, from how to work in very diverse teams to key accounting metrics and strategy. I was surprised by how weak I was at certain tasks in English or how strong I actually was in other areas. Hult gave me opportunities to try new things and meet people from places I never thought I would have friends. . My internship experiences gave me the chance to broaden my view of different cultures and different companies. I had the opportunity to work and live with people whose values differed from people in my home country. I thought that this would be difficult, but it gave me the chance to reflect on my own values and assess if they were a result of my home country environment or if they were intrinsically mine. . Diederick ter Kulve (@diederick.terkulve) Netherlands Masters in International Business . Say a big hello to our Bachelor of Business Administration program cover star, Elisa Orus Plana âÅ" ¨ . â€Å"I’m excited for the future—especially that I cant predict whats going to happen. Maybe Ill end up in Mexico working for a trading company or maybe in Africa, developing my own business. Everything is possible, and the options are constantly changing. I love the idea that Im never going to be stuck doing the same job until the end of my life if I dont want it to be like this. . Hult really supports me and my ambitions and truly believes that we deserve to be considered as professionals as well as students. Here, I get to express not just my opinions but all elements of myself. From my creative side with the Fashion Society to my finance and business sides in Trading Club and the Management Consulting Club. We get a different type of learning here. Not just essential knowledge and theory, but practical skills and mindset. The school is always evolving. We’re encouraged to innovate and to always look for new ways of doing traditional things. We learn how to be more confident and become aware of how we can impact our environment. The school aims to help you become a better version of yourself and to stand out from the crowd.â€Å" . Elisa Orus Plana French Bachelor of Business Administration Class of 2021 Say a big hello to our Bachelor of Business Administration program cover star, Elisa Orus Plana âÅ" ¨ . â€Å"I’m excited for the future—especially that I cant predict whats going to happen. Maybe Ill end up in Mexico working for a trading company or maybe in Africa, developing my own business. Everything is possible, and the options are constantly changing. I love the idea that Im never going to be stuck doing the same job until the end of my life if I dont want it to be like this. . Hult really supports me and my ambitions and truly believes that we deserve to be considered as professionals as well as students. Here, I get to express not just my opinions but all elements of myself. From my creative side with the Fashion Society to my finance and business sides in Trading Club and the Management Consulting Club. We get a different type of learning here. Not just essential knowledge and theory, but practical skills and mindset. The school is always evolving. We’re encouraged to innovate and to always look for new ways of doing traditional things. We learn how to be more confident and become aware of how we can impact our environment. The school aims to help you become a better version of yourself and to stand out from the crowd.â€Å" . Elisa Orus Plana French Bachelor of Business Administration Class of 2021"> During the final days of 2019, you probably reflected on what you’ve accomplished this year—and even this decade—and what you’d like to achieve in 2020. Let us know in the comments below. During the final days of 2019, you probably reflected on what you’ve accomplished this year—and even this decade—and what you’d like to achieve in 2020. Let us know in the comments below. â€Å"The first time we did group work on the program, I went head-to-head with a colleague. It taught me a lot about how I see people, how people see me, and how conflict can be resolved in a kind and productive way. The best feedback you get, when delivered constructively, is the most critical because it really feeds into how you lead. I’ve completely reversed my leadership style—the result is so much richer and more powerful when you lead from behind and lead with strength. . Studying in tandem with working, whilst challenging, gave me the perfect platform to directly apply learning concepts into my business environment, the competitive landscape, and the real-estate industry as a whole. When I started the program, I was very happy in my corporate role. But my courage and aspirations grew to the point that I took on a whole new direction. Having my career coach, Joanna, as a sounding board allowed me to really be strategic and get to know myself. She coached me thro ugh all the interviews, the research, and the questions. It went in parallel with what I was doing academically and after six months everything just clicked. . I went into the EMBA knowing I had nothing to lose and I’ve come out with everything. Great strength, global friends, amazing learning, mentors from professors, a job I love, and the knowledge that I can set my mind to achieve anything and with the right support and resources I’ll get there.† . Kashani Wijetunga British, New Zealand Sri Lankan Associate Director Senior Strategy Consultant CBRE EMBA Class of 2019 . â€Å"The first time we did group work on the program, I went head-to-head with a colleague. It taught me a lot about how I see people, how people see me, and how conflict can be resolved in a kind and productive way. The best feedback you get, when delivered constructively, is the most critical because it really feeds into how you lead. I’ve completely reversed my leadership style—the result is so much richer and more powerful when you lead from behind and lead with strength. . Studying in tandem with working, whilst challenging, gave me the perfect platform to directly apply learning concepts into my business environment, the competitive landscape, and the real-estate industry as a whole. When I started the program, I was very happy in my corporate role. But my courage and aspirations grew to the point that I took on a whole new direction. Having my career coach, Joanna, as a sounding board allowed me to really be strategic and get to know myself. She coached me thro ugh all the interviews, the research, and the questions. It went in parallel with what I was doing academically and after six months everything just clicked. . I went into the EMBA knowing I had nothing to lose and I’ve come out with everything. Great strength, global friends, amazing learning, mentors from professors, a job I love, and the knowledge that I can set my mind to achieve anything and with the right support and resources I’ll get there.† . Kashani Wijetunga British, New Zealand Sri Lankan Associate Director Senior Strategy Consultant CBRE EMBA Class of 2019 . â€Å"It was now or never. I knew that I’d have likely stayed in my neighborhood for years to come if I didn’t take this opportunity. I’d not lived or studied outside of the U.S. before. So I left my job as a global strategist at an advertising agency and moved halfway around the world. I’ve come back a more culturally aware, well-versed person. I’ve realized that everything is a learning experience and an opportunity for growth. Ill definitely carry this mindset with me into the future. Technology and social media allow us to be different people in several places at once. Im excited to see how I can establish myself in whatever city Ill be lucky enough to call home and still maintain deep connections with people all over the world. I’m inspired by my classmates every day. Hearing some of their life stories and how getting this degree fits into their greater mission has been very humbling. My biggest challenge has been finding the ‘right’ path for me. There have been rooms Ive felt like I shouldnt be in, but now Im proud to feel as though I truly belong, wherever I am.† . Dwayne Logan, Jnr. American MBA Class of 2019 . â€Å"It was now or never. I knew that I’d have likely stayed in my neighborhood for years to come if I didn’t take this opportunity. I’d not lived or studied outside of the U.S. before. So I left my job as a global strategist at an advertising agency and moved halfway around the world. I’ve come back a more culturally aware, well-versed person. I’ve realized that everything is a learning experience and an opportunity for growth. Ill definitely carry this mindset with me into the future. Technology and social media allow us to be different people in several places at once. Im excited to see how I can establish myself in whatever city Ill be lucky enough to call home and still maintain deep connections with people all over the world. I’m inspired by my classmates every day. Hearing some of their life stories and how getting this degree fits into their greater mission has been very humbling. My biggest challenge has been finding the ‘right’ path for me. There have been rooms Ive felt like I shouldnt be in, but now Im proud to feel as though I truly belong, wherever I am.† . Dwayne Logan, Jnr. American MBA Class of 2019 . Happy New Year, Hultians! . Happy New Year, Hultians! .

The Metaphor of the Cave - Literature Essay Samples

Plato introduces his famous allegory of the cave with the phrase, like this: thus establishing that the passage is structured as a metaphor, and therefore must be read both as a figurative description and a symbolic representation of a concrete state of being (VII:514). He also emphasizes that the reader must imagine, a command that reinforces the allegorical nature of the work the reader enters into the text as both a voyeur and an actual conceptualist of the image being imagined (VII: 514). As the passage goes through its multiple spatial and metaphysical levels of creation, the reader experiences the exact procession of which he is reading about in the work, thus creating a replication of the same education that Plato addresses within The Republic as a whole. This experience also clarifies for the reader the role of the philosopher king and the notion of the kallipolis a construct based around this vision of truth and wisdom with its multifaceted synthesis of many topos within the dialogue. Thus the allegory is not only a self-contained vision of the effects of education on our nature, but a prolonged metaphor whose figurative language both intrinsically and superficially draws upon the greater themes at play within the work as a whole (VII:514).After Platos beginning introduction of the passage as a metaphor, the author goes on togeographically set up the scene for the reader, choosing images that directly reflect their symbolic purpose. The passage works within a pattern of ideological introductions followed by figurative illustrations, an interplay that creates a series of linked revelations that formulate a complete world of allegorical context. The underground, cavelike dwelling, inspires connotations of darkness and suppression within the imagination of the reader, and the detailed spatial layout and human inhabitation only serve to heighten the sense of figurative tension (VII:514). These humans have been there since childhood, fixed in the sa me place, with their necks and legs fettered, thus indicating that they have developed fully within the cave, and know nothing but the small plane of vision, shadows reflected upon the cave, offered to them within their shackles (VII:514).This idea of imprisonment becomes significant as the metaphor continues and the fusion of the figurative with the concrete beings to render itself within the text. Glaucon replies to this scene with, Its a strange image youre describing, and strange prisoners, providing the viewpoint of the reader within the allegory, drawing it once again back to the actual as did the command of imagine at the beginning of the metaphor (VII:515).After the monologue of the set up, the passage returns to the traditional exchange of the dialogue, with the startling statement of theyre like us, drawing the reader into the world of the allegory even more deeply the association between the actual and the allegorical now begins to take form as the dialogue progresses, its structure mimicking the actual mental processes of the function of comprehension (VII:515). Plato follows this association with a series of suppositions, invoking Glaucon to conceptualize and legitimate the vision of the cave as Plato ventures deeper into the metaphor. The reader is then asked to consider what [the prisoners] being released from their bonds and cured of their ignorance would naturally be like if something like this came to pass (VII:515c). The use of ÂÅ'naturally here is extremely significant, because it not only evokes the theme of nature, but in doing so also reveals the deeper topos of justice there is a natural order to a just person that is independent of human decision and passion, an idea of put[ing] himself in ordernot concerned with someones doing his own externally, but with what his inside him, that is an analogous image to the enclosed situation of the cave (IV: 443d). So what happens when one of the prisoners is suddenly compelled to stand up, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light? (VII:515c). Coming from such a spatially stagnant narrative, this rapid movement both prepares the reader for change and places the forthcoming image in a prism of significance.What follows is the basic figurative illustration of Platos goal of education, his higher truth or Dialectic. The unshackled prisoner goes into the light and sees more correctly, pained and frightened at first, but finally able to study and see in some way the cause of all the things that he used to see (516c). Thus the intellectual voyage of seeing the truth is illustrated in a spatially governed setting, a scene that is almost theatrical in its technical precision and choreography-based imagery. The ensuing struggle of this enlightened human with his ignorant prisoners both echoes and illustrates Platos ideal of the kallipolis with its golden philosophers and silver and bronze populous. The enlightened have to make the ascent and see the good[and ther efore] must go down to live in the common dwelling place of the othersand will see vastly better than the people there. And because [theyve] seen the truth about fine, just, and good things, [theyll] know each image for what it is[and] the city will be governedby people who are awake rather than dreaming (VII:520c-d).Platos constant references to the adjustment of the eyes, the blinding of the sun, and the dimness of the shadows all reflect the dominant metaphor of luminosity. Thus the passage has moved from the spatial to the motional to the visual, indicating the different allegorical stages of his metaphor, and also indicating a metaphysical move from the tangible to the intangible as his allegory and its subject fuse more topically together. Plato even goes so far as to explain the meaning of his whole image, saying it must be fitted together with what [he] said before. The visible realm should be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire inside it to the pow er of the sun. And if [we] interpret the upward journey and the study of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, [well] grasp what [he hopes] to convey (VII:517b). Thus Plato both begins and ends his allegory with specific directives, creating a framed vision embedded within an interpretive text that explains as well as draws from its image.Plato continues this metaphor of sight when analyzing this allegory just presented to us within his interpretive text. Education isnt what some people declare it to beputting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes. The power to learn is in everyones soul andthe instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body. Education takes for granted that the sight is there but that it isnt turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately (VII:518c-d). This re direction happens when the philosophers go down again to the prisoners in the cave and share their labors and honors, [thus] spread[ing] happiness throughout the city by bringing the citizens into harmony with each other through persuasion or compulsion and by making them share with each other the benefits that each class can confer on the city (VII:519e-520). Plato thus illustrates the major tenets of the work, up to and including the nature of justice and the definition of happiness, with the single dominant metaphor of a ÂÅ'cave in which special, motional, and visual limitations are transcended by the individual and then revealed to the whole.The allegory of the cave culminates a series of allegories in which Plato illustrates his main points within the Republic. This allegory, as the last in the series, is paradoxically almost the easiest to understand the culmination of the education of the reader has allowed him to be enlightened in a more profound way than previously, as he has experienced alongside Glaucon a dramatization of the fundamental process of education. The vision of the cave explains some of the most complex points within Platos work, but does them in such a metaphorical way it is as if we are not being taught, but are enacting the teaching ourselves. This idea of faked involvement, such a noble falsehood, echoes the philosophers noble falsehoods to the populous of the kallipolis, and reveals the narrative structure that guides us throughout the work we are but voyeurs to Platos fabulous constructions.