GRE写作素材SectionThree:Ideas

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:21

下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题写作方面的思想和语言，考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些篇章，然后尝试写相关方面的作文题。

学习语言的人应该明白，表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累，潜移默化。从某种意义上说，提高英语写作能力无捷径可走，你必须大段背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力。这一关，没有任何人能代替你过。
因此，建议你下点苦功夫，把背单词的精神拿出来背诵文章。何况，并不是要求你背了之后永远牢记在心：你可以这个星期背，下个星期忘。这没有关系，相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力。背了工具箱里的文章后，你会惊讶的发现：I can think in English now！
1. Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a path to intellectual adventure. Though there are dozens of possible approaches, the process can be boiled down to concrete steps. This article offers some starting points for your journey.

Be willing to say “I don’t know”

Some of the most profound thinkers of our time have practiced the art of critical thinking by using two magic phrases: I don’t know and I’m not sure yet.

Those are words many people do not like to hear. We live in times when people are criticized for changing their minds. Our society rewards quick answers and quotable “sound bites.” We’re under considerable pressure to utter the truth in 15 seconds or less.

In such a society, it is a courageous and unusual act to pause, to look, to examine, to be thoughtful, to consider many points of view—and to not know. When a society embraces half-truths in a blind rush for certainty, commitment to uncertainty can move us forward.

This willingness to give up certainty can be hardest to accept when it comes to notions that seem obvious. “Many things are certain,” some people say. “For example, it’s obvious that two plus two equals four.”

Think again. When we use the base-three number system, two plus two equals 11. A child learning to write numerals might insist that two and two makes 22. And a biologist might joke that two plus two adds up to a whole lot more than four when we’re talking about the reproductive life of rabbits.

Even scientific knowledge is not certain. At a moment’s notice, the world can deviate from what we call “laws” of nature. Those laws exist inside our heads—not in the world. What’s more, modern science tells us many things that contradict everyday certainties. For example, physics presents us with a world where solid objects are made of atoms spinning around in empty space, where matter and energy are two forms of the same thing. Even in mathematics and the “hard” sciences, the greatest advances take place when age-old beliefs are reexamined.

Define your terms

Imagining two people arguing about whether an employer should extend family health care benefits to people who live together but are unmarried. To one person, the word family means a mother, father, and children. The other person applies the word family to any long-term, supportive relationships between people who live together. Chances are, the debate will go nowhere until these people realize they’re defining the same word in different ways.

Much opinion conflict can be resolved—or at least clarified—when we define our key terms up front. This is especially true with abstract, emotion-laden terms such as freedom, peace, progress, or justices. Blood has been shed over the meaning of these words. It pays for us to define them with care.

Practice tolerance

Having opinions about issues is natural. When you stop having opinions, you’re probably not breathing anymore. The problem comes when we hold opinions in a way that leads to defensiveness put-down, or put-offs.

Going hand in hand with critical thinking is tolerance for attitudes that differ from yours. Consider that many of the ideas we currently accept—democracy, Christianity, voting rights for women, civil rights for people of color—were once considered the claims of “dangerous” and unpopular minorities. This historical perspective helps us accept a tenet of critical thinking: What seems outlandish today may become widely accepted a century, a decade, or even a year from now.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:22

Understand before criticizing

When encountering any new viewpoint, we’re obligated to agree. Even so, critical thinking demands that we take the time to understand an idea before rejecting or modifying it. One mark of skilled debaters is that they can sum up the viewpoints they disagree with—often better than the people who hold those viewpoints can.

Strictly speaking, none of us lives in the same world. Our habits, preferences, outlooks, and values are as individual as our fingerprints. Each of them is shaped by our culture, our upbringing, our experiences, and our choices. Speeches, books, articles, works of art, television programs, views expressed in conversation—all come from people who inhabit a different world than yours. Until we’re lived in another person’s world for a while, it’s ineffective to dismiss her point of view.

This basic principle is central to many professions. Physicians diagnose before they prescribe. Lawyers brief themselves on the opponent’s case. Effective teachers find out what a student already knows before they guide her to ideas. Skilled salespeople find out what a customer’s needs are before they present a product.

Effective understanding calls for listening without judgment. To enter another person’s world, sum up her viewpoint in your own words. If you’re conversing with that person, keep revising your summary until she agrees you’ve stated her position accurately. If you’re reading an article, write a short summary of it. Then scan the article again, checking to see if your summary is on track.

Many of us find it difficult to fully permit others a point of view that is much different from ours. Instead we can actually celebrate other people’s opinions, knowing that diversity leads to valuable new ideas.

Watch for hot spots

Notice any anger or discomfort you feel when conversations shift to certain topics. During a presidential election, for instance, politics often becomes a “hot spot”—an area in which defenses rise, assumptions run rampant, and tempers quickly flare. All these things get in the way of thinking thoroughly.

Most of us have hot spots. For some people they include abortion or handgun control. Other people heat up when they talk about the death penalty or world government.

It pays for each of us to discover our special hot spots. We can also make a clear intention to practice critical thinking when we encounter these topics.

To cool down your hot spots, seek out the whole world of ideas. Avoid intellectual ruts. Read magazines and books that challenge the opinions you currently hold. If you consider yourself liberal, pick up the National Review. If you are a socialist, sample the Wall Street Journal. Do the same with radio and television programs. Make a point to talk with people who differ from you in education level, race, ethnic group, or political affiliation. And to hone your thinking skills, practice defending an idea you consider outrageous.

Consider the source

Look again at that article on the unfeasibility of cars powered by natural gas; it may have been written by an executive from an oil company. Check out the authority who disputes the connection between smoking and lung cancer; that person might be the president of a tobacco company.

This is not to say that we should dismiss the ideas of people who have a vested interest in their opinions. Rather, we can seek out contrasting viewpoints on theses issues.

Seek out alternative views

Imagine Karl Marx, Cesar Chavez, and Donald Trump gathered in one room to choose the most desirable economics system. Picture Gandhi, Winnie Mandela, and General George Patton in a seminar on conflict resolution. Visualize Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, and Mother Theresa in a discussion about how to balance the national budget. When you seek out alternative points of view, such events can take place in your mind’s arena.

Dozens of viewpoint exist on every critical issue how to reduce crime, end world hunger, prevent war, educate our children, and countless others. In fact, few problems allow for any permanent solution. Each generation produces new answers, based on current conditions. Our search for answers is a conversation that spans centuries. On each question, many voices are waiting to be heard. You can take advantage of this diversity by seeking out alternative viewpoints.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:23

Ask questions

Stripped to its essence, critical thinking means asking and answering questions. If you want to practice this skill, get in the habit of asking powerful questions.

In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren list four questions that sum up the whole task of thinking about another person’s ideas:

1.    What is the writing or speech about as a whole? To answer this question, state the basic theme in one sentence. Then list the major and minor topics covered.

2.    What is being said in detail, and how? List the main terms, assertions, arguments. Also state what problems the writer or speaker is trying to solve.

3.    Is it true? Examine the author’s logic and evidence. Look for missing information, faulty information, incomplete analysis, and errors in reasoning. Also determine which problems the writer or speaker truly solved and which remain unsolved.

4.    What of it? After answering the first three questions, prepare to change your thinking or behavior as a result of encountering new ideas.

These four questions apply not only to reading but also to any intellectual activity. They get to the heart of critical thinking.

Look for at least three answers

When asking questions, we can let go of the temptation to settle for just one answer. Once you have come up with an answer, say to yourself. Yes, that is one answer. Now what’s another? Using this approach can sustain honest inquiry, fuel creativity, and lead to conceptual breakthroughs.

Be prepared: The world is complicated, and critical thinking is a complex business. Some of your answers may contradict each other. Resist the temptation to have all your ideas in a neat, orderly bundle.

Be willing to change your mind

So many discussions generate heat instead of light. Often the people involved come already committed to certain viewpoints—which they have no intention of changing. They might just as well stop talking to each other.

We can avoid this trap by entering discussion with an open mind. When talking to another person, is willing to walk away with a new point of view—even if it’s the one you brought to the table? After thinking thoroughly, we can adopt new viewpoints or hold our current viewpoints in a different way.

Lay your cards on the table

Science and uncritical thinking differ in many ways. Uncritical thinkers shield themselves from new information and ideas. In contrast, scientists constantly look for facts that contradict their theories. In fact, science never proves anything once and for all. Scientific theories are tentative and subject to change. Scientists routinely practice critical thinking.

We can follow their example. When talking or writing, we can put all our ideas on the table for examination. We can allow others to freely examine our opinions and beliefs. When doing so, we make room for new ideas that can make a real difference in our lives.

Examine the problem from different points of view

Imagining that two people are standing across from each other, between them, suspended from the ceiling at eye level, is a ball. One person argues that the ball is red. The other person claims that the ball is green. As they rotate their positions and change their points of view, they see that the ball is actually red on one side and green on the other.

Sometimes new ideas are born when we view the world from a new angle. When early scientists watched the skies, they concluded that the sun revolved around the earth. Later, when we gained the mathematical tools to “stand” in another place, we could clearly see that the earth was revolving around the sun. This change in position not only sparked new thinking, it permanently changed our picture of the universe.

Write about it

Thoughts move randomly at blinding speed. Writing slows that process down. Gaps in logic that slips by us in thought or speech are often exposed when we commit the same ideas to paper. Doing so allows us to see all points of view on an issue more clearly and therefore to think thoroughly. Writing is an unparalleled way to practice precise, accurate thinking.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:24

Construct a reasonable view

One humorist compared finding the truth to painting a barn door by throwing open cans of paint at it. Few people who throw at the door miss it entirely. Yet no one can really cover the whole door in one toss. People who express their viewpoints are seeking truth. Yet almost no reasonable person claims to have covered the whole barn door—to have the Whole Truth about anything. Instead, each viewpoint is one approach among many possible approaches. If you don’t think that any one viewpoint is complete, then it’s up to you to combine the perspectives on the issues. In doing so, you choose an original viewpoint. This, like composing a song or painting a picture, is a creative act and an exhilarating exercise in critical thinking.

2.    The Function of Critical Thinking

Any organization draws its life from certain assumption about the way thing should be done. Before the institution can change, those assumptions need to be loosened up or reinvented. In many ways, the real location of an institution is inside our heads.

Critical thinking also helps us uncover bias and prejudice. This is a first step toward communicating with people of other races and cultures.

Crises occur when our thinking fails to keep pace with reality. An example is the ecological crisis, which sprang from the assumption that people could pollute the earth, air, and water without long-term consequences. Consider how different our world would be if our leaders had thought like the first woman chief of the Cherokees. Asked about the best advice her elders had given her, she said, “Look forward. Turn what has been done into a better path. If you are a leader, think about the impact of your decision on seven generations into the future.”

Novelist Ernest Hemingway once said that anyone who wanted to be a great writer must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector. That inelegant comment points to a perennial truth: As critical thinkers, we can be constantly on the lookout for thinking that’s inaccurate, sloppy, or misleading.

This is a skill that will never go out of style. History offers a continuing story of half-truth, faulty assumptions, and other nonsense once commonly accepted as true:

l  Bloodsucking leeches can be used to cure disease.

l  Illnesses result from an imbalance in the four vital fluids: blood, phlegm, water, and bile.

l  Racial integration of the armed forces will lead to the destruction of soldiers’ morale.

l  Caucasians are inherently more intelligent than people of other races.

l  Mixing the blood of the races will lead to genetically inferior offspring.

l  Women are incapable of voting intelligently.

l  We will never invent anything smaller than a transistor. (That was before the computer chip.)

l  Computers will usher in the age of the paperless office.

In response to such ideas rose the critical thinkers of history. These men and women courageously pointed out that—metaphorically speaking—the emperor had no clothes.

Critical thinking is a path to freedom from half-truths and deception. You have the right to question what you see, hear, and read. Acquiring this ability is one of the major goals of a liberal education.

3.    Critical Thinking as Thorough Thinking

For some people, the term critical thinking has negative connotations. If you prefer, use the words thorough thinking instead. Both terms point to the same array of activities: sorting out conflicting claims, weighting the evidence for them, letting go of personal biases, and arriving at reasonable views. This adds up to an ongoing conversation, a constant practices process, not a product.

We live in a society that seems to value quick answers and certainty. This is often at odds with effective thinking. Thorough thinking is the ability to examine and reexamine ideas that may seem obvious. Such thinking takes time and the willingness to say there subversive words: I don’t know. Thorough thinking is also the willingness to change our point of view as we continue to examine a problem. This calls for courage and detachment. Just ask anyone who has given a cherished point of view in light of new evidence.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:25

Skilled students are thorough thinkers. They distinguish between opinion and fact. They ask powerful questions. They make detailed observations. They uncover assumptions and define their terms. They make assertions carefully, basing them on sound logic and solid evidence. Almost everything that we call knowledge is a result of these activities. This means that critical thinking and learning are intimately linked.

It’s been said that human beings are rational creatures. Yet no one is born a thorough thinker. This is a learned skill. Use the suggestions in this chapter to claim the vast, latent thinking powers that are your birthright.

4. Creative people

It all started innocently enough. I had set out to learn what I could about creativity. And there I was: an amateur with a cause and three colleagues: two people from the Corporation for Entertainment and Learning, and my wife and coeditor, Judith, who is an educational consultant—all tossed about on a turbulent sea churned by the high-horsepower engines of scientists, scholars, psychiatrists, historians, educators, sociologists and philosophers whose careers have been devoted to exploring creativity.

The waves came over our little boat almost immediately. Here was the very considerable novelist Bernard Malamud declaring that “creativity is a complex thing… Maybe sometime in the future they actually will find the genetic tissue that makes it what it is. I don’t want to be around when that happens. I want artistic creativity to remain forever a mystery.”

On the other hand, there was the author George Prince acknowledging that although once he had thought of creativity as an extraordinary act of producing something new and useful, now he sees it “as less cosmic and more common, an everyday affair, a mode of thought and action that is ultimately associated with learning and changing not only one’s self but one’s situation.”

There you have it—the basic tension between those who believe creativity to be a mystery, possibly a gift to genius alone, and those who believe it can be demystified, nurtured, even democratized. One school will have nothing to do with trying to dissect creativity into scientifically defined variables. Another considers creativity to be the endowment of all of us. Actually, the conflict represent not only opposing views of creativity but also differing ideas about human nature.

Two things are implied in the word “creativity,” as I have come to understand it: novelty and significance. What is created is new, and the new opens up paths that expand human possibilities. All creative behavior breaks from the past but remains indebted to it. Maya Angelou—poet, author, director, actress—told me that she never “left” Stamps, Arkansas, although she had moved from the little Southwest Arkansas town 30 years ago: “You carry your home wherever you go” When I asked Maya Angelou to go back with me to where her own ascent creativity was first threatened and then forged, she did not want to go. But finally she agreed, and we glimpsed just how creative behavior grows from deep roots, which it never totally serves even as it transcends them.

There are other examples. Fred Smith, who founded Federal Express, had some compelling sense of duty which motivated him from childhood and became obsessive of while he was in Vietnam. Samson Raphael son, the playwright, says that the drive to be creative has its roots in some remote past no longer operating consciously but still there nonetheless. The inventions we shall see are all examples of departures from tradition, but none could have occurred without tradition.

Creative people, then, often look at something from the past that is the result of convergent thinking and by thinking about it divergently come up with a novel use of a familiar object. They look in the common place to find the strange. Instead of thinking toward old solutions, they think away from them, making the leap from the unexpected to the inspired. Poets do it with metaphors and smiles. Journalists can do it with garbage. Yes, garbage. It was the first subject we decided to explore because we sensed that it would be a usual vehicle for demonstrating that you can think creatively about almost anything, if you learn how to relate and connect what at casual glance seems odd to couple. In our research, we found an Arizona professor, a garbologist, teaching contemporary civilization through what people throw out; a New York artist turning ordinary things off the streets into works of art; and an East Texas sewage plant where earthworms are used to turn sludge into topsoil.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:26

We realized early in our reporting that there may be as many creative processes as there are creative people. And we decided that any full picturing of creativity would require many images. However, the people I met did confirm a number of creative behaviors. Creative people tolerate ambiguity. They have unremitting desire to create a satisfying new order out of chaos, and the courage to persist to create that order on one’s own terms. This makes them often cantankerous, sometimes exasperating, always unconventional. What matters to them is not what others think of them but what they think of themselves.

5. The Lowest Animal

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals” (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian Theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals, since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is commonly called the scientific method. Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the course of my reading I had come across a case where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl, and to provide some fresh meat. They killed seventy two of those great animals; and ate part of one of them and left the seventy one to rot. In order to determine the difference between an anaconda and an earl—if any—I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda’s cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas; always with the same result. The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isn’t; and that the earl wantonly destroys what he has no use for, but the anaconda doesn’t. This seemed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl. It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.

I furnished a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast stores of food, but none of them would do it. The squirrels and bees and certain, birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter’s supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it. In order to bolster up a tottering reputation the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not deceived. I know the ant. These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and miserly—they are not.

In the course of my injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.

Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concubines, therefore no wrong is done. Men keep harems, but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other sex is allowed no hand in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster.

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity—these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals. The cat plays with the frightened mouse; but she has this excuse, that she does not know that the mouse is suffering. The cat is moderate—inhumanly moderate: she only scares the mouse: she does not hurt it; she doesn’t dig out its eyes, or tear off its skin, or drive splinters under its nails—man fashion; when she is done playing with it she makes a sudden meal of it and puts it out of its trouble. Man is the Cruel Animal. He is alone in that distinction.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:27

The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country, takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages. There is not an acre of ground on the global that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed.

Man is the only slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man’s slave for wages and does that man’s work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His record is the fantastic record of a maniac. In truth, man in incurably foolish. Simply things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning.

And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor-some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance—insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch less innocence, till we have reached the bottom stages of development—namable as the Human Being, Below us—nothing.

6. Decision by Consensus

Perhaps the most fundamental difference in management style between the Japanese and most other countries lies in the area of decision-making. Westerners often find the Japanese method of making decisions to be aggravatingly slow. Few realize the very different thought processes and procedures that are going on.

Westerners tend to make major decisions at the top, in board meetings, among department heads, and the like. They then pass the word down the line to managers and others, to implement and carry out the decision. The Japanese do the opposite. Their system, commonly known as ringi, is the corporate version of “government by consensus.”

Decisions are not made “on high” and handed down to be implemented. Rather, they are proposed from below and move upward, receiving additional input and approvals after deliberation through all levels of the company.

“One should think of the system as a filter through which ideas pass,” says Robert T. Moran. “The whole process, as it winds its way through various levels of the company, can last from two to three weeks to a matter of months. Each level takes its own time to go over the details. If the matter under consideration is complex or sensitive, it can take even longer.”

For decisions that are not of really major importance, approvals can be given by various individuals (or by groups of them). But when any decision is a matter of great importance, the Japanese look for broad consensus. Ringi should be seen as a “process” rather than a system. It gives management the choice of a broad selection of pragmatic options. Often the initiator is a section chief. He proposes an idea (which may well have been suggested to him by one of his workers). He gets his section members to research it; they all discuss it. When satisfied, he passed it up the line.

Even junior members take part in all this deliberation. It is considered part of their training and as a means of developing their company motivation. The idea is considered all the way up until it reaches the president. If he approves it, it will have been seen, considered, and passed on by virtually everyone who could be in any way involved in the final implementation. One can imagine the bargaining, persuasion, trading of favors, seeking of support, and general “lobbying” that goes on throughout the process! All of this is known as nemawashi, which means ‘binding up the roots.’ (The image is that of a tree that will survive only if everything is properly prepared in advance.)

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:28

One of the major benefits of ringi is that avoids the possibility of anyone being marked as “personally responsible” for a decision. Where responsibility can be diffused, potentially embarrassing “loss of face” can be avoided. No fingers can be pointed.

“Delays in making even simple decisions can become almost unbearable at times,” said a fast-moving American executive who works with a worldwide hotel chain. “Everybody has to be involved with everything,” he continued. “It takes forever. As far as I am concerned, this is without a doubt the very hardest part of working for a Japanese company. You feel as if you can never get a decision on anything, large or small.”

“By the time the decision finally does come through,” added another, “I have usually lost interest in whatever it was and am on to something else. Interminable delays are deflating to one’s sense of energy and drive.”

If you try to hurry the process, it does more than harm than good. The Japanese do not like pressure. Obviously, frustrated Westerners will be itching to know what is going on as the silence goes into weeks or months. You submit a proposal or an inquiry. Nothing happens. Who is holding it up? What is happening? Did the message ever get through?

If the decision you are impatient for relates to a new idea, perhaps something you have initiated, you can count on a really long delay. If, on the other hand, the company is merely talking about some refinement of an idea they have already agreed to in principle, then it may take considerably less time to come up with a reply.

But you can take it for granted that you will rarely get quick action unless, as one veteran of the business world put it, ‘You have gold that is $7.00 on the open market and are willing to sell it for $6.00. Then you will get action without delay.” You may occasionally encounter Japanese who will try to foreshorten their normal time as a concession to Western impatience. But you don’t count on it.

In writing this book, I asked a number of businessmen who work well with Japanese colleagues what they consider to be the single biggest factor in their success. In every single case the first attribute mentioned was “patience, patience, and still more patience.” They all agreed: “if you lose your patience or lose your cool, you are likely to find yourself empty-handed.”

Although the ringi system is undoubtedly slow, no one can complain afterwards. Harmony is served, factionalism and power struggles are at least minimized—if not eliminated—for once the process has reached a certain stage, no one feels he can “buck the tide.” So, he goes along with it and initials it. After that, he is effectively silenced. Direct opposition is rarely effective among the Japanese. One achieves more with them through the kind of persuasion and negotiating-one might say “lobbying”—that is sanctioned and made broadly possible through nemawashi.

Actually, the length of delay before achieving the ultimate goal may not be as great as it sometimes appears when compared with Western systems. Where the Western “top-down” approach to decision—making is used, the original plan or agreement is frequently made relatively quickly at the top in the board room. However, delays of weeks or months may subsequently follow while staffs and workers are first apprised of the decisions and then persuaded to give their cooperative support. Both steps are necessary before a plan can actually get moving with any momentum. When lower levels have not participated in making the decision, misunderstandings, snags, balks, or other delays frequently occur.

In Japan, in contrast, once the decision is finally and actually arrived at, all relevant staff members understand it thoroughly. They are familiar with its various ramifications. During the talking stages, they will have pretty well mastered the “what-when-how” of their own responsibilities vis-à-vis the project in question. So, although it may take a long time to arrive at the decision, once approval has been given they can put it into practice rapidly and smoothly. The final time difference between the two systems, therefore, may not be as far apart as it can sometimes seem.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-15 12:52:29

Furthermore, in the Japanese system, those in low echelons feel they have been involved. They have been able—often urged—to suggest proposals, projects, or refinements. Japanese bosses believe in encouraging suggestions from the rank and file. The idea of creating a consensus that incorporates the whole organizational hierarchy is at the heart of Japanese business philosophy and methods.

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[GRE写作] GRE写作素材SectionThree:Ideas