History of the Olympic Games Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

History of the Olympic Games - Term Paper Example Zeus, an Olympic god, was said to be the father of humanity. Zeus is said to have fought a god known as Cronus in a struggle for the throne with other gods. The demigod, Heracles, staged games in Olympia in honor of Zeus. The games aimed at encouraging good relations among the cities of Greece and showing the physical qualities accomplished by the youth in Greece. The ultimate importance of the games was religion. During the first recorded Olympic Games, a nude runner, by the name Coroebus, won the sole event at the competition. He was a cook from Elis, a town in Greece. He competed in 210 yards or approximately 192 meters and became the first Olympics champion in the history. The ancient Olympic Game events continued to occur every four years for the next 1200 years. In 393, CE, Theodosius I, the Roman emperor, decided to abolish games, claiming they had pagan influences. Emperor Theodosius was a staunch Christian. About 1600 years later, Pierre Coubertin, a young French aristocrat, began to revive the games. Coubertin was born on January 1st, 1863. Coubertin was only seven when Germans overran the French. The period was known as the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. This young French aristocrat witnessed the defeat of French military and he attributed it to a lack of vigor. According to Coubertin, sports were among the motivating factors needed to have France regain its place. He concluded that Americans, Germans and the British did not have any superior education compared to the French. His proposal was not met with much enthusiasm. His persistence to get France interested in sports continued. He planned and founded a sports organization in 1890. The union named USFSA was launched, and two years later he pitched the idea to have the Olympic Games revived (IOC 10). The games mainly featured athletics. Later, chariot racing and combat were introduced as Olympic events. All conflicts occurring during the games were postponed until the events were completed. To many, the origin of the Olympics games is shrouded in mystery. Another myth suggested that the first games occurred in 775 BCE after some inscriptions were found in the city of Olympia. The ancient Olympic Games featured boxing, javelin, running and equestrian events. The myth concurs that Olympic Games had a fundamental religious importance. Another similarity with the earlier myth is that ritual sacrifices were offered in honor of Zeus which was a famous statue. The idol was a divine hero and an alleged god of Olympia. According to the Greek traditions, a four-year period was known as an Olympiad, which was a unit of time. This is said to be the source of Olympics (â€Å"Olympic Movement† 4). The Olympic Games became part of a cycle called Pan-Hellenic games. They included Isthmian, Pythain, and Nemean games. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Olympics reached what was known as zenith. With the rise of the Roman Empire, the Olympic Games declined in terms of their importance. The Roman Empire gained power and influence over Greece. Emperor Theophilus II ordered the destruction of all Greek templates in 426 CE. This caused the Olympic Games to be officially ended. According to Coubertin, the revival of Olympics was necessary to bring peace and create friendship among nations. He planned and organized a meeting of seventy-nine delegates representing nine countries in just two years. The meeting was held in an auditorium decorated with neoclassical murals. In the

Arguments For And Against Resistance To Change Essay

Arguments For And Against Resistance To Change - Essay Example With evidence of companies failing to change owing to resistance by employees, it is no wonder that organizations invest great time and resources to conduct training and coaching in order to reduce resistance to change. While there are strong arguments that support this view, there are various reasons to prove that managing resistance to change may, in fact, may not be a good idea always. One reason why resistance to change may be productive is that it prevents bad/wrong ideas from being assimilated in the organization. Employee resistance to change allows firms to rethink â€Å"why† they are changing. In other words, it allows leadership to reconsider the business case for change with a critical perspective. If all employees agreed and there was no resistance, clearly management could oversee the ‘downside’ of changing making it unprofitable for the firm in the long run. Furthermore, because resistance to change often comprises of the fear factor (including loss of status, power or even job for employees), it encourages the top management to discover the impact that change would have on the ‘people’. Therefore, resistance to change is essential in the sense that it allows management to develop an open-ended view of change and consider the drawbacks of change. By doing so, managers can then come up with policies and procedures to counter the drawbacks and make change more workable and feasible for employees. Furthermore, the fact that resistance is seen as a â€Å"problem† to change leads management to derive strategies to overcome rather than engage it. Managers may often go at length to reduce the ‘threat’ of resistance and, in doing so, may adopt tactics that may be harmful to the organization. As a result, it is common to find management taking on an overly defensive role in trying to push the change too hard as well as become overly protective of their status in trying to win the argument against disgrun tled employees (Watson, 1982). This occurs because management views resistance to change as a reactive process in which agents possessing power oppose the reactions of other agents (Jermier et al., 1994). This leads them into an evitable trap whereby the management becomes overly concerned with protecting their position and argument rather than listening to what the disgruntled employees have to say. As a result, communication is reduced and the situation evolves into a manager-employee conflict. This stems from the fact that managers may alienate employees who are seen as obstacles rather than resources for change. Consequently, this conflict results in loss of reputation and poor relationships with employees, thereby reducing the morale of employees. Additionally, managing resistance to change often brings with the incorrect assumption that resistance is a one-sided phenomenon. Managers may become overly simplistic to assume that resistance is caused only by the attitudes and beha viors of employees. In fact, many models, such as three dimensional model of change, are based on the inherent assumption that resistance is solely the product of the behavior, emotions and attitudes of the employees (Hayes, 2010). Under this view, managers attempt to see the resistors as irrational and self-centered and consequently, try to block their interference in the change process. Although this true, resistance to change can be attributed partially to the way in which the organization is bringing about change and the behavior of managers in this respect. Therefore, managers who hold this view often ignore the fact that resistance to change is, in fact, feedback and that it must not be blocked or reduced but dealt with