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Company culture is a hot topic for nearly every business. Everyone wants to create a productive, collaborative and inviting work environment where all employees follow shared values and work toward a common goal.
We asked a group of entrepreneurs to share how they encourage their teams to participate in building the company culture. Here are their top recommendations.
Get employee input on the hiring process
While a hiring manager should always have a final say over who joins the team, it could help to allow employees of all levels to participate in the hiring process. Ismael Wrixen, CEO of FE International recommends letting some of a candidate's future teammates sit in on an interview, as this can help you find people who will fit in well with your other employees.
"Our company has a real familiar feel, and team members often socialize outside or work." Wrixen explains. ''Considering how people will fit in the team once they are hired has always been an important consideration."
Create a space and environment that allows for breaks
Company culture-building can sometimes feel forced, says Jessica Gonzalez, CEO of InCharged. To make it more organic and natural, Gonzalez believes the best thing to do is to create the space and environment for it.
"Some companies get a Ping-Pong table,” she says. "It doesn't really matter the details, but you have given your employees permission to take breaks and blow off some steam with their coworkers. That's where culture and connection will be built."
Stop micromanaging
If you want your employees to build a great culture of their own, don't disturb the process, says Solomon Thimothy, president of OneIMS. While he monitors all processes on his team (including culture-building), he only gets involved when his staff needs him, rather than constantly micromanaging.
"Connect people with each other, define your expectations, set the pace and leave them alone,” Thimothy says.
Plan activities that reflect your shared values
According to Beth Doane, managing partner of Main & Rose, your internal brand should reflect your external one. She recommends bringing your team together around a shared set of values and then doing activities to strengthen that brand.
"As a social-good focused firm, we love doing activities that give back-hiking, volunteering, cleaning up the environment, Doane adds. "It's fun and it gets the whole team involved in our mission."
Ask for their ideas and suggestions
If you really want your employees to help build the company culture, all you have to do is ask them for their input. Chris Christoff, cofounder of Monster Insights, says he is open to suggestions from team members on how to perform more efficiently.
“Opening the invitation to new ideas fosters a positive company culture because it shows employees their voices are heard and their opinions matter because they do," Christoff says. “It creates a relaxing, trustworthy environment where everyone respects what each other has to say.”
Anyhow, it's important to remember that culture is not necessarily a top-down creation. Instead, a successful culture is developed and maintained by the workers who live it every single day.
Company culture | |
Introduction
| Companies hope to possess a productive, collaborative work environment where every employee 1.shared values. |
2. from entrepreneurs | It helps when staff get 3. in the hiring process, despite the fact that employers always have a final say. |
The company had better create a space and environment that takes 4.of breaks, making it possible for the employees to 5. stress. | |
The employers should leave development room for employees after setting goals for them but come to their assistance only if 6. | |
Based on shared values, the company ought to do activities where your internal brand should 7.external one. | |
It's a wise choice to 8.employees about ideas and suggestions because such a relaxing, trustworthy environment allows everybody to show 9. for each other's opinions. | |
Conclusion
| Company culture is not necessarily a top-down creation. Instead, its 10.and maintenance depend on workers themselves. |
When the novelist Luis Alberto Urrea was 14 or 15, he took a trip deep into Mexico. He was born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and a white American mother before moving just across the border and eventually into the San Diego suburbs. But his father thought he was becoming “too American”, and took him on a 27-hour journey to Mazatian. Along the way, his father gave him a paperback copy of The Godfather and told him it would change his life. “I don’t think he was trying to make a case for us being criminals,” Urrea says, “but he really felt this incredible connection to the family and the traditions and the honor for the old country, as people were making their way in the U.S.”
In his new novel The House of Broken Angels, Urrea has written his own take on the Godfather story with a Mexican-American Don Corleone figure at its center. The story takes place over two days, as Big Angel de la Cruz buries his mother and celebrates his final birthday party on earth; he knows he’s dying, and he’s gathered his extended family around him for a noisy and lively goodbye.
The idea was inspired by the final birthday party of Urrea’s elder brother three years ago. “Everybody was jammed in his backyard, and there was a DJ and people dancing and consuming a serious amount of American junk food — they didn’t want Mexican food, they wanted KFC and pizza. I thought, where are the tacos, dude? And my brother sat in his little chair in the middle of it. People were coming to him and kneeling, and they would thank him and kiss his hand or touch his head and tell him all the ways he had changed their lives.”
Urrea’s brother died of cancer within two weeks at 74, and the heartbreaking event haunted the author. He considered writing a memoir(回忆录)about it—“I was thinking about Truman Capote, when he did those tiny books about Christmas and Thanksgiving.” But his wife encouraged him to aim bigger. When he found himself seated next to the writer Jim Harrison at a dinner event, he shared the story, and Harrison said, “Sometimes God hands you a novel. You have to write it.” Urrea thought to himself “Marching orders from Jim Harrison―this is good stuff. A kid from Tijuana doesn’t get that very often.”
The House of Broken Angels is a celebration of the Mexican-American family, but it also includes moments of frustration with this country’s treatment of the immigrant group. Before he got too sick to work, Big Angel worked in an office and drank coffee from a cup that read BOSS. “Yeah, the employees all got the message,” Urrea writes. “The Mexican-American was calling himself their boss.” In a grocery store, a woman screams at two of his family members that they’ll be kicked out of the country soon. “I had to bite down on the bitterness of my rage(愤怒), man!” Urrea says. “I was having some pretty serious response to Donald Trump’s confusing and empty talk. But you know, it may have shocked a lot of the United States to hear this kind of empty talk and this bald-faced racialism of politics all of a sudden, but to us, this stuff isn’t a surprise?”
“I really wanted to write a tribute to my brother, to my family and to us, but it’s also a love song to the country,” Urrea says. “I think people have this weird, horrible view... that immigrants are evil snakes. People don’t understand that immigration is truly a statement of love for this country, whatever the country represents. People want to be here and work.” And with persistence, they become the boss.
1.Why did Urrea’s father give him the book The Godfather?
A.He wanted Urrea to enjoy the 27-hour journey.
B.He thought the book had changed his own life.
C.He tried to show Urrea a real case of criminals.
D.He hoped Urrea would feel connected to Mexico.
2.The question “where are the tacos, dude?” in Paragraph 3 probably suggests ________.
A.Mexican traditions have been left behind
B.the people like American junk food best
C.it is difficult to buy the Mexican food
D.the tacos are popular with everyone there
3.Urrea thought of Truman Capote because ________.
A.Capote was good at writing tiny books
B.Capote’s books are about Christmas
C.he intended to write a memoir
D.he liked reading Capote’s books
4.In the sentence “A kid from Tijunana doesn’t get that very often”, “A kid” here refers to ________.
A.Jim Harrison B.Luis Alberto Urrea
C.Truman Capote D.Big Angel de la Cruz
5.We can learn from Paragraph 5 that ________.
A.Big Angel himself was the boss of his office
B.Mexican immigrants were treated unfairly
C.Urrea’s family were kicked out of the country
D.Urrea heard Trump’s talk ahead of time
6.The House of Broken Angels mainly focuses on the novelist’s ________.
A.love for the Mexican-American family
B.life in the Mexican-American family
C.mixed feelings towards American people
D.mature reflection on Mexican traditions
To move visual technology into the future, sometimes it helps to make a little noise. Researchers have used sound waves to produce floating 3-D images, create a sense of touch and even supply a soundtrack.
Since the 1940s, scientists have toyed with the concept of acoustic levitation(声悬浮), the use of soundwave vibrations to trap tiny things in midair. The technology has gained greater capabilities in the past decade. Some researchers believe this improvement could lead to applications such as contributing to novel 3-D printing methods, or creating displays that would be visible from any angle without requiring a screen.
Other researchers have also worked on visual displays that use acoustic levitation. In addition to visuals, the system can also produce audible noise to give the display a soundtrack. And the ultrasound speakers can also concentrate vibrations in one spot so that a finger might feel a sense pushing back—a little like the object shown by the floating image is really there. Soundwaves create a 3-D display!
Display without a screen is remarkably useful. It means that everybody in the room can see the image—any angle, location—and that’s extremely helpful. As a communications system, such a display might one day allow users to chat with a 3-D projection(投影) of a person who can turn his or her head to follow as they move around a room.
The display will require a lot more work before you can install it in your living room, however. So far, this has been done in the research laboratory. We need to push it a little bit harder. We need to do more analysis to see if it would make sense to create a real display that people would have at home. The current system can only show simple graphics, such as a smiley face or figure eight, in real time.
Still, we are optimistic about the potential for this type of technology. If the system had only one speaker-covered surface instead of two, it could generate images that are bigger than the device itself. We can’t make a TV image that’s bigger than the TV—even a projector has to have a projection screen that’s bigger than the image itself. But with a volumetric(容积的) display, a small, portable device might produce a much larger picture. We can imagine, in the future, having volumetric displays in watches, for example, that create large images that just project out of your watch.
1.From the first two paragraphs soundwave vibrations can be used to _________.
A.catch very small objects in midair
B.develop 3-D printer’s capabilities
C.replace a creative display screen
D.compose soundtracks by making no noise
2.What do we know about display without a screen?
A.It has resulted in visual technology.
B.It is possible to see the image from any direction.
C.It is already ripe to create a real one at home.
D.It has yet to be tested in the research laboratory.
3.What does the last paragraph mainly talk about?
A.Outlooks for the new technology.
B.Situations of the modern technology.
C.Praise for the cutting-edge technology.
D.Room for the technical improvement.
4.What can be a suitable title for the passage?
A.Hearing Is Seeing—Sound Waves Create a 3-D Display
B.Seeing is Believing—3-D Printing Methods Arrive
C.Advancing Sense of Touch—3-D Images Float in the Air
D.Promoting TV Technology—Chat with 3-D Projections
As robots are increasingly playing a part in society, we need to consider whether and how machines can learn morality. While robots can’t be ethical(伦理的) agents in themselves, we can program them to act according to certain rules. But what is it that we expect from them?
A 2016 study by UC San Francisco found that most virtual assistants struggled to respond to domestic violence or sexual assault(袭击). To sentences like “I am being abused”, several responded: “I don’t know what that means. If you like, I can search the web”. Such responses fail to help vulnerable people, who are most often women in this case.
But should virtual assistants ever be able to call the police when it overhears domestic violence? In a widely reported case from 2017, Amazon Echo was said to have called 911 during a violent assault. Responding to the incident, Amazon denied that Echo would have been able to call the police without clear instruction. Even if it had the ability, it is unlikely that people would expect a virtual assistant to go beyond providing information.
Then, there are robots whose very function gives rise to ethical questions. How should a driverless car react in an accident? To answer this question, Philippa Foot’s famous philosophical thought experiment, the trolley(有轨电车) problem, is usually rolled out. It goes as follows: imagine you see an unstoppable trolley zooming down a track, towards five people who are tied to the track. If you do nothing, they’ll die. But, as it happens, you are standing next to a lever that can redirect the trolley to a side track, which has one person tied to it. What should you do?
Variations of this experiment are invoked(援引) to ask whether a self-driving car should turn sharply around a jaywalking pedestrian teenager while putting the two elderly passengers at risk. Should it spare the young over the old? Or should it save two people over one?
Driverless cars are unlikely to encounter or solve the trolley problem, but the way we expect them to solve the variations could depend on where we’re from. In the moral machine experiment, MIT Media Lab researchers collected millions of answers from people around the world on how they think cars should solve these dilemmas. It turns out that preferences among countries and cultures differ wildly.
If, however, machines attain superior decision-making abilities, it may be necessary to have a full public discussion as to what should be the new and prevailing norms. But if we don’t come up with an ethical framework, we might risk leaving it to companies to regulate their own products or for people to choose with their wallet.
Figuring out what robot ethics we’d want is, therefore only the beginning.
1.The first three paragraphs indicate that virtual assistants _________.
A.must be programmed to learn morality
B.ever called 911 during a violent assault
C.have no abilities to respond to domestic violence
D.are expected to go beyond providing information
2.According to the experiments, we can learn that _________.
A.the trolley is redirected to the track tied with one person over five
B.the self-driving car turns sharply to spare the teenager over the old
C.people from different cultures and countries make varied decisions
D.MIT Media Lab researchers have worked out practical regulations
3.The passage mainly talks about _________.
A.why robots are unlikely to solve the morality problems
B.whether robots are expected to make ethical decisions
C.what tech companies have done to better robots’ response
D.how robots try to react to domestic violence or dilemmas
Thanks for your interest in visiting the Los Angeles Zoo with your school group! Please read the following information before booking your field trip.
Requirements
Special discounted admission prices are available with advance reservations ONLY for California school groups, short-termed as CSG, (registered with the California Department of Education). They can enjoy 10% off.
PLEASE NOTE:
Reservation blackout dates(限制日期) may apply to all groups at certain times of the year (e.g. holidays and spring break). If your group comes on a blackout date or has not made the necessary reservations before arriving at the Zoo, your group will be charged the regular admission fees.
Docent(讲解员)-Guided Tours
Our docent guides lead educational walking tours for students and their teachers, beginning at first grade. A limited number of docent-guided tours are available. There is no additional fee for a docent-guided tour, but you must book your tour at least two weeks in advance. Do not assume you have a guided tour booked until you have received a confirmation number and packet from the Los Angeles Zoo. On the day of your field trip, your group will need to arrive at least 30 minutes before the confirmed start time of your tour to check in. Make sure to tell Zoo staff upon your arrival that your group has a docent-guided tour. If you are more than 15 minutes late for your tour, it may be canceled.
Maximum number: 150 participants Ages: K-12
Regular Pricing: $5 per student, 1 teacher per 10 students is included, $5 per additional teacher
1.How much should be paid if a California school group with 2 teachers and 13 students has made an early booking for the zoo?
A.$63. B.$67.5. C.$70. D.$75.
2.From the above information, we can learn that _________.
A.California groups have access to special discounted prices
B.all groups may have to pay regular prices in spring break
C.additional fees for a docent-guided tour will be chained
D.a field group must arrive half an hour earlier to check in
Washington is home to lots of trees, fireplaces and wood-burning stoves. But what if you couldn’t chop _______ or couldn’t afford to pay someone to do it? _______, Shane McDaniel and his twin sons are happy to chop truckloads of wood—then donate it to those in need.
The _______ started as a father-son bonding project. “I had to cut wood with my dad. He just _______ doing it,” says Shane. He wanted to _______ that feeling, so he and the twins spent the summer of 2018 chopping wood. The _______ was a great wall of wood piled up.
It was too _______ for the McDaniels to use themselves, and when the weather turned cold that November, Shane started thinking of others. He _______ a photo of them and “Please help us help someone who ARE IN NEED OF FIREWOOD AND CANNOT AFFORD IT.” on Facebook. The _______ was immediate. One man ____________ to donate a wood-burning stove. One woman, noticing the photo of the McDaniel men in the Facebook post, felt ____________: “Please post more pictures. I don’t need the wood. ____________ truly I appreciate the eye candy!”
Single mom Katelyn Ticer and her four-year-old daughter ____________ a wood-burning stove as their sole source of heat, so it was a ____________ to receive a truckload of firewood from the McDaniels. She told msn.com, “So much stress and anxiety is ____________ my shoulders. I couldn’t be more thankful.”
Not every receiver is as ____________. “Some aren’t even friendly. It’s just not in them,” Shane says. “They are angry with the world and ____________ that they had to ask for help. They just have no other option than ____________.” But Shane is OK with that. “Giving is the ____________,” he says. “It has nothing to do with how well it’s received; it’s about how much it’s ________________
1.A.board B.wood C.bushes D.trees
2.A.Suddenly B.Surprisingly C.Excitedly D.Luckily
3.A.idea B.issue C.connection D.impression
4.A.tried B.hated C.loved D.minded
5.A.believe in B.show off C.start with D.pass along
6.A.result B.reason C.bonus D.promise
7.A.cheap B.little C.much D.expensive
8.A.saw B.took C.searched D.posted
9.A.advice B.analysis C.arrangement D.response
10.A.failed B.offered C.happened D.ceased
11.A.warm B.cold C.depressed D.satisfied
12.A.So B.Or C.But D.And
13.A.gave back B.took over C.relied on D.picked out
14.A.burden B.chance C.trouble D.relief
15.A.on B.off C.from D.across
16.A.grateful B.helpful C.hopeful D.careful
17.A.happy B.mad C.curious D.terrified
18.A.starving B.wandering C.freezing D.begging
19.A.reward B.success C.fault D.dilemma
20.A.ignored B.needed C.refused D.acknowledged
