From paragraph 8 to 9, the author gives three examples to indicate the impacts from the companies how to deal with issues like ethnic diversity, harassment, hiring and firing, profit sharing, and other labor/management policies. Two failures are compared to successful example, which give a strong vision sense to readers. Especially, the reader who is manager or leader could analyses himself/herself whether management of employees improve the working efficiency or not. With the increasing pace of the times, employees will contribute their knowledge enthusiastically in a corporate culture that values the individual. Besides, investors and consumers not only pay attention to the profitability of a company, but also are beginning to judge companies by how they deal with issues like ethnic diversity and so on.
Turning to the paragraph 8, I still met some problems. “Know something well” is a fixed phrase, and it means someone understands very much for [of] something. What does the meaning of “all too”? As to my understanding of “know well”, I guess it means very, much more than is desirable. And I find “only too” has similar meaning as “all too” in the dictionary. Why dose the author use it? Does he give readers inkling? Of course, “all too” is a negative phrase and generally represents bad development or things. It introduces two examples that bring negative public impact in internal decisions of company.
“Within its own ranks” confuses me. Whether does the author want to say the superior cannot handle racial discrimination around employees in this sentence? I look for the explanation of the latter classroom, it means within the company. Racial discrimination led to failure of operation that has become the focus of popular concerns in management.
When it comes to the paragraph 9, it takes a successful example in dealing with issues like the differences among people. In the first line, “celebrating” means to praise someone or something. For my part, I think it has a simple meaning, which is to pay attention [on] someone or something. In this paragraph, the author displays the celebration of the Hearst Corporation. This company is a humanizing, its management policies bring more profits.
