Sample of a Thesis Abstract

 

ABSTRACT

               The study focused on the Institution Instructional Development Program on the 21^st Century Leadership Zones, Generational Attitude in the Workplace for Teachers. The profile of the teachers and school heads was described through position, length of service and educational attainment. Based on two concepts (1) the concept of 21^st century leadership practices according to Perrin et al (2012), and (2) the concept of Generational Attitude in the workplace according to Anick Tolbize (2010. The first frame presents the 21^st century leadership practices which contains the reflection, society, diversity, ingenuity, people and organizations.       

                On the other hand, the second frame presents the generational attitudes in the workplace   which include attitude towards work, loyalty towards employer, attitudes regarding respect and authority, training styles and needs, desire for work/in life balance and attitude towards supervision. The third frame presents the output Instructional Development Program of the Teachers.

       The mixed methods design was used in this study. As interview questionnaire through Google form and Video call was used to significant data needed in the study that involves collecting, analyzing and integrating. It was decided into four (4) parts. Profile of the respondents, 21^st Century leadership zones perceptions of the elementary teachers, Generational attitudes in the workplace of the elementary teachers, Issues and challenges experienced by the principal in the 21^st century leadership zones and generational attitude in the workplace of teachers.

                   The respondents for this study were Teachers 1, 2, 3, and principals. They had an average of at least 13 years of service showing the high experience level of the respondents.  Most of them have BSED and BEED degrees.

The respondents made their perceptions known on the six different 21^st century leadership zones. Reflection is the first zone of a 21^st century leader and the respondents want their leader to be able to delegate work and assign it to the right person. This leader knows which outcomes have to turn out successfully and can also deal with failure without assigning blame.

                     The principals have acknowledged that the current COVID-19 pandemic has given them many issues and challenges to solve head-on. The principals have had to encourage their teachers learn new skills and develop new modules for the blended learning and the online learning being pushed by the DepEd and the government.

                    For future researchers, to find more stark differences between the generational attitudes of the members of the teaching community, it would be interesting to set up a study where different problems are presented and find out if there are differences, if any, in the approaches to the problem depending on the generation which the teacher comes from.  This study will foster better understanding on how teachers of different generations approach all the challenges and what learnings each generation can pick up from each other.

                   Furthermore, the institutional instructional development program is a continuing work of progress.  The activities that are used for training should always be updated and should stay relevant to the times – whether in terms of technologies being used as well as a more open attitude to new learnings in terms of leadership.

                A yearly evaluation of the development program is highly recommended to ensure that it retains its highest effectivity and impact on the teachers being trained as leaders. There may be a template to follow and a general text but each district is given enough freedom to tweak activities which they feel may appeal more to their trainees.  The implementation is not ironclad, what is important is that by the end of the training

 program, there is a new batch of teacher-leaders who have imbibed all the major learnings in the 21^st century leadership zones and have the ability to lead their teaching community in achieving their yearly educational goals.

Health and Safety at Work

 

Module 2 Introduction to the Topic or Study

 

            Concern for the safety of the workers in the work environment came as early as 1833 when the Factories Act was promulgated.  At that time, it was still common for children to be working in factories, so it was the job of the inspectors to help prevent injuries among them and to check for overworking. Those early days served as the foundation for today’s more structured health and safety format that is already de rigueur for all industries.  Fast forward more than 100 years later, in 1974, the Health and Safety at Work was formed, leading to the establishment of the Health and Safety Commission as well as the Health and Safety Executive, which is, until now, a major authority in enforcing health and safety rules (Cant, D., 2012).

            In the field of employment, health, and safety (EHS), the analysis and the utilization of the data related to it, specifically the identification and the monitoring of the leading and lagging indicators and how they work together could help them improve and understand the programs they are implementing.  For this study, the focus will only be on the lagging indicator which is defined as a measurable factor, statistic, or datum, that demonstrates facts about events that have already happened. It is a reactive way of indicating the safety efforts of the company and evaluates the past performance of the company. Unfortunately, this indicator does not help identify the catalyst of the incident that happened in the workplace. However, it is a good EHS metric because it is  easy to collect and measure, it can easily show if there was positive progress or a need for improvement, and most importantly, it can provide proper support for decision-making for the key stakeholders.

            Since it is a reactive variable, it is important to point out them out before they happen, and this can be done through education and training.  This study will measure how such education and training can help reduce the incidences of lagging indicators.  This will be done through the experimental method where the incidence of lagging indicators will be measured on two groups of employees where one gets education and training, while the other, does not.

 

References:

Cant, D. (2012). How did Health and Safety Start? Available at < https://www.veritas-consulting.co.uk/blog/a-brief-history-of-health-and-safety-in-the-workplace/>. Accessed [04.03.21].

 

Dakota Software (2020). Leading and Lagging Indicators: Complementary Parts of EHS Metrics Success. Available at <ehsdailyadvisor.blr.com>. Accessed [04.03.21].

Aged Care Nursing

AGED CARE NURSING

 

1. Wellness - How do you distinguish health from wellness?

            In the past, most individuals and societies viewed good health, or wellness, as the opposite or absence of disease. This simple attitude ignores states of health between disease and good health. Health is a multidimensional concept and should be viewed from a much broader perspective (Potter & Perry, 2004).

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Many other aspects of health also need to be considered. Health is a state of being that people define in relation to their own values, personality, and lifestyle (Potter & Perry, 2004). How health is viewed can actually vary among different individuals depending on age-groups, gender, race, and culture.

            Wellness is actually just a part of a bigger thing which is health. It is a healthy state of well-being free from disease. Wellness is generally used to mean a healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of well-being.

Wellness is just a state of good health whereas health can include conditions previously considered to be illness (Potter & Perry, 2004). An example is a person with epilepsy who has learned to control seizures with medication and who functions at home and at work. This person may no longer consider himself or herself to be ill but he or she cannot also be considered to be well. The person is just in a state of health.

            Health and wellness are not merely the absence of disease or illness. A person’s state of health, wellness, or illness depends on individual values, personality and lifestyle.

 

2. Demographics - Why is it important for nurses to understand demographics?

            There are many external forces that can affect aged care nursing. One of these is demographics. Demographics is defined as the characteristics of a human population or part of it, especially its size, growth, density, distribution, and statistics regarding birth, marriage, disease, and death (Encarta, 2005). If there are demographic changes, it affects the population as a whole. Changes that have influenced healthcare in recent decades include the population shift from rural areas to urban centers; the increasing life span; the higher incidence of chronic, long-term illness; and the increased incidence of diseases such as alcoholism and lung cancer (Potter & Perry, 2004).

            Nursing as a profession responds to such changes by exploring new methods of providing care, by changing educational emphasis, and by establishing practice standards in new areas (Potter & Perry, 2004). Demographics can help determine both the supply of and the demand for health care facilities.

            Rapid changes in demographics will require different approaches to manage quality. Nurses are positioned to play a pivotal role in delivering and managing quality outcomes while advocating the patients in an environment that is increasingly complex (Kirkman-Liff, 2002).

            Demographics include the changing population; from the young one, to adults, to old people. At the same time, that population is aging, so are those in nursing. At the same time, nursing careers are becoming shorter. Nurses are finding opportunities for meaningful work in a variety of roles, some of which can take them far from clinical practice. Along with the demographic shifting, the cultural make-up of the nursing profession itself is becoming increasingly diverse and global (Kirkman-Liff, 2002).

 

REFERENCES:

Kirkman-Liff, B. (2002). Keeping an Eye on a Moving Target: Quality Changes

and Challenges for Nurses. Nursing Economics.

Potter, P. and Perry, A. (2004). Fundamentals of Nursing. Mosby.

MSN Encarta Dictionary. (2005). Retrieved from:

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx

 

 

Sample of a Methodology Chapter

Module 14 Instrumentation

 

            For this study, the researcher will formulate a research instrument which the respondents will answer.  The research instrument will be composed of three sections.  The first section will contain the demographic data of the respondent – gender, age, number of years employed in the organization, job title, department, and the number of times attended the annual safety training and education program.  This information will be useful in describing the respondents of this study.  The second section will ask the respondents on what they think are the lagging indicators that is affecting the productivity of their company.  They will be asked to write at least 3 or a maximum of 5.  Most likely the identification of these lagging indicators will be based on their personal experiences in the organization.

            Part 3 of the research instrument will be twenty-five statements which will measure the impact of the safety education and training program on the identified lagging indicators of the respondents.  The research instrument will use a 7-point Likert scale with this label –

            1 – Highly Agree

            2 – Moderately Agree

            3 – Agree

            4 – Cannot Decide

            5 – Disagree

            6 – Moderately Disagree

            7 – Highly Disagree

So for each statement, the respondent will encircle one response, as indicated above.  This will show their degree of agreement or disagreement with the statement.  The tone of each statement will be based on the conceptual framework and theoretical framework of this study.

 

 

 

 

 

Module 15 Data Collection Procedures

 

            For this study, the data collection will be through a survey questionnaire that the researcher will formulate. The respondents of this study will be chosen randomly, as discussed in an earlier module. The respondents will be chosen from all departments and from all the hierarchical layers – from the frontliners to the top management.  All these randomly chosen respondents will give their informed consent, which is usually in the form of a document which they will sign.  The informed consent will also have to give all the pertinent and relevant research information, such as risks and benefits, to the potential subject, allowing him or her to make an informed decision regarding participation.

            The survey questionnaire (as described in Module 14) will contain all the data needed for this particular study.  As mentioned in Module 14, each segment of the formulated survey questionnaire will contain pertinent data which will answer the research questions that were raised by this study.  The respondents will be chosen randomly, and they will be assigned into two groups – one is the control group, and the other one is the experimental group.  After undergoing or not undergoing the safety education and training program, the respondent will then answer the survey questionnaire.  To minimize non-responses, the research will check each submitted survey questionnaire and ensure that all the items are answered.  This can be handled easier if the survey questionnaire is online or done in the computer since the respondent cannot proceed to the next number without leaving a blank.

            In terms of data analysis, since the methodology is quantitative, the researcher will use the weighted mean for each item in the survey questionnaire.  The interpretation of the numerical weighted mean will be based on this –

            1 – 1.49 - Highly Agree

            1.50 – 2.49 – Moderately Agree

            2.50 – 3.49 – Agree

            3.50- 4.49 – Cannot Decide

            4.50 – 5.49 – Disagree

            5.50 – 6.49 – Moderately Disagree

            6.50 – 7.50 – Highly Disagree

            To find out if there are relationships between certain variables in the study, the researcher may use a paired sample t-test or ANOVA.  In this study, there will be a certain time lag between the time the respondents have to attend the safety education and training program and the time they will fill up the survey questionnaire.  Moreover, there will also be a control group and the test group as one of them will not be allowed to attend the safety education and training program.  This is where the paired sample-t-test will be most useful.  Another option is to use the ANOVA if the researcher finds out that the means between the two groups is considerable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Module 16 Limitations/ Delimitations

 

This study is limited only to the identification of the lagging indicators and how the safety education and training program impacts on it.  The leading indicators will not be included in the study so the researcher must be well-versed in identifying which is which.  The anticipated weakness may be that the researcher will misidentify a leading indicator as a lagging indicator which may affect the outcome of the study.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Module 17 Ethical Issues

 

Since the study will be done in the corporate setting where there is a possibility that respondents may be able to say things which will show the negative side of running things in the company. These comments may be misconstrued by the management and there might be repercussions on the poor employee.  With this scenario, it is then important to discuss the ethics of research especially when this situation arises.

The above scenario falls under one of the more important areas in ethical issues in research – study design and ethics approval.  As described earlier, since the respondents are employees of a big business organization, they can be classified as vulnerable subjects since anything they say may be used against their employment in the company.  In a way, they are economically disadvantaged. Consequently, it is very important that the researcher is careful with the respondent information and not allow any sensitive data be directly attributed to a specific employee, especially if such data may present the organization in a negative light. 

Furthermore, the respondents’ personal should never be printed or shown to the company, especially their names.  In this study, the researcher will not ask for the names of the respondents in the survey questionnaire.  This will ensure that the respondents will answer the survey questionnaire with more confidence and accuracy, since they know that there will be no way that the information they give in the survey questionnaire will haunt their present employment. It is also the duty of the researcher to ask for the respondents’ consent and that their act of sharing information should be explained and obtained to the owners or the top management to ensure confidence and accuracy in the data to be gathered.  Confidentiality, anonymity, and the respondents’ informed consent are the more important considerations when it comes to ethics in research.

 

Module 18 Definition of Terms

 

            For purposes of this study, the following terms are being defined as they are used in the context of this study –

Lagging Indicators - They measure an organization's historical safety performance and are traditionally used to identify variance from established safety goals. (www.grainger.com)

Leading Indicators – They are proactive, preventative and predictive measures that monitor and provide current information about the effective performance, activities and processes of an environmental, health, and safety (EHS) management system that drive the identification and elimination or control of risks in the workplace that can lead to incidents and injuries (www.grainger.com)

Occupational Safety and Health – is concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. (www.actu.org.au)

Safety Culture - this is about people and how they work together. It refers to the core values, beliefs, and behaviours resulting from a collective commitment by leaders and individuals throughout the organization that appropriately prioritizes safety against other organizational goals to allow business objectives to be undertaken without undue risk (www.arpansa.gov.au)

Safety Education and Training Program - a process that aims to provide your workforce with knowledge and skills to perform their work in a way that is safe for them and their co-workers. Furthermore, an effective workplace safety plan includes instructions and guidelines to identify hazards, report them, and deal with incidents. (www.connecteam.com)

 

 

 

Module 19 Summary

 

This study is going to investigate the impact of education and training on reducing safety lagging indicators in organizations.  It is going to identify situational factors that impact safety culture to reduce occupational health and safety incidents.  It will also find out the effectivity of the safety education and training programs in reducing safety lagging indicators in organizations. Finally, it is going to point out the steps involved in creating a generative safety culture, by making education and training a fundamental continual improvement programme in changing hearts and minds of the workers.

The independent variable in this study is the safety education and training program while the dependent variable will be the degree of reduction in the safety lagging indicators.  The guiding theory for this study will be the behavioural learning theory.

A short literature review of this study featured a study that was conducted in 60 companies in order to determine what kinds of indicators were used for OSH performance measurement by these companies with different levels of OSH performance. The results reveal that the indicators most commonly used in all of the companies are those related to ensuring compliance with the statutory requirements. The study also revealed that the leading indicators are much more often adopted in companies with a higher performance level. 

The second study investigated 18 papers done between 2010 to 2019 in order to recognize the common leading and lagging indicators.  Four of the papers used correlation between the lagging and leading indicators.  The research results pointed out that the leading indicators can be used to discriminate the variances in the safety performance of projects.  The findings showed how leading and lagging indicators are correlated to one another  during construction projects. The leading indicators were analyzed.  They had data on safety talks, hazards testified which led the researcher to conclude that safety leading indicators are complicated.

The study will use the quantitative method and the researcher will formulate a survey questionnaire which the randomly selected respondents will answer. Statistical analysis in the form of the weighted mean, the paired t-test and the ANOVA will be used to find out the relationship between the variables being studies.

            Listed below are the relevant dates of submission for this proposal.

 

March 6, 2021 – Submission of modules of the research

March 15, 2021 – Writing the Introduction chapter

March 22, 2021 – Writing the expanded literature review

April 26, 2021 – Writing the Methodology chapter and formulating the survey questionnaire

May 3, 2021 – Validating the survey questionnaire

May 10, 2021 – Conducting the safety education and training program

May 11, 2021 – Distribution of the survey questionnaire

May 17, 2021 – Analysis and Interpretation of the Raw Data

June 14, 2021 – Writing the Conclusion, Recommendations, and Summary Chapter

June 21, 2021 – Doing the Bibliography, Appendix, etc

June 28, 2021 – Submission of the Thesis

 

LITERATURE REVIEW ON OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

 

This brief literature review contains two journal articles of studies – one focusing more on the impact of lagging indicators on occupational safety and health (OSH), and the other, on the impact of safety education and training on the incidences of safety in the organization.  The two article critiques below are a comprehensive summary of the two journal studies that are closely related to the study being done by the researcher.

Article Critique #1

Journal:          International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, 21, 284-290

Date:               2015

Author(s):      Pawlowska, Zofia

Purpose/Abstract: The study was conducted in 60 companies in order to determine what kinds of indicators were used for OSH performance measurement by these companies with different levels of OSH performance. The results reveal that the indicators most commonly used in all of the companies are those related to ensuring compliance with the statutory requirements. The study also revealed that the leading indicators are much more often adopted in companies with a higher performance level. 

Hypothesis:    The researcher wanted to find out the impact of lagging and leading indicators when evaluating the occupational health and safety performance of companies.

Method Type of Study: The study used the quantitative method and the experimental method. The population involved the employees of all the companies in the study. To collect information on the companies’ OSH performance and indicators used for its assessment, a questionnaire was developed in electronic form and circulated amongst executives in the studied companies. The questionnaire contained questions concerning the following - the company's size, sector and management systems implemented and the company performance in terms of OSH management.

Findings:  The most frequently applied lagging indicators are the number of accidents at work found in almost 97% of all the surveyed companies and the number of the absence days found in over 61% of all the companies. There are no statistically significant differences between using these indicators in high-performing and low-performing companies. For the other lagging indicators, a χ² test of independence indicates that the differences in using them are statistically significant; the strongest correlation was found for the indicator ‘number of incidents’. Leading indicators are applied less frequently than lagging indicators in all of the surveyed companies. The number of leading indicators used increases in line with the level of adopting OSH management rules according to the voluntary standards; this relationship is statistically significant. The most frequently applied leading indicator – the number of employees working in hazardous conditions – refers to OSH inputs. This indicator is employed in more than 70% of high-performing as well as low-performing companies.

Conclusions:  The performance indicators commonly used in the studied companies include the number of accidents at work and the number of people working in hazardous conditions. These indicators have to be determined in line with law provisions that require the company to present relevant data for national statistics and for the needs of insurance. The leading indicator that is among the most frequently used is the number of employees participating in training courses on health and safety issues. The indicator is also linked to ensuring compliance with the requirements set out in the law under which companies have to conduct periodical training courses on health and safety matters. These results point to the important role statutory requirements play in determining the indicators used to assess the OSH performance in all companies.

 

Limitations:  Although the study was pretty comprehensive, it could’ve used the information it had at hand to identify more about other OSH issues.  The top thing that comes to mind is identifying the most effective OSH performance indicators and find out how they can be implemented practically in the companies.  

 

Article Critique #2

Journal:          Trends in Food Science and Technology, 4(6): 306-312

Date:               2019

Author(s):      Dilkhaz, Sevar

Purpose/Abstract:  This study investigated 18 papers done between 2010 to 2019 in order to recognize the common leading and lagging indicators.  Four of the papers used correlation between the lagging and leading indicators.  The research results pointed out that the leading indicators can be used to discriminate the variances in the safety performance of projects.

Hypothesis:    The comparison between using leading indicators of the safety performance correlatively with lagging indicators.

Method Type of Study: The study chose fifty papers of which 48 were picked using these criteria – a) construction field association, b) safety factors, c) recognizing leading and lagging indicators, and d) academic journal studies. Only articles that assessed the safety indicator at a construction project class.

Findings:  The findings showed how leading and lagging indicators are correlated to one another  during construction projects. The leading indicators were analyzed.  They had data on safety talks, hazards testified which led the researcher to conclude that safety leading indicators are complicated.

Conclusions:  The sample size of 18 articles have been reviewed and analyzed to make a conclusion about the leading and lagging indicators in construction. The research is made in order to distinguish the positive and negative impacts between leading and lagging indicators and how they correlated in each other’s.  Only four papers discuss the correlation between the leading and lagging indicators. Ten leading indicators and two lagging indicators have been resulted after analyzing 19 indicators to be further investigated in the future works.

Limitations:  Due to limitations of time and resources, the researcher was only able to analyze 19 leading indicators.  The researcher advises future researches to focus on those indicators.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Module 9 Major Theoretical Frameworks (Leadership and/or Educational)

The guiding theory of this study is the behavioural learning theory. It is going to incorporate behavioral theory because the study believes that it can lead to changes in the organization and allow the discussion of the principles of occupational hazard control. The major concepts in this study include key safety information which serves as the foundational knowledge, the provision of opportunities to practice new skills which is the application of knowledge, and the exchange of personal stories to link injury safety knowledge, and unsafe practices in the organization which serves as the application, integration and connection of the theories being learned with the realities of safety education and training. 

The theoretical framework of this study addresses the health, economic, and social implications of being injured – the so-called human dimension; discussions on indirect consequences for workers, and their families, which is the caring part; and encouraged workers to identify safe practices and ways to find safety information. To promote behavioral changes and address worker perceptions, this theoretical framework also incorporates the health belief model, which proposes that behavior is influenced by perceptions of severity and susceptibility, benefits and barriers, and self-efficacy to achieve a desired behavioral change. In this type of safety education and training, the training staff emphasized the phrase “Yes, you can” and asked workers to identify actions they feel confident in doing to be safer at work, encouraging them to think about adopting safe practices and to stimulate contemplation of desired behavioral change.

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The Pitfalls of Argument by Analogy

 

            Since Vaccine A has been found to be 95% effective on Singaporeans, it should also be 95% effective on Filipinos since we belong to the same group of Asian races.  This conclusion is almost always heard in the media today to assure the people of the safety and efficacy of the much-awaited COVID-19 vaccine.  On the surface, it does make sense because Singaporeans and Filipinos belong to the Asian race.  However, it does not delve into the other important factors that have to be considered in discussions of public health safety – the medical histories of the adults, their comorbidities, among others.  This simplistic approach to reasoning may have negit iative consequences to the population if accepted as a generalization.  One though, has to admit to its strategic simplicity.

            People in power – government officials, business leaders – when faced with an unfamiliar problem, often think back to some similar situation they have seen or heard about, draw lessons from it, and apply those lessons to the current problems.

            Admittedly, analogies can be powerful and insightful.  However, it is also extremely easy to reason poorly.  Dangers can happen when people in power draw an analogy based on superficial similarities and not on deep causal traits. It is not uncommon to use analogical reasoning in making important business decisions.  For example, in terms of production, the auto and computer production may look alike since they involve assembling a wide variety of parts from a set of fairly standardized components.  However, in the computer industry, prices of inputs decline by around 1% a week, playing a crucial role in the production of computers that may not apply to auto production.

            Focusing on superficial similarities is dangerous.  When people in business encounter new problems whose solutions are largely unknown, it would be difficult to distinguish between the problems deep structural features and its superficial characteristics.  When the Internet was introduced, the market players adopted existing analogies thinking that the Internet would follow the same template as previous industries.  Now we know that did not happen.  The Internet effectively evolved to its present form by eschewing the traditional templates.  That we know because of hindsight.  Many business people failed to appreciate the vast potential of the net.  Those who thought out-of-the-box succeeded immensely. Those who followed the traditional template failed eventually.

            Analogical reasoning is the default way that most people would approach solving problems.  It can be an effective strategy, however, people have to remember that delving only on the superficial factors can be dangerous and that a deeper analysis of the facts and factors have to be done, so as to come out with an effective and possibly, evolving strategy.

            According to Psychology Today, people make around 35,000 decisions per day and some of these decisions per day and some of these decisions may have costly consequences in the future.  That is why first principles thinking is worthwhile.  The current COVID-19 pandemic has made each one of us confront in making decisions that we don’t usually make and are unsure of achieving success.  To use first principles thinking, it is important to identify the problem first, break it down into basic scientific truths and formulate reasons that yield new avenues of thought.  The key is to get to the root of the issue and be open to new approaches in solving it.  The first principles of thinking help you transform the problem into an objective statement that concretely addresses what needs to be improved.  When the objection is clear, it is important to identify the obstacles in the way.  First principles thinking also involves asking ‘Socratic questions’ that challenge previously held beliefs.  The technique is to pose these questions to each obstacle to break them down.  One then decides on each obstacle on what decision to make.  Asking ‘how’ questions can lead to innovate ideas in dealing with ach obstacle.  Define these ideas, then assess the potential of each idea using a series of evaluation criteria.  One will most likely come up with several solutions and implement those that are most cost-effective.  By applying first principles thinking to decision-making and problem solving, one becomes more intuitive and can yield great ideas.

            Coming from personal experience, I really now have to lose weight for health reasons, seeing how being overweight, compounded with comorbidities like diabetes and hypertension has led to the premature deaths of some of my loved ones.  Their deaths have really jolted me to achieve weight loss but with my busy schedule, I just could not find the time to work out.

            What do I really need to reach my weight loss goal? I need to exercise at least for an hour five days a week.  But the reality is, my work schedule plus family commitments make finding that hour very difficult.  Can I still lose weight exercising less frequently? A more feasible and doable solution is to try 30-minute workouts – 4 days a week – making them high intensity full body workouts.  Scientific research has proven that this type of workout can speed up fat loss in less time.  That, plus a sensible balanced diet lessening sweets and red meat.

 

References:

Gavetti, G. & Rivkin, J. (2005). How Strategists Really Think: Tapping the Power of Analogy. Harvard Business Review. April 2005.

Kakkar, N. (2019). A Framework for First Principles Thinking. Available at <www.neilkakkar.com>. Accessed [02.14.21]

Oshin, M. (2017). Elon Musk’s “3-Step” First Principles Thinking: How to Think and Solve Difficult Problems Like a Genius. Available at <www.mission.org>. Accessed [02.14.21]