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  3. In any field — business, politics, education, government — those in power should

In any field — business, politics, education, government — those in power should

游客2024-01-12  31
问题 In any field — business, politics, education, government — those in power should be required to step down after five years.
Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position.
选项
答案     It has been argued that those in power should step down after five years in any field, be it business, politics, education, or government. The reason for this policy recommendation is that it is the revitalization through new leadership that paves the surest path to success for any enterprise. In my opinion, while it might be beneficial to introduce new leadership, the success of an enterprise depends on more than leadership; in some cases, new leadership may actually be counterproductive. Finally, forcing leaders to step down after five years may create a toxic culture, in which leaders will not think for the long-term development of the organization.
    First, it should be acknowledged that new leadership, or at least the very idea of a potential competitor to power, adds a healthy dose of competition to the organization. Therefore, in politics and business, those in power must cater to the general public and the employees, and in education those on the upper ladder of the echelon must make efforts to justify their leadership. Furthermore, if there is no challenger to existing leadership, the organization will be stagnated and may hardly move forward, for the reason that innovations require changes to the organization. Those already in power, however, represent the so-called "establishment" in the organization and, by their nature, are reluctant to change. Such a phenomenon happens a lot in first-generation family businesses, where the founder’s family has total control of the company. Because the leadership faces no challenger, it often refuses to change. As a consequence, after a few generations such companies go bust. In short, without new leadership an organization may be difficult to evolve fast enough to cope with the ever-changing landscape of the society.
    That being said, new leadership alone may not be silver bullet to guarantee the success of an organization. Today we live in a complex world, which means that for a complex organization to survive and thrive, it takes more than one person’s effort. For example, Steve Jobs is often considered to be the godfather of Apple and taking credits for Apple’s tremendous success. However, one cannot ignore the efforts by Apple’s designers, programmers, and engineers who make the Apple product a reality. Moreover, Apple’s products are essentially the assemblage of individual components supplied by various companies, without which Apple’s success cannot be guaranteed.
    What’s worse, in certain cases new leadership may attempt to eradicate the efforts by its predecessors and be counterproductive to the collective well-being, which is most common in the world of politics. A policy signed by a governor may be challenged and invalidated by later administrations not because such a policy is ineffective, but because it is ideologically in conflict with new leadership. Obamacare, for example, has been partly repealed by the Trump administration, along with a wide range of regulatory measures established when the Democrat president was still in the Oval Office. The back-and-forth in policy-making processes creates confusion to the country and brings inconvenience to people’s life. As a result, instead of revitalization, it may be chaos and uncertainties that new leadership brings.
    Based on the reasons mentioned above, I do not agree with the claim that leaders must abdicate their power after five years in any field. Although such a move is morally admirable and has some theoretical benefits, it may in reality create more negative consequences than positive ones and cannot 100 percent ensure the organization to be successful. Another reason against this proposal is that, once enacted, it will change the mentality of leaders, who now can see little beyond their five-year tenure. What follows is that they have few, if any, incentives to work harder or think for the long-term fate of the organization. The consequence is that their policy will be myopic and extremely conservative. In the worst-case scenario, they may even seek to just benefit financially from the leadership role, which is certainly detrimental to the organization.
    To sum up, despite the potential benefits of new leadership, we cannot underestimate its danger. Therefore, I cannot fully agree with the notion that the surest path to success is guaranteed by new leadership and certainly oppose the idea that leaders in any field must step down from power after five years. (706 words)
解析     本文是GRE写作中的一道高频题目。看到本题一个最“懒”的办法就是从any这个词人手，加上题目已经预先分好的几个类别，去讨论在不同领域该政策是否合适。但这种写法不够深刻，因为在不同的领域也许会有不同的答案，但我们能否跳出领域的表象，找到一个通用的准则呢?这就是这篇范文的立足点，这样一来就比“分情况讨论”的思路要高一个档次。
    具体来说，我们要思考两个方面的问题：其一，新领导层会给组织带来什么样的影响(第一和第二主旨段)；第二，获知自己只有五年任期这一预期，会对领导层本身带来什么影响(第三主旨段)。第一点很容易想到，对于第二点，我们自己要如何想到呢?这里介绍一个思路，那就是“当某一方对另一方施加影响时，反过来后者也会对前者施加影响”。这一点乍看起来有点像牛顿第三定律，作用力与反作用力大小相等方向相反，但我觉得还是不够准确，因为现实生活中的影响一方面不好量化，另一方面也不是对等的。但不管怎样，在Issue当中如果我们看到了一个主体和一个客体，那么既可以按照题目所说讨论主体对客体的影响，也可以反过来思考客体对主体的影响。
    注意这篇文章虽然对题目所持的观点提出了深刻的批判，但我们并没有进一步给出自己的解决方案，事实上我们也不建议这么做。究其原因，并不是说Issue不允许我们发表自己的看法，而是对Issue我们倾向于一种保守的态度，选择就题目本身进行分析，宜深入挖掘，不宜发散。大家会发现，本书的绝大部分题目我们都是采用这种方法论。
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