Personal Essay: Iran
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Forty-one years ago this month, John F. Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". The global society in which we now live has changed since then. My experience and my goal is now world-wide. So, it is important to realize not what the world can do for me, but how my background and my ambition and the furtherance of my education can do to bring about some sort of harmony, economic as well as political and social stability. As one whose family has lived for generations in what is now Iran, my immediate goal will be to establish a public service consultancy where I can help bridge the ages-old traditions of my native land, and help bring it into the circle of modern nations. I realize that this is a momentous task. I will need far more training and background, more development and fine-tuning of my skills. It is for this reason that I want to be accepted as part of the JFK School's diverse student body: to help me realize the goal of providing ideas, implementing the strategies for public service, and developing effective leadership roles that include the next generation of citizens who will need to shoulder the burdens of re-integration. At first glance, it might seem that my background, which includes three years with McKinsey & Company and work in the cement industry, following undergraduate studies in business, is more focused on economic priorities. However, having been part of an international team
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objective was to find ways of saving potentially millions of dollars, which tended to be lost in an old-fashioned bureaucratic maze. Our project team included two Swiss senior colleagues from HMC, four local subsidiary managers and five Swiss and Mexican consultants from McKinsey & Co. Our initial efforts resulted in cultural, personality and tradition clashes which threatened the entire project until and unless they were straightened out. It was a matter of some seeking to protect their local interests, and those of us from overseas, looking at a world picture.
Seeing that the project may falter without some immediate action, I resolved to bring all the different "sides" together, first in a social setting, where we could get to know and understand one another better, personally; and then expecting that this initial means of communication could translate itself to the business side of our efforts.
What was obvious to me, and what is commonly an important aspect of government and/or public service, is that, somehow, one has to overcome resistance - whether it is resistance due to a breaking of traditions, or because changes and innovations may be new and startling, even unproven to local people. In my example in Mexico
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2064
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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