Alpha

http://seekingalpha.com/article/168893-are-big-banks-better
Excerpt:
Yet even unconsolidated banks have improved their performance under the pressure of increased competition following the removal of branching restrictions, which permitted the consolidation wave in banking. And when an entire industry is involved in a protracted consolidation wave, the best indicator of the gains from consolidation is the performance of the industry as a whole. One study of bank productivity growth during the heart of the merger wave (1991-1997), by Kevin Stiroh, an economist at the New York Federal Reserve, found that it rose more than 0.4% per year.


http://www.divinecaroline.com/24133/66926-embracing-alpha-personality
Excerpt:

Embracing My Alpha Personality

By: Norma Casas (View Profile)

I just recently discover that I belong to that 5 percent of the population with an Alpha personality. Scientifically, an Alpha woman is a person who exhibits self-assurance, physical and most of all emotional strength and control, independence, courage, an extreme focus on goals, skilled in building community links and a great listener. This kind of woman does not fear to show vulnerability and has a holistic vision, which makes her a great team player. This is the official definition.
Now that I know where I belong within the annals of science, I have been thinking about how these traits, which by the way describe me perfectly, have helped or delayed my path towards my dreams. It has also been easier for me to finally understand the reactions people exhibit when they meet me.
Independence, for example, is something most women want but many fear. It has been socially established that women walk under the men wings for protection and survival.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Bion
Excerpt:
He was recommissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant on 1 April 1940,^[15] and worked in a number of military hospitals including Northfield Hospital where he initiated the first Northfield Experiment. These ideas on the psychoanalysis of groups were then taken up and developed by others such as S. H. Foulkes, Rickman, Bridger, Main and Patrick De Mare. The entire group at Tavistock had in fact been taken into the army, and were working on new methods of treatment for psychiatric casualties (those suffering post-traumatic stress, or "shell shock" as it was then known.) Out of this his pioneering work in group dynamics, associated with the "Tavistock group", Bion wrote the influential Experiences in Groups, London: Tavistock, 1961. Experiences in Groups was an important guide for the group psychotherapy and encounter group movements beginning in the 1960s, and quickly became a touchstone work for applications of group theory in a wide variety of fields.
During the war Bion's wife gave birth to a daughter, but, tragically, she died soon afterwards. His daughter, Parthenope, became a highly-regarded psychoanalyst. She herself died prematurely, in a car crash in Italy in 1998.
Returning to the Tavistock Clinic Bion chaired the Planning Committee that reorganised the Tavistock into the new Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, alongside a new Tavistock Clinic which was part of the newly launched National Health Service.

http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/pap148h.html
Excerpt:

BION AND EXPERIENCES IN GROUPS

by Robert M. Young

Suggested Reading:

Bion, W. R. (1961) Experiences in Groups. Tavistock.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Are-You-an-Alpha,-Pre-Alpha-Or-Beta-Personality?---Your-MLM-Network-Marketing-Business-Depends-on-It&id=1833843
Excerpt:

How? First let's define an Alpha, Pre-Alpha, and a Beta personality:
Alpha: An alpha is that guy or girl that is automatically one of the leaders in every situation. People flock to them on a sub-conscious level. They exude value and confidence at all times.
Pre-Alpha: A pre-alpha is someone aware of all the tools and knowledge to become a alpha. They are aware that they are on the way to a dominate leadership role; they may be starting to conduct their own meetings and asking for help only when absolutely necessary.
Beta: The beta typically have very little confidence or business value to offer (at least on the surface). This group is unsure in most situations. They typically live reactionary lives, where others dictate how it is so to speak. Complaining is always in season for these folks.

http://www.thedmonline.com/article/downside-obamas-beta-male-personality
Excerpt:

The downside to Obama's 'Beta Male' personality

BY J.D. GRIFFIN

Article | October 14, 2009 - 11:45pm

A recent article appearing in the American Thinker discusses whether or not President Obama displays the characteristics of a beta male.
Recall that alpha males display traits of dominance and power.
Conversely, beta males typically display a desire to avoid confrontation.
Does it matter if President Obama is a beta male?
Many Americans seem to have been drawn to him due to such traits.
Possibly, many have grown tired of the alpha male tendencies of most of our recent presidents.
President Obama, unlike the alpha male leaders of most other countries, does not go about demanding that the world conform to what is in his own country’s
best interest.
Instead, he tells rogue world leaders “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
Obama displaying his beta male characteristics might serve him well in his own life. In fact, some people might decide that avoiding conflict in their personal lives leads to a greater degree of happiness.
To be certain, I have no problem with people taking this course of action in their own personal lives.
However, when the leader of the free world exercises his beta male characteristics, many are forced to accept the consequences.
The potential negative consequences of President Obama’s beta male tendencies can be seen in his encounters with Iran.
Earlier this year, the president had a rare opportunity to support the Iranians agitating for more freedoms.
Instead, the president remained silent in an attempt to avoid confrontation with the leaders of Iran.
The president has told us he strongly believes in international law.
In fact, before the UN General Assembly President Obama said, “The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise,
and that treaties will be enforced.”
The president apparently forgot UN Security Council Resolution 1696 which requires Iran to “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities,
including research and development.”
You might recall that representatives of both the United States and Iran met October 1 in order to discuss the threat posed by increasing Iranian nuclear
capabilities.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the two nations had reportedly come to a preliminary agreement.
The “agreement in principle” would allow Iran to send low enriched uranium to Russia in order to be processed.
As can be seen, this agreement actually breaks Resolution 1696.
That sounds like international law really is an “empty promise.”
It certainly isn’t the enforcement of international law.
Not even the fact that Iran has admitted to operating a previously unreported nuclear facility has caused President Obama to take a firm stance against Iran.
Without question, the president tries to talk tough.
Concerning the new nuclear facility, Obama said, “The existence of the facility underscores Iran’s continuing unwillingness to meet its obligations under UN Security Council Resolutions and IAEA requirements.”
Once again, the president deflected conflict.
He tells us that this proves that Iran has consistently failed to meet its obligations; however, he will do next to nothing to stop it.
If President Obama hoped to bargain with the Russians in order to gain their aid in stopping Iran, he certainly did not do himself any favors.
The best potential bargaining chips were given to Russia for nothing.
The bargaining chips, of course, were the missile defense shields which were slated to be placed in both the Czech Republic and Poland.
In prototypical beta male fashion, President Obama tried to avoid potential conflict with Russia by forgoing missile defense.
In order to pacify the leaders of Iran, he has not supported dissidents.
Perhaps most dangerous to the security of the United States is the president’s unwillingness to take a tough stand on keeping nuclear weapons technology out of the hands of the Iranians.
At some point, the president must realize that avoiding conflict with other countries will not necessarily make them like us.
Many countries will never like us no matter what we do. It is not that their leaders hate us simply because of how our leaders conduct foreign policy.
Instead, leaders of rogue nations, such as Iran, are fearful of the United States because of our numerous freedoms.
It seems as though an alpha male would demand that Iran give up its nuclear program since it is against both international law and what is best for the United
States.
Such a leader would also support doing whatever is necessary to ensure that the Iranians do not gain such technology.
Unfortunately, President Obama will continue to appease our enemies by avoiding and deflecting conflict.
The president’s beta male characteristics may have made him an attractive public figure.

However, these same characteristics will continue to put our country, as well as the entire free world, in grave danger.

http://scoble.weblogs.com/2003/01/18.html
Excerpt:

Note that Calomiris concedes that you can’t find benefits from mergers by looking at merged banks directly; this is why he falls back on an industry average.
First of all, there must be a joke to be made here about correlation and causality. Wait, here it is.
Second, 1991-97 was only the beginning of the merger wave; The Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking Act wasn’t passed until 1994. Let’s assume that mergers after 1995 wouldn’t show up in the 1991-97 data. That includes Nations-Boatmen’s, Nations-Barnett, Nations-Bank of America, B of A-FleetBoston, Chemical-Chase, Bank One-First Chicago, J.P. Morgan-Chase (JPM), Wells-First Interstate (WFC), Wells-Norwest, and Wachovia-First Union (WB).

Hillary Clinton (my2cents)  ...cal
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-116033.html
Excerpt:

Shawn Stephens Moore

09-16-2008, 12:14 AM

This is not fully developed yet, I think it has potential it will be in my book regarding non fiction doomestic violence titled Demons Among Us. When this piece is passed around womens groups it ignites alot of mixed emotion and conversations.

In a Female is the leader. She’s the glue that holds things together, the straw that stirs the drink. And when there are things to divvy up among the group members, she’s the one who gets first pick. When the girls go shopping, she gets the best: clothes, shoes, handbags. She even gets the guy everybody wants. Of course, she also picks things out for her "underlings," who feel compelled to go along with her opinions. She chooses where they go and what they do, and everyone else follows along because she has the power, and no single member of the group can dethrone her. And anyone who attempts to do so, who offends her in any way, may quickly feel her wrath.

As you read through the chapters of this book about domestic violence, the question you may ask yourself is – why? Why would I, or any woman, find herself, again and again, in the circumstances I’m going to describe? Good question. And it becomes even more complicated when you realize that, in addition to my extensive personal experience with domestic abuse, I’m also the classic Alpha Woman. I don’t know how I got to be one, but as far back as I can remember, I’ve possessed those personality traits.
Like many Alpha Women, I have been a "collector." You know the type: the ones who don’t forget the smallest of details of the injustices they’ve suffered, big or small, real or imagined. They’re the kind of people who gather what my first marriage counselor used to call "brown stamps" from those they feel have treated them as anything less than the royalty they perceive themselves to be. When they’ve collected a sufficient number of these brown stamps it’s as if some evil demon possesses them and they begin speaking in tongues, spewing the harshest of truths against the one who’s offended them.
We Alpha Women find that easy to do because we seem to have a narcissistic belief that we’re genetically superior to those around us. And if you were raised like I was, you came to believe you were light years ahead of most men in all ways. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been told that I bring out the worst in men.
I’ve also heard it said that everyone I get involved with falls crazily under my spell. The combination of those two effects seems to create obsession, which eventually escalates to violence and abuse. Alpha Females have the ability to reach inside even the strongest men and emasculate them with a single word. Hey, if you can’t hang with the big dogs, get off the porch! That’s my motto. Unfortunately, most of the abusive men in my life haven’t wanted to get off the relationship porch. Instead, they desperately try to control me, or knock me off my imagined pedestal. That’s simply not going to happen. At those moments, it’s as if some instinct takes control and I go into mental and emotional warfare mode. With a single obstinate look, I seem to be able to ignite rage. If I add a few truths uttered in an unemotional, cutting tone, I can create an environment that, on more than one occasion, I’ve feared might just get me killed.
What’s scary is that I know I’m doing it. I do it deliberately, even though I also know there’s a real possibility I’ll get hurt, and I just don’t care. There’s no fear involved. It’s just the moment of victory over my opponent that I seek.

http://ask.metafilter.com/188136/I-DO-care-about-how-you-do-it-BUT-not-about-the-final-results (this totally reminds me of one of the managers I worked with at IBM (BTW, his name is Bob Church)  ...cal
Excerpt:
1. Doesn't listen to people, including his people, his peers, or people above him.
Example 1: After I presented to him about 3 ideas for a project, his only feedback was pretty much dismissing everything I presented and said, "so do you agree with MY concept for this?" If he paid attention, he would have realized one of the ideas I had was directly in support of his concept (which I stated earlier in the meeting).

Example 2: I noticed the same thing happened in other meetings with his peers or upper management. Everyone has been mentioning their (mostly the same) concerns to me about a project but I noticed Bob would just dismiss them and keep moving forward despite their very valid concerns. He doesn't seem to care or want their feedback, unless someone goes and hammer it in to him. My impression is that most people just gave up after working with him for so long and only a select few really challenge him, which I think he respects.

2. Makes people feel stupid (unintentionally) and puts them on the spot to justified their actions or thoughts to him.
Example – I sit right next to him so I hear a lot of his conversations and it’s things like, "Why didn’t you add this on there?... It didn’t occur to you? You’re kidding, right? That’s so obvious we need to put this here." For the first month or so, I really struggled with this until I realized he does this to everyone.

3. Is a micromanager.
He is more concerned with how I do something rather than on letting me know what the goals of the projects are, what are the visions, how does this tie with other projects, what failed in the past, who I work with, etc. If he does mention something, it's very superficial compared to the "how to create this spreadsheet."

Example 1 - He told me to create a document, made me redo it 2x (no impact to final results, btw), pass it off to another team, the other team started working on it... only for me to realize we were going in the wrong direction. This is like creating the dashboard of a car, only to realize you're supposed to be building a motorcycle.

He also does this to other teams as well. He'll write documents with one level above doing the actual coding for the programmers (Bob and I are on the business side). Same with another team. Again, if we were eating at a restaurant, he'll tell them when/where to get the tomatoes, when to boil the water, and how much of each spice the chief should put in the dish.

4. All his direct reports have problems with him.
A few years ago, someone quit after a few months of working for him because that individual couldn’t stand his style.

Another coworker, Jess, told me Bob used to check in every 5 minutes or so, asking questions, 'why haven't you replied back to my email I sent 5 minutes ago? What's the status of project X? Are you even working?' Every 5 to 30 minutes. Bob even jokingly suggested Jess was not really working (Bob did this to me at about 2 or 3 weeks in). Jess and Bob still have moments where I can tell they have frictions.

5. Great individual contributor but a LOUSY manager / team player
He works very fast – thinks of an idea, quickly gets data for it, writes up the documents, and pass it to our technology folks. He expects the same of his direct reports but I have already told him that even though he’s been working here for over 6 years, I just started. I don’t even know how to get IT to come and fix my computer yet. He gets it - for about 15 minutes and then goes back to why am I so slow.

Another time, our team traveled out to support our internal partners on a project and worked about 3-5 hours overtime each day. At the end of the project, we left office halfway through the day (as planned) in order to get back to our city before 5pm and Bob made a side comment that next time, we shouldn't be leaving so early because "it doesn't look good."