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Management - an art or a science?



Assignment 1.Answer the following questions:

 

1.What is management? Is it an art or a science? An instinct or a set of skills and techniques that can be taught?

 

2. What do you think makes a good manager? Which four of the following qualities do you think are the most important?

 

A being decisive: able to make quick decisions

B being efficient: doing things quickly, not leaving tasks unfinished, having a tidy desk, and so on

C being friendly and sociable

D being able to communicate with people

E being logical, rational and analytical

F being able to motivate and inspire and lead people

G being authoritative: able to give orders

H being competent: knowing one's job perfectly, as well as the work of one's

subordinates

I being persuasive: able to convince people to do things

J having good ideas

K being highly educated and knowing a lot about the world

L being prepared to work 50 to 60 hours a week

M wanting to make a lot of money Are there any qualities that you think should be added to this list?

 

3. Which of these qualities can be acquired? Which must you be born with?

 

Assignment 2. This text summarizes some of Peter Drucker's views on management. As you read about his description of the work of a manager, decide whether the five different functions he mentions require the four qualities you selected in your discussion, or others you did not choose.

 

WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?

 

Peter Drucker, the well-known American business professor and consultant, suggests that the work of a manager can be divided into planning (setting objectives), organizing, integrating (motivating and communicating), measuring, and developing people.

First of all, managers (especially senior managers such as company chairmen – and women - and directors) set objectives, and decide how their organization can achieve them. This involves developing strategies, plans and precise tactics, and allocating resources of people and money.

Secondly, managers organize. They analyse and classify the activities of the organization and the relations among them. They divide the work into manageable activities and then into individual jobs. They select people to manage these units and perform the jobs.

Thirdly, managers practise the social skills of motivation and communication. They also have to communicate objectives to the people responsible for attaining them. They have to make the people who are responsible for performing individual jobs form teams. They make decisions about pay and promotion. As well as organizing and supervising the work of their subordinates, they have to work with people in other areas and functions.

Fourthly, managers have to measure the performance of their staff, to see whether the objectives set for the organization as a whole and for each individual member of it are being achieved.

Lastly, managers develop people - both their subordinates and themselves.

Obviously, objectives occasionally have to be modified or changed. It is generally the job of a company's top managers to consider the needs of the future, and to take responsibility for innovation, without which any organization can only expect a limited life. Top managers also have to manage a business's relations with customers, suppliers, distributors, bankers, investors, neighbouring communities, public authorities, and so on, as well as deal with any major crises which arise. Top managers are appointed and supervised and advised (and dismissed) by a company's board of directors.

Although the tasks of a manager can be analysed and classified in this fashion, management is not entirely scientific. It is a human skill. Business professors obviously believe that intuition and 'instinct' are not enough; there are management skills that have to be learnt. Drucker, for example, wrote nearly 30 years ago that 'Altogether this entire book is based on the proposition that the days of the "intuitive" manager are numbered,'* meaning that they were coming to an end. But some people are clearly good at management, and others are not. Some people will be unable to put management techniques into practice. Others will have lots of technique, but few good ideas. Outstanding managers are rather rare.

 

Peter Drucker: An Introductory View of Management

 

Assignment 3.Complete the following sentences with these words.

 

achieved board of directors communicate innovations manageable performance resources setting supervise

 

1. Managers have to decide how best to allocate the human, physical and capital …….. available to them.

2. Managers - logically - have to make sure that the jobs and tasks given to their subordinates are..................... .

3. There is no point in.............. objectives if you don't…….them to your staff.

4. Managers have to.............. their subordinates, and to measure, and try to improve, their .

5. Managers have to check whether objectives and targets are being …………. .

6. A top manager whose performance is unsatisfactory can be dismissed by the company's .

7. Top managers are responsible for the ..... that will allow a company to adapt to a changing world.

Assignment 4.The text contains a number of common verb-noun partnerships (e.g. achieve objectives, deal with crises, and so on).

Match up these verbs and nouns to make common collocations.

 

allocate decisions

communicate information

develop jobs

make objectives

measure people

motivate performance

perform resources

set strategies

supervise subordinates

Assignment 5.These are (apparently) genuine memos circulated by managers in American companies:

 

As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.

 

We know that communication is a problem in this company but we are not going to discuss it with the employees.

 

This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it.

 

What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.

 

Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.

 

Assignment 6. Now imagine that you are a stupid manager ( no—of course it will never really happen to you!) and write the most ridiculous memo that you can think of to all company staff.

MEMO

From:

To:

Subject:

Assignment 7.Studythe Active vocabularyand give the Ukrainian equivalents of the words and word combinations:

 

1. decisive

2. efficient

3. rational

4. authoritative

5. to supervise subordinates

6. to set objectives

7. to develop people

8. senior managers

9. to allocate resources of people and money

10. to perform jobs

11. manageable activities

12. to communicate objectives

13. to attain

14. promotion

15. to modify objectives

16. to consider the needs of the future

17. innovation

18. customers

19. suppliers

20. neighbouring communities

21. public authorities

22. to appoint

23. board of directors

24. to put techniques into practice

25. the days are numbered

Assignment 8.Translate the sentences:

 

1. Важливо не тільки мати теоретичні знання, а й використовувати їх на практиці.

2. Дні компанії, яка виробляє застарілі товари, добігають кінця.

3. Крім організації та спостереження за роботою своїх підлеглих менеджер має співпрацювати з інвесторами, постачальниками, банкирами, місцевими громадськими організаціями, органами державної влади та людьми з інших сфер.

4. Вона давно навчилася оцінювати продуктивність праці персоналу, що робить її надзвичайно цінним членом нашої команди.

5. Ми повинні призначити групу ініціативних осіб, відповідальних за зв’язок із місцевими громадами.

6. Наразі в сесійній залі відбувається нагальна зустріч ради директорів компанії.

7. На засіданні головні менеджери та директор компанії затвердили нову стратегію розвитку.

8. Кожен відповідає за якісне виконання роботи перед керівництвом.

9. Враховуючи майбутні потреби, рада директорів вирішила змінити тактику розподілу людських та фінансових ресурсів.

10. Очевидно, втілювати нову техніку управління у життя непросто.

11. Контроль роботи підлеглих здійснюється менеджерами цієї компанії постійно.

Assignment 9.Read and translate the text aboutScientific Management:

 

Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management

 

How did current management theories develop?

People have been managing work for hundreds of years, and we can trace formal management ideas to the 1700s. But the most significant developments in management theory emerged in the 20th century. We owe much of our understanding of managerial practices to the many theorists of this period, who tried to understand how best to conduct business.

 

Historical Perspective

One of the earliest of these theorists was Frederick Winslow Taylor. He started the Scientific Management movement, and he and his associates were the first people to study the work process scientifically. They studied how work was performed, and they looked at how this affected worker productivity. Taylor's philosophy focused on the belief that making people work as hard as they could was not as efficient as optimizing the way the work was done.

In 1909, Taylor published "The Principles of Scientific Management." In this, he proposed that by optimizing and simplifying jobs, productivity would increase. He also advanced the idea that workers and managers needed to cooperate with one another. This was very different from the way work was typically done in businesses beforehand. A factory manager at that time had very little contact with the workers, and he left them on their own to produce the necessary product. There was no standardization, and a worker's main motivation was often continued employment, so there was no incentive to work as quickly or as efficiently as possible.

Taylor believed that all workers were motivated by money, so he promoted the idea of "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." In other words, if a worker didn't achieve enough in a day, he didn't deserve to be paid as much as another worker who was highly productive.

With a background in mechanical engineering, Taylor was very interested in efficiency. While advancing his career at a U.S. steel manufacturer, he designed workplace experiments to determine optimal performance levels. In one, he experimented with shovel design until he had a design that would allow workers to shovel for several hours straight. With bricklayers, he experimented with the various motions required and developed an efficient way to lay bricks. And he applied the scientific method to study the optimal way to do any type of workplace task. As such, he found that by calculating the time needed for the various elements of a task, he could develop the "best" way to complete that task.

These "time and motion" studies also led Taylor to conclude that certain people could work more efficiently than others. These were the people whom managers should seek to hire where possible. Therefore, selecting the right people for the job was another important part of workplace efficiency. Taking what he learned from these workplace experiments, Taylor developed four principles of scientific management. These principles are also known simply as "Taylorism".

 

Four Principles of Scientific Management

 

Taylor's four principles are as follows:

1. Replace working by "rule of thumb," or simple habit and common sense, and instead use the scientific method to study work and determine the most efficient way to perform specific tasks.

2. Rather than simply assign workers to just any job, match workers to their jobs based on capability and motivation, and train them to work at maximum efficiency.

3. Monitor worker performance, and provide instructions and supervision to ensure that they're using the most efficient ways of working.

4. Allocate the work between managers and workers so that the managers spend their time planning and training, allowing the workers to perform their tasks efficiently.

 

Assignment 10. Answer the questions.

1. When did the first formal management ideas appear?

2. What principles did Taylor’s philosophy focus on?

3. What ideas did Taylor advance in his work “The principles of Scientific Management”?

4. What did Taylor mean by saying “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”?

5. What experiments did Taylor carry out to determine optimal performance level?

6. Why is it so important to select certain people for the job?

7. Study the principles of scientific management and define whether they are still actual nowadays?

Assignment 11.Find the words in the text with the following meaning:

1. To appear, to begin to be known or noticed

2. To find the origins of something, to study the history and development of something

3. Someone who you work or do business with

4. To make the way that something is done or used as effective as possible

5. To work together in order to achieve a result that is good for both sides

6. The process and result of making all the things of one particular type the same as each other

7. Something that encourages you to work harder, start new activities

8. To try various ideas, methods etc to see whether they will work or what effect they will have

9. The quality of doing something well and effectively, without wasting time, money or energy

10. To decide that something is true after considering the information you have

11. To become larger in amount, number or degree

Assignment 12. Explain the meaning of the following words and word combinations, translate them into Ukrainian and learn by heart.

- To manage work

- Significant developments

- To conduct business

- To affect productivity

- To advance an idea

- Continued employment

- To motivate by money

- To promote an idea

- Highly productive

- To advance one’s career

- Optimal performance level

- To apply the scientific method

- Rule of thumb

- Common sense

- To monitor performance


Assignment 13. Translate into English.

 

1. Менеджер має надати інструкції та забезпечити нагляд, щоб впевнитися, що працівники виконують роботу найбільш ефективно.

2. Якщо робітник не виконав план протягом дня, він не заслуговує на таку саму платню, як той робітник, що працював дуже продуктивно.

3. Якщо розрахувати час, який потрібен для виконання різних елементів завдання, можна визначити найпродуктивніший спосіб виконання цього завдання.

4. Якщо оптимізувати та спростити роботу, продуктивність зросте.

5. Для того, щоб розуміти, як найкраще вести бізнес, потрібно вивчати, як виникли перші ідеї менеджменту, які наукові теорії виникли у ХХ сторіччі, і як вони були застосовані на практиці.

Part 2

Meetings

'One can either work or meet. One cannot do both at the same time.'

(Peter Drucker: An Introductory View of Management)

What do you think Peter Drucker means by this comment?

In your experience - at work, or doing group projects at institute - is this true?

How much of the working week do you think managers should spend in meetings?

Assignment 1.Read the computer journalist Robert X. Cringely's description of the management style at IBM. Is he positive or negative about IBM's working culture?

 

Every IBM employee's ambition is apparently to become a manager, and the company helps them out in this area by making management the company's single biggest business. IBM executives don't design products and write software; they manage the design and writing of software. They go to meetings. So much effort, in fact, is put into managing all the managers who are managing things that hardly anyone is left over to do the real work. This means that most IBM hardware and nearly all IBM software is written or designed by the lowest level of people in the company - trainees. Everyone else is too busy going to meetings, managing, or learning to be a manager, so there is little chance to include any of their technical expertise in IBM products. Go back and read that last paragraph over again, because that's why IBM products often aren't very competitive.

IBM has layers and layers of management to check and verify each decision as it is made and amended. The safety net is so big at IBM that it is hard to make a bad decision. In fact, it is hard to make any decision at all, which turns out to be the company's greatest problem and the source of its ultimate downfall (remember, you read it here first).

(Robert X. Cringely: Accidental Empires)

 

Assignment 2.Explain in your own words exactly what Robert Cringely means in the following sentences.

 

1Every IBM employee's ambition is apparently to become a manager.

2 IBM makes management the company's single biggest business.

3 IBM executives manage the design and writing of software.

4 IBM products often aren't very competitive.

5 The safety net is so big at IBM that it is hard to make a bad decision.

6 This will be the source of the company's ultimate downfall.

 

Assignment 3.Find words in the text that mean the same as the words or expressions below.

 

1seemingly 6 knowledge and skill

2 computer programs 7 levels or strata

3 work, time and energy 8 to make certain that something is true

4 computers (and other machines) 9 corrected or slightly changed their jobs

5 young workers still learning 10 collapse or failure

Assignment 4.Translate the sentences:

 

1. Використання застарілого обладнання та технологій може стати причиною остаточного краху фірми.

2. Компанія Microsoft є однією з провідних компаній в галузі написання програмного забезпечення.

3. Щоб стати стажером компанії Xerox треба мати спеціальні знання.

4. Мережа безпеки настільки потужна, що її неможливо зламати.

5. На різних рівнях управління контроль здійснюється однаково жорстко.

6. Для перевірки та підтвердження кожного рішення була створена окрема комісія.

7. Стажери часто пишуть прості модулі програмного забезпечення через брак досвіду та технічних знань про сумісність апаратних та програмних засобів.

8. Причиною остаточного краху стали непорозуміння між генеральним та виконавчим директорами.

9. Мережа безпеки була погано розвинена, тому частина інформації втрачена назавжди.

 

Part 3

The retail sector

Assignment 1.Here is a part of an interview with Steve Moody, the manager of the Marks & Spencer store in Cambridge, England. What do you know about Marks & Spencer? What do they sell?

Steve Moody So, as the store manager in Cambridge, which is probably the fortieth largest of the 280 stores we have got, I am responsible for the day-to-day running of the store. All the product is delivered to me in predescribed quantities, and obviously I'm responsible for displaying that merchandise to its best advantages, obviously I'm responsible for employing the staff to actually sell that merchandise, and organizing the day-to-day logistics of the operation. Much more running stores is about the day-to-day operation, and ensuring that that's safe, and obviously because of the two hundred people that we would normally have working here it's ensuring that they are well trained, that they are well motivated, and that the environment they work in is a pleasant one, that they are treated with respect, and that they are committed to the company's

principles.

Interviewer How much freedom do those people have within their jobs to make decisions themselves? How much delegation is there of responsibility down the chain?

Steve Moody We would, as a business, like to encourage as much accountability and delegation as possible. Of course that does depend on the abilities of the individuals, the environment in which you're working, and the time of year. With 282 stores we have a corporate appearance in the United Kingdom's high streets. It is quite important that when customers come into Marks & Spencer's Cambridge they get the same appearance and type of looking store and the same level of service that they would expect if they went into Marks & Spencer's Edinburgh in Scotland, for example, and it's very important that we have a corporate statement that customers understand. So, there are obviously parameters and disciplines that, you know, not only the staff but supervision and management would follow. Within that, in terms of development and training, training is obviously an investment for all staff. If staff are trained to do their job well and they understand it, they will feel confident in what they're doing, that in turn will give a better service to the customers, obviously from Marks & Spencer's point of view it could well lead to increased sales.

Interviewer Do you have meetings for members of staff where they can express views about what's going on in the store?

Steve Moody We have a series of meetings, management and supervisory every week, we have something which Marks & Spencer's call a focus group, which is members of staff who get together regularly from all areas of the store, so from the food section and perhaps the menswear section, from the office who do the stock and accounting, and indeed the warehouse where people receive

goods. They have meetings, they discuss issues, they discuss problems that they fed are going on in the store. They also discuss suggestions of how they can improve that we run the store, and they discuss that amongst themselves first. They will then have a meeting with members of management and obviously myself, and we will discuss those issues and work together to try and provide solutions. However, Marks & Spencer's philosophy, I suppose, is that meetings should not be a substitute for day-to-day communication and therefore if problems do arise in terms of the operation, or an individual has got a problem in their working environment, or indeed their immediate line manager, or indeed if they have a problem outside, which might be domestic or with their family, we would like to discuss that as it arises and would like to encourage a policy that they will come and talk to their supervisor or their manager, to see what we can do to solve the problem.

Assignment 2 .Answer the questions:

 

1. Steve Moody describes the role and responsibilities of a store manager. Which of the following tasks is he responsible for?

1) designing the store and its layout

2) displaying the merchandise

3) employing the sales staff

4) ensuring the safety of staff and customers

5) establishing the company’s principles

6) getting commitment from the staff

7) increasing profits

8) maintaining a pleasant working environment

9) motivating staff

10) organizing the day-to-day logistics

11) pricing the merchandise

12) running 40 out of 280 stores

13) selecting merchandise

14) supervising the day-to-day running of the store

15) training staff

 

2. Why are Marks & Spencer’s store managers limited in giving accountability to their staff and delegating responsibilities? What do they concentrate on instead?

3. What kinds of regular meetings does Steve Moody mention? Who attends them?

4. What kind of problems cannot be dealt with by meetings?

5. How are such problems dealt with?

Assignment 3.After reading about management, do you think you have the right skills to be a manager? Would you be able, for example, to set objectives, motivate and coordinate the staff, and manage a department store, or a computer manufacturer?

Assignment 4.Studythe Active vocabularyand give the Ukrainian equivalents of the words and word combinations:

 

1. store manager

2. the day-to-day-running of the store

3. in predescribed quantities

4. to display merchandise to its best advantages

5. the day-to-day logistics

6. well trained

7. well motivated

8. to be treated with respect

9. to be committed to the company’s principles

10. to encourage accountability and delegation down the chain

11. corporate appearance

12. level of service

13. corporate statement

14. to follow parameters and disciplines

15. supervision

16. to lead to increased sales

17. to do the stock

18. to do the accounting

19. warehouse

20. to provide solutions

21. working environment

22. immediate line manager

23. in terms of the operation

 

Assignment 5. Translate the sentences:

 

1. Менеджер відповідає за повсякденну роботу магазину, доставку товарів у визначеній кількості та за те, щоб представити ці товари найкращим чином.

2. Персонал магазину має бути добре підготовленим та добре мотивованим, щоб працювати у цій компанії.

3. Наш магазин знаходиться на головній вулиці Токіо, а рівень обслуговування є найвищим у світі.

4. Кожен працівник має дотримуватись принципів компанії та прийнятих у ній норм і порядків.

5. На жаль, рівень обслуговування у цьому ресторані залишає бажати кращого.

6. Менеджер магазину також займається щоденними завданнями, пов’язаним з логістикою.

7. Лише добре підготовані, вмотивовані, віддані принципам компанії працівники складають ядро нашої корпорації.

8. Комфортне робоче середовище – ключ до швидкого знаходження рішень.

9. Складські приміщення потребують модернізації для покращення процесу доставки товарів в магазини, що дозволить збільшити продажі.

 

 







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