Read texts 3 and 4. Compare the information they contain. What is the difference in Gates’ and Branson’s approaches to success in business?

What Makes a Good Manager?

(10 Tips for a Successful Manager by Bill Gates)

There isn't a magic formula for good management, of course, but if you're a manager perhaps these tips will help you to be more effective.

1. Choose a field thoughtfully. Make it one you enjoy. It's hard to be produc­tive without genuine enthusiasm.

2. Hire carefully and be willing to fire. You need a strong team, because a mediocre team gives mediocre results, no matter how well managed it is.

3. Create a productive environment. This is a particular challenge because it requires different approaches depending on the context.

4. Define success. Make it clear to your employees what constitutes success and how they should measure up their achievements. Goals must be realistic. Project schedules, for example, must be set up by the people who do the work. People will accept a "bottoms-up" deadline they helped to set but they'll be cynical about a schedule imposed from the top that doesn't map to reality. Unachievable goals undermine an organization.

5. To be a good manager, you have to like people and be good at com­municating. This is hard to fake. If you don't genuinely enjoy interacting with people, it'll be hard to manage them well.

6. Develop your people to do jobs better than you can. Transfer your skills to them.

7. Give people a sense of the importance of what they're working on - its importance to the company, its importance to the customers. When you achieve great results, everybody involved should share in the credit and feel good about it.

8. Take on projects yourself. You need to do more than communicate. The last thing people want is a boss who just doles out stuff. From time to time prove you can be hands-on by taking on one of the less attractive tasks and using it as an example of how your employees should meet challenges.

9. Don't make the same decision twice. People hate indecisive leadership so you have to make choices.

10. Let people know whom to please. Maybe it's you, maybe it's your boss and maybe it's somebody who works for you.

Text 4

Richard Branson’s 10 secrets of success

Richard Branson became famous as a ‘hippy’ businessman in the 60s when he set up a record company. Today he runs the successful Virgin airline and he is still breaking many of the traditional rules of management. So how does he do it?

1. He regularly works an eleven-hour day, starting around eight and finishing around seven at night.

2. He spends a lot of time talking to people on the telephone but never sends memos.

3. He rarely holds board meetings. He makes decisions on the phone or on the tennis court.

4. He has good memory and he writes people’s names on his hand so he doesn’t forget them.

5. He invites every single one of his 10,000 employees to a party at his home in Oxfordshire every year. The last party cost around $100,000.

6. He continually questions his employees about every aspect of the business and he tries to pick holes in their arguments to find out whether their idea will work.

7. If he becomes annoyed in meetings, he leaves the room. He hardly ever loses his temper.

8. He employs people he likes personally. This is more important to him than qualifications.

9. He has had several business failures in the past and nearly went bankrupt several times but he has always survived. He puts his success down to good ideas, good people, and good luck.

10. He didn’t go into business to make money. He went into business because he wanted a challenge.

Task II. Work in pairs. Read these definitions and memorize what is meant by a tycoon and a guru: a) a tycoon is a person who is successful in business and so has become rich and powerful; b) a guru is a person who some people regard as an expert or leader. Can you call Bill Gates and Richard Branson a guru or a tycoon?

Now make common collocations with either a guru or a tycoon using the following words: business, publishing, investment, property, advertising, design, media, marketing. Can you give any real-life examples of such people?

Text 5

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 1534