Profiles of the candidates

Read the essential information about each candidate on page 13. Then listen to the interview extracts.

			Robert Kaminsky Polish, aged 52 EducationUniversity degree (Engineering) ExperienceWide experience in a variety of industries. Joined Fast-Track five years ago as Regional Manager for the south of Poland. AchievementsHas been fairly successful, increasing sales by 12% over the five-year period. LanguagesFluent Polish and English. Interviewer's commentsVery calm and relaxed, he moves and talks slowly. A hard worker. He never leaves the office before seven in the evening. Not creative but happy to get ideas from the creative members of a team. Respected by previous staff. Current staff think he is practical and reliable.

The career ladder

Before you read

In your organisation, or one you would like to join, is there a clear career ladder? What must you do to succeed in climbing the ladder?

Reading

Read this article from the Financial Times and answer the questions.

The unspoken rules of career success

Teri Fisher

I had been to business school, but nothing I had learnt there provided an answer to what I saw in my first working year: I discovered that the person being promoted above others in my organisation was not always the most knowledgeable or hardest working. New rules - 'unspoken rules' - seemed to explain the differences between, say, an employee's performance review and the way his or her career actually developed. I realised that I needed to learn these rules fast or risk being left behind.

Here are fiveof the most important:

1. Understand how you are seen.

2. Ask for and give honest and direct feedback.

3. Play by the rules until you are in a position to change them.

4. Work with, not against, the style of the people you deal with.

5. Don't be a victim of your career-take charge and make your own choices.

1 Choose the alternative that means the same as the word(s) in italics.

a)... but nothing I had learnt there provided an answer to... (line з)

i) gave

ii) decided

iii) removd

b) ... the person being promoted above others ... (line 6)

i) given a job with the same importance as before

ii) given a job with less importance than before

iii) given a job with more importance than before

c) ... unspoken rules... (lines 9-10)

i) rules that employees did not know about

ii) rules that employees knew about but that they never talked about

iii) rules that employees knew about and talked about

d) ... the way his or her career actually developed, (line 14)

i) in fact

ii) right now

iii)presently

e) I realised that I needed to learn these rules fast... (line 14)

i) succeeded

ii) achieved

iii) understood

f) ... or risk being left behind, (line 16)

i) perhaps not succeed as well as others

ii) perhaps not work as hard as others

iii) perhaps not leave work when others left work

2 A company employee does these things, a)-e). Match each thing to one of the five unspoken rules in paragraph 2.

a)I realised that a client had a good sense of humour, so I put some jokes in a proposal that I was writing for him.

b)I thought I had good dress sense, but one day a colleague told me that my clothes were not suitable for the office.

c)In a performance review, my manager told me I was not ambitious enough to succeed. And I told her that she was too aggressive.

d)One day I realised that the company was not growing very fast, so I started looking for a job somewhere else.

e)When I joined the company, I followed the rules even if I thought they were stupid. Then, when I got promoted, I started to change them.

Over to you

Do you agree with the advice in the article? Why or why not? Is any of the advice useful for succeeding in your organisation? Can you think of other rules that are useful:

a) in your organisation?

b) in organisations in general?

The midlife crisis

Before you read

What do you understand by 'midlife crisis'?

What are the signs that someone is having one?

Reading

Read this article from and answer the questions:

Making the most of the midlife crisis

Feeling deeply bored and burnt out? If you are over 30, you may be showing the first signs of a midlife crisis. You could completely change your career, as did Gauguin, the French painter who gave up his job as a stockbroker to travel the world and paint.

But there are many ways of 'doing a Gauguin'. For some it means going back to university, for others it may be opening a beach bar in the Caribbean or finding a new partner. Those who have the money may take a year off to sail around the world and think about the meaning of life. Whatever the exit, it usually takes courage to find it.

Midlife crises can happen at 31, at 56 or several times during one's life. As well as having a huge personal impact, they can have a significant impact on organisations. At midlife, executives are normally at the peak of their careers and charged with making critical decisions.

Manfred Kets de Vries, professor of management and leadership at Insead business school, Fontainebleau, France, interviewed 200 senior executives from around the world (average age 46) and published a study of what they went through in midlife.

One interviewee, the chief executive of a Swedish newspaper, explained his feelings: 'To my horror, I would begin to disappear emotionally in the middle of presentations ... People would see it. They would become nervous ... their attention would wander ... To this strange state of mind was also added my inability to listen to and function with other people.'

1 Imagine that each paragraph in the article has a heading.
Choose the best heading for each paragraph from the list
below and number them in the correct order.

a)A business school professor interviewed 200 senior managers around the world about the midlife crisis

b)An example of someone in a midlife crisis

c)Different people have different ideas about what they would do if they had a midlife crisis

d)Feeling bored may be the first sign of a midlife crisis

e)Midlife crises can happen at almost any age from early 30s onwards

2 Choose the correct alternative. Then comment on the verb
tenses in italics.

a)Feeling deeply bored and burnt out? If you are over 30, you may be showing the first signs of a midlife crisis, (line 2) This means that it is

i) certainly a midlife crisis,

ii) possibly a midlife crisis,

iii) certainly not a midlife crisis.

b)Those who have the money may take a year off to sail around the world ... (line 15) This means that they

i) will possibly sail around the world.

ii) have permission to sail around the world.

iii) will certainly sail around the world.

c)Midlife crises can happen at 31, at 56 or several times during one's life. As well as having a huge personal impact, they can have a significant impact on organisations. (lines 20 and 23)

This means that midlife crises

i) always happen in the way described.

ii) sometimes happen in the way described.

iii) never happen in the way described.

d)'I would begin to disappear emotionally in the middle of
presentations ... People would see it. They would
become nervous ... their attention would wander...' (lines 40-44)

This means that people did these things

i) never

ii) once

iii) several times

Over to you:

A friend of yours is having a midlife crisis. Which of these things would you recommend, and why?

• sail around the world

• coach (= give advice to) young people in the organisation

• take a job in the same company, but in another country

• do voluntary work (= low-paid or unpaid work with social objectives)

• stay at home for a year, read a lot of books and work on the garden

Ambition

SYMBOLS OF SUCCESS

1. Read as far as ... his home town, Alexandria in the article and then answer these questions.

1 What kind of family does Mohamed Al Fayed come from? What is his family like now?

2 What are the things that show that he's successful?

3 Which of his symbols of success would you like? Are there any that you wouldn't like?

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 3171