Question

Choose one individual in a managerial position for your interview. DO NOT submit your final paper as a Question/Answer format. Rather, you should discuss the thoughts, comments, and/or observations resulting from an interview. The benefit of this assignment is the insight you gain into the real managerial world, what you take away from the interview that will make you a better manager, or those practices/principles that you would emulate or avoid/alter. I am primarily interested in what you gained from the interview and what the interviewee said that would be of value to you in your own management activities. It is not necessary to discuss the interviewee's background or history with an organization unless there is a lesson to be learned. You should consider what questions you want to ask an active manager that would help formulate your own managerial practices. Review the chapters in the text for ideas on areas of management that you would like to know more about from the manager interviewed. I will send some suggested questions in a separate mail but they are not intended as the only focus. Students in the past have asked for some suggestions for possible inquiry.Do not limit your inquiry to just a couple chapter topics. Questions related to managerial responsibilities and practices involving planning, organizing, decision making, leading, motivating, and communication, for example, could elicit critical insights for developing your own management style and practices. Papers should be limited to TWO pages.

Answer 1

The person I interviewed is a Assistant manager in the productions department of a Company with the name "Acme Fast Fashion" which is a medium scale enterprise involved meeting the needs if customers.

Mr Blake is an assistant manager of productions area working under and reporting directly to CEO and is responsible for the outcome of the operations area and the performance of employees.

The first and the foremost thing that Mr Blake highlighted to be necessary for handling such a position effectivrly is the "Ability to Change".

"Being associated with a fast fashion industry, one should definitely possess the ability to adapt to the trends and Fads"

Blake laid emphasis on the "Change introduction and change management "concept which as per him is very essential in order to cope up with the customer preferences and dynamic business environment so as to stay aloof of the tough competition. He believes that adopting to the latest trends and adjusting the work methods to fulfill the desired outcome expected is necessary for the success of position he is occupying. Blake believes that managers need to stay flexible and adaptable to the changing circumstances and shoukd be able to introduce change with facing least employee resistance.

On asking what motivates him to attain challenging targets and solving problems, his answer was quite simply and definite.;

" Its the n'ach factor I. e "high need for achievement" Which keeps me going"

Blake says that he is motivated to achieve high targets because of need for achieving more, he believes that complacency is a state of mind that exists in retrospective, so whenever he attains a big target, he is likely going to have himself with something even bigger to achieve more. And since motivation is directly related to the efforts and job performance, he gas turned out to be the most effective Manager on such position which he is ocupying for more than 2 years and is expecting a promotion.

Blake believes that he has Leadership qualities because he drives the efforts if his subordinates working under him and is able to convince them to work better and produce better outcome.

"Apart possessing a combination of descent problem solving, critical thinking and decision making skills required to prove an efficient manager I can inspire people to work better and direct them towards an attainable goal"

Blake believes that it is important to possess eloquency in speaking so as to communicate a positive or negative information to the subordinates in the most effective manner which will only produce positive results. He demonstrates his soft skills by giving an example of situation when he was asked to present a one minute elevator pitch on the topic "Fad : Good or Bad" And he was successful in convincing to its audience in the meeting that FAD in the long term can prove fatal to marketing managers.

Blake follows a laissez faire style because he believes that if in the present era, people are tried to be controlled they are eventually going to leave your job so providing them necessary freedom and independence of decision making which they definitely have to earn will on one hand encourage creativity and initiative in operations and on the other hand prepare them for more challenging and responsible positions.

Positive outlook has a great significance for Blake, he says that positivity can not only make you feel great but had the potential to foster the employee morale.

He takes every possible step to extend a hand of support and guidance to his employees and moreover he has also acted as soon mentir to couple of staff who have definitely benefitted by his knowledge. Blake considers supervision an important part of lsissez faire which helps him to make his employees speed up to complete projects under deadlines.

In asking how effective decision maker does he consider himself he says that their is no independent decision making in his organization, he combines the opinion, suggestions and recommendations of all, both superiors and subordinates to make a final decision. So as per him effective decision making is a collective effort and collaborative knowledge. And here Communication skills are very important to share your ideas with the help of using best and wise words which influence the perception of the other and convinces him to agree with you opinion.

Mr Blake further laid down stress on decision making skills and holds the belief that for choosing the best alternative, one should be able to compare and ensure that the returns from choosing a particular alternative should be way greater than the investments made. And attaining a balance between the benefit s recieved and efforts made is very important and initially moderate is better than excess and scarce.

One most integral thing that Mr Blake highlighted was that he follows Equity theory while making decisions regarding anything and thus satisfies that decision is correct once sure that the efforts made are worth the outputs recieved.

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Thanks dear student

Hope I explained well, modify it as per your needs if required

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