Interview With Manager Essay

Throughout the essay, the motorcoachs will be referred to as Mr X and Mr Y and their companys will be referred to as utmost society X and Company Y separately due to confidential reasons. The first handler that was interviewed in order to fulfil this task was Mr X. He whole kit and caboodle for Company X, which is, a large attend to based organisation at the position of Head of in merged Credit Administration. His key responsibility at this bank is to provide credit administration support to Corporate, coronation banking and SME line of credit. Within Company Xs hi geological erarchy Mr X appears to be a middle aim manager at he is expected to report to the CEO of the company speckle he alike supervises. The second interview that was conducted for this task was with Mr Y. He is a Creative Marketing Director at Company Y which is a marketing consultancy and IT development enterprise located in Malaysia. His organisation is also service based however, it is a medium sized one. As a shed light on aim manager, Mr Ys task is to direct and oversee the overall projects and ensure that they argon carried out as planned and be successful. concern is the process of deck up and overseeing the work activities of others so that their activities ar completed efficiently and effectively (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2012).In the subsequent essay, the universality of management will be discussed in light of Fayols four functions and Katzs three scientific disciplines and how applicable these theories appear opus analysing the information gathered from the interviews. Henri Fayol proposed that that all managers behave five functions think, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2012). During the course of the essay, however, the emphasis will remain on the four functions planning, organising, leading and controlling. A skill is the ability either to perform some specific behavioral task or the abil ity to perform some specific cognitive process that is functionally related to some accompaniment task (Peterson, 2004). For the calculate of this task Katzs skills will be related to the interviews collected. Namely these are Conceptual, Human and Technical skills. Mr. X is involved in a nurse bind out of planning as he defines the credit policies for the corporate portfolio. Moreover, he has to cascade the defined goals to individual job levels and monitors them closely for accomplishment.In his organization, high achievers are much rewarded with awards and cash bonuses which serve as a motivation. Reports are alsocompiled frequently to monitor portfolio behavior and to engage sure that customers expectations at various occasions are fulfilled. At the same time, he is also expected to be able to work with various other departments to ensure smooth transactional processing. These tasks of Mr. X relate to the organizing function of Fayol, that is, the providing of e preciseth ing essential in performing a particular task i.e. the upright equipment and tools with right people and right amount of capital (Fayol, 1949, as cited in Lamond, 1998). It is not enough to just organize the employees and assign them jobs to perform. But what is to a greater extent important is to know that which employee is specialized in which job (best suited for a particular task) and assign them jobs accordingly (Fayol, 1949, as cited in Lamond, 1998). Mr. Xs interview conveys that he is the most(prenominal) involved in leading, organizing and controlling with a moderate amount of planning. All this is in line with the quick theories of what a middle level manager ought to do.However, he has rated controlling as 4 which is rather high for a middle level manager. Theory says that a middle-level manager is only expected to throw 14% of his tasks to controlling (Stephen Robbins, 2012, p.19). Mr. X rated the need of human skills as 5. These skills are important for managers at all levels (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2012). Hence, it falls in line and confirms Katzs surmise. However, Mr. Xs rating of the other both skills and the theory related to those seem to be contradicting as he rates adept skills and conceptual skills as very much while according to Katz, a middle level manager is expected to have moderate amounts of each. Thus, in Mr. Xs case, Fayols four functions seem to be evident while Katzs theory appears to not be relevant to his job description and tasks expected out of him. Managers post manage action directly, they backside manage people to encourage then to take necessary actions, and they can manage information to influence the people in turn to take their necessary actions (Mintzberg, 1994).Being a part of a board member, Mr. Y claims that he is involved in a moderate amount of planning (rating of 3), along with, employing the correctly skilled people for a task that is most suitable for them. Mr. Y feels that it is his resp onsibility, be a senior, to inspire his subordinates and provide them with the recognition that they require to be able to travel by in their respective fields. A weekly reporting system is used in Company Y to check through the companys progress and its employeesefficiency and effectiveness. Thus, there is quite a lot of leading and controlling, followed by organising and planning is the least of them all. Fayols four functions seem to be in accordance with Mr. Ys job description except for the function of controlling which, for a top level manager, should be the lowest and in this case it is rated as a 5 (very much). Technical skills are defined as the understanding of, or proficiency in, specific activities that require the use of specialized tools, methods, processes, procedures, techniques, or knowledge (Peterson, 2004). Relating back to Katzs theory, a top level manager is expected to possess very little of technical skills which contradicts with Mr. Ys rating of 3 for techn ical skills.The real performance of the manager is the knowledge base of the manager (Carroll & Gillen, 1987). Being a top level manager, it is generally assumed that Mr. Y should have very much of conceptual skills which will enable him to think outside the box as he also claims that it extremely hard to be creative on demand, which is something that his job requires of him. Conceptual skills are generally thought to be needed more as the level of managing gets higher. Along with this, human skills are also vital for a manager at all levels. These skills allow the manager to train, direct, and evaluate subordinates performing specialized tasks (Peterson, 2004). However, Mr. Y has overrated technical skills and underrated conceptual skills in relation to his job. Hence, this contradicts with the outlined theory and Katzs skills pick out across as irrelevant while analyzing Mr. Ys job.Hence, it can be concluded that Fayols functions are more relevant and evident in Mr. Ys descriptio ns of his job, as compared to Katzs theory which is mostly contradicting with the information provided by Mr. Y. Although there is some empirical support for the influence of hierarchical level and functional lastingness on managerial role requirements, the influence of these factors on required skills, knowledge, and abilities remains more speculative in nature (Pavett & Lau, 1983). If management is truly a generic principle, then what managers do should be essentially the same whether they are top level executives or low-level supervisors, in a business firm or a non-profit arts organization(Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2012). With advancements in technology and changing ideologies, the traditional description of an organization is changing along with the traditional definitions of a manager. The roles thatmanagers play and the expectations that others have of them are evolving to reflect bare-ass forms of organization (Chapman, 2001).During the past ten years or so, the usefulness of the classical functions for classifying managerial work activities has been questioned by a number of writers (Carroll & Gillen, 1987). Similarities can be observed between the two managers with reference to moderate amounts of planning and organising involved. Both managers also recognized human skills as highly important. These similarities could be due to both the managers being linked with the service sector. On the other hand, there are some evident differences that cannot be ignored. Mr. X requires very much of technical skills and conceptual skills, while Mr. Y needs only a moderate amount of both. No significant difference can be obtained in light of Fayols functions. Mintzberg (1980) proposed that differences in managerial work involve the relative importance of the roles across hierarchical level and functional specialty (Lachman, 1985). Hence, these differences are probably due Mr. X being a middle level manager while Mr. Y is a top level one. Also, Mr. X co mes from a public sector while Mr. Y relates to a private one.Furthermore, Mr. Y works for a medium sized organization where the need for technical and conceptual skills rises very seldom which is why he rates it so low. On the other hand, Mr. X, work in a large organization rates them higher as the circumstances are different. Managers in both small and large organisations perform essentially the same activities, but how they go about them and the balance of time they spend on each one are different (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2012). Regardless of their level, all managers make decisions and all managers are viewed to be performing the four functions of planning, organising, leading and controlling.However, the time dedicated to any particular function cannot be merely stated as a fact as it tends to vary from manager to manager. After analyzing the interviews, it can be concluded that Fayols four functions are found to be relevant in the light of the managers interviewed , but at a varied degree. How relevamt are Katzs skills? Examining the interviews separately, the skills stated do not seem to support the theory, except for the human skills. Although these skills are defined and explained separately, they will be interconnected when enforced to managerial problems. Therefore, looking at the general overview of the functions and skills, they appear to be the universal guideline for managers even up though the level of importance for each individual function or skills may be different. university extension ListCarroll, S., & Gillen, D,. (1987). Are the classical management functions useful in describing managerial work? Academy of forethought Review, 12(1), 38-51. Chapman, J.A., (2001). The work of managers in new organisational contexts. Journal of management development, 20(1), 55-68. Hales, C,. (1999). Why do Managers Do What They Do? accommodate Evidence and Theory in Accounts of Managerial ready. British Journal of Management, 10, 335350 Lac hman, R,. (1985). Public and Private sector differences CEOSs Perceptions of their Role Evironments. Academy of Management Journal, 28(3), 671-680.Lamond, D,. (1998). Back to the future Lessons from the past for a new management era in G. Griffin (Ed.) Management Theory and Practice Moving to a New Era. 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