Kenneth Udut** *********** *********** Wednesday, February 06,
2002 1^st question: Some examples of a college
instructor*s roles through Fayol*s terms would be this: plans
through the use of a syllabus, organizes by scheduling tests at
appropriate times, leads by keeping class discussions going, and
controls by using a student roster/grade sheet to keep track of
student progress, providing the information the instructor needs
to gauge attendance and performance, providing corrections when
necessary. Through Mintzberg*s managerial roles, a college
instructor*s interpersonal role might be her leader activities,
including motivating the students and providing correction
(discipline) when necessary. Her informational role may be
described by her disseminator role, when she explains the
college policy on attendence. An example of her decisional role
could be through her resource allocation in putting together
group projects. Describing a college instructor*s role through
Katz*s skills, she has technical skills in her ability to know
what it is like for the students to be completing homework
assignments, as she herself has similar tasks to perform for her
upper management. Her human skills rest in how she well she
works with the students, both as a group and individually.
Finally, her conceptual skills shine forth when she has students
initiate projects which extend outside of the classroom, for
example, if launching a project which requires the students to
read books for children, or have students in a management class
talk with managers in the business world. This requires a
teacher to see the ramifications of these activities that extend
far beyond the classroom. Through the systems perspective, a
teacher can be described as having to use the instructional
materials and the students as inputs, the homework and classroom
teaching as transformation, and the grades, and better educated
students as outputs. The results of tests (grades) can feed back
as inputs, acting as instructional material for the students to
better guide their studying, producing better homework and grade
results in the future. All of these interact with the
environment, by producing students better prepared to handle the
outside world, more able to read a newspaper and deal with the
business world more successfully. Finally, the contingency
perspective of a teacher*s role might be how she deals with each
individual student, their own personal situations, etc *
customizing the responses based on the situation at hand. 2^nd
question The skills of job candidates are not, in my opinion,
too important to employers. Skills that already exist reduce
training time and allow the job candidate to start in a better
position than they would if they lack the skills. The testing
and quantifying of skills needs improvement, however, as skills
residing within a person are often dormant and not always
obvious by their past public achievements. With an entry-level
job, skills are less important, as the skills easier to be
trained. But the higher one goes up in technical ability, the
more important skills become. Once one reaches the management
level, however, skills become more generic in nature. For
example, in my job, I know Microsoft Excel. I know it upside
down and backwards. These skills that I have took me from a
temporary job, caused the management to realize that they needed
my skills, and they hired me for four times the pay I was
getting as a temp. The drawback for my supervisor, is that my
skills are so technical, that his eyes glaze over when I start
describing what I*m doing, or what problems I*m having, etc. He
needs to understand the *gist* of what I am doing, and
occasionally comes up with advice that is useful, but generally,
he needs to consolidate what I*ve done and show how it relates
with other people on his time, to show to his management. Now,
his manager has no need to know the details of what I do * just
the product or what we call *deliverables*. Above him, even less
so is what I do important, except when it is high profile, which
happens about 4-5 times a year when the work I do directly
impacts people higher than himself. To answer the third question
while I*m here, when one is promoted from an operative to a
management position, a lot of new skills must be learned * many
of them painfully. Many of the joys of being technical are gone,
as is much of the protection, which comes from being
quantifiably valuable to the organization. There is a higher pay
scale, but the responsibility shifts from sets of tasks that are
often specialized in nature, to more generic tasks, such as
putting together progress reports, dealing with client issues
and the like. Some technical knowledge is still required, as I
described above with my boss, but much less so. It was a painful
process for my boss, as the experiences of handling each issue
on a contingency basis, often meant running around like a
madman, making phone calls, sitting with the people under his
command to try to get the *gist* of what the issue is, and then,
if things get too hot, to escalate the issues to his boss, who
is a middle manager. That often reflects poorly on my boss, as
it gives the appearance that he is incompetent. But if he*s not
fired, it becomes a learning experience, and next time around he
knows what to do better. He also occasionally goes to training
classes in supervision and management, which boosts his esteem
and fills in many of the gaps of his knowledge. He also talks to
other managers of his same level in order to find out what they
have done in similar situations. He also provides the same
assistance to other supervisor of his level when they need it.
Fourth question: Quiet, reflective planning and analysis is
accomplished by shutting the door, having all calls go to
voice-mail, and making sure that everybody in his team is doing
what they should at that moment. Only then can he plan things
out. Even still, the realities of day-to-day management help
shape the planning process, for many a time a plan that someone
has worked on at home, or in their spare time that does not
reflect the current realities of the organization, comes out as
a planning document and continues on until the point is reached
when he realizes, *Oh, the things in this planning document are
impossible, giving the current financial and human resources.*
Or, worse yet, upper management tells him this when asking for
money for a project. This would have been averted had he been
more involved with the day-to-day activities and was more aware
of what was really going on under his wing. Fifth question:
There are many styles of management, just as there are many
personalities of people. There is the One-Minute Manager style
(*compliment, complaint, compliment*, such as *Hey, you*re
really doing a great job. (compliment) But I*ve noticed you*ve
been coming in late and leaving early lately. (complaint) Still,
keep up the great work you*ve been doing on the XYZ project.
(compliment).*) There are also other styles of management, some
very hands-off, some very hands-on, some are heavier in
controlling, others are more planners, still other manager*s
best skills are in leading. For the operatives, the leaders are
the best to work for.
