TASK ONE - THE PROBLEM ABOUT THE MANAGER • For questions 13 - 17, match the extracts with the problems, listed A - H. • For

Speaker 1
   I remember this manager I worked under once - he really was pretty inefficient. I think the problem was that he was a bit of a control freak and driven by all these targets he used to set himself. The silly thing was that it meant not that much really got done satisfactorily, cos he wouldn’t pass tasks on to anyone else, for fear they wouldn’t take the time to do it perfectly, so projects were always running behind. And of course it’s very difficult to deal with people like that, since you’re not in a position to suggest anything to them, but I think they do need to consult if not someone then something - there are programmes you can use now that help to prioritise and allocate work in the course of a project.
Speaker 2
   I honestly don’t know what managers are taught on all these courses they go on, or what they’re supposed to qualify anyone to do. I’m thinking in particular of one manager in my organisation who seems to spend his whole time with his nose in some book or other - when what he actually needs to do is deal with his people, get them all in together for a session to air their problems and discuss ways to move forward. As it is, he’s got this office full of staff trying their best to do good work but without real guidance. You can’t run a business only on paper, and he doesn’t give his staff enough recognition for the quality o f their work
Speaker 3
   Well, the last line manager I had certainly caused problems - but it wasn’t as if there weren’t solutions available. Other managers in the same company didn’t run into the same problems as she did. But then they did make use of what was on the doorstep the company ran a weekly series of workshops, and they were great. They were only about an hour long, but she should have made the effort - the one on communication, for example, would have shown her ways to overcome her seeming inability to hear what ideas people were coming up with. As it was, the way she simply ignored such input caused a lot of resentment And that’s no way to run a department.
Speaker 4
   Well, they all talk about management being about facilitating processes and empowering staff, don’t they? But in my experience the reality can be very different indeed. I knew one manager who I think just didn’t appreciate how much management had moved on since he’d originally trained. He approached absolutely everything in the same way, itemising financial aspects, without seeing the bigger picture - all he wanted to do was implement savings. It was disastrous when it came to considering upgrading computers, for example, as it’s so difficult to calculate that sort of thing in those terms. Looking back I think what he needed to do was to change his whole approach. I’m not sure he’d have taken advice from his colleagues, but he should have caught up a bit on his reading, taken his own time to mull over some of the newer ideas.
Speaker 5
I’ve heard managers being criticised for spending too long out at conferences, and losing touch with what’s going on in front of their noses. But one manager in my firm was present, it’s, just that she didn’t pay enough attention. So while our competitors would be installing new databases and upgrading their networks, she’d not bother to check out what was available, and keep us all slaving away on very time-consuming jobs. I don’t know if she thought she was saving the company money, but if she did she was much mistaken. Ironically, she went to some training sessions, so she must have heard other ideas, but without much effect. She should have simply moved her desk out of the comer, and become part of the section, so that she could have appreciated how cumbersome some of the procedures were.