The Interview with a Business Manager - Assignment Example

? 3 July, Report upon the interview with a business manager: This is a reflection upon the interview with Mr. X, who is a Civil Engineer by profession, is 10 per cent share holder in the ABC Company, and serves as a project manager in it these days. The company is working upon several projects worth millions of dollars and is a reputable company in the construction industry. The business Mr. X is in pertains to construction work. Mr. X is employed as project manager in a construction firm that takes contracts from other companies and delivers the work for compensation. Mr. X is both the project manager and a 10 per cent share holder of the firm. Owing to the tiny share of ownership, he works more as an employee than an owner. The ABC Construction Company has been serving as a contractor in the market for over thirty years now. The company has worldwide representation. Since its establishment, the company has received several renowned projects because of the personal links and strong network of the major shareholders of the ABC Company with the big clients. Construction work fascinated Mr. X since childhood. He always knew he would land in the construction industry somehow when he is grown up. Accordingly, he got admission in an engineering university and studied the Bachelor of Civil Engineering. Mr. X came from a well-off background. By the time he graduated, Mr. X had sufficient money in his pocket to become 10 per cent shareholder of the newly forming ABC Company that belonged to his seniors who had graduated about five years before him and had resolved to establish a construction company of their own by the time Mr. X was receiving his degree. Owing to the limited resources, the seniors were looking for interested parties that would invest into the business and become share holders in it upon their conditions. Since they were the graduates of the same engineering university, Mr X trusted them and decided to invest his money into their business for a 10 per cent share. Besides, he had received his degree at a time when the market was suffering from financial crisis and the jobs were almost non-existent. In these circumstances, Mr. X personally wanted that company to establish so that he would find a job for himself. After ten years of work as a site engineer, he was made the project manager because of his hard work and technical and technological expertise. Mr. X sees many weaknesses in the business, most of which find their origin in the unsuitable organization structure. Quite often, Mr. X complains of disparity between what he instructs his subordinates to do and what they come up with as a result. Mr. X partly blames the top management for this. He believes that he has been assigned more responsibility than authority. Top management expects him to finish the tasks according to schedule, but when he digs deep into the work in order to identify the underlying issues that are causing the delays in the work and are hindering the performance of the crew on the site, the top management hardly helps him out with the issues he notifies them of. The problem essentially exists because of the fact that the top management employs him as a dummy in order to satisfy the client, and does not give due consideration to his opinions, requests and suggestions. This can also be attributed to the fact that the top management solely assumes the decision making power and does not at all share it with Mr. X whereas his role in the hierarchy of the organization structure is central and Mr. X needs to be given certain decision making power. Mr. X feels very unfortunate given he can not make the top management realize how important it is to approve his requests. The strengths of the business are that the company has made a lot of profit in the past and has made a good reputation in the market. The clients place confidence in the work of their company and it is often the clients’ number one choice whenever a new project is about to commence. Despite all the flaws in the organization structure, the company retains an extremely low employee turnover rate because of the fact that the employees are getting a bit more than most companies in the market would offer them. In order to maintain the workforce, the top management has provided the employees with good salary packages along with accommodation, pick and drop service and many privileges that are commonly not offered by other companies. Thus, everybody keeps struggling in his/her own little circle in order to keep it going because it seems profitable by the end of the day. As a manager, Mr. X sees several weaknesses in himself despite the fact that he has been managing the company for over twenty five years now. Mr. X is a very fight-averse kind of person. He would compromise to any limit in order to avoid conflict. Because of his extremely humble nature, Mr. X can not maintain a strict attitude with the employees. He thinks that he lacks the sagacity that is required of a manager in order to make himself well-understood. A potential weakness of Mr. X, as he thinks, is the fact that he seems young for his age. At the age of 52, he does not seem any older than 35 years. This may have a very good impact on his social life outside work in general, but it only aggravates the matters when it comes to work. Management is essentially the task to influence others in order to make them comply with the individual’s instructions. With his young looks, Mr. X fails to make himself taken seriously by many of his subordinates that are elder to him. In addition to that, his super-sensitivity is subduing his talent as a manager for he does not feel confident while giving any sort of instructions, be they rational or otherwise. His sensitivity also makes him strong in certain ways. For example, when he does not enforce his opinion upon the subordinates, and rather listens to them with patience, quite often, he gets to realize that their opinion is actually worth while. So he spares his personal opinion for the sake of theirs since it is more beneficial for the business. It is Mr. X’s strength that he does not bring his ego into the business matters. He is watchful and mindful of the fact that good ideas can originate anywhere. So he gives due value and consideration to all subordinates. This does not only let him come up with the most rational course of action, but also earns him the reverence, sincerity and friendship of the subordinates for they feel valued and honored by the treatment offered by Mr. X. As a result of this, Mr. X’s rapport with peers and subordinates improves. Mr. X also believes that good relations with colleagues and subordinates raises a manager’s self esteem as a result of which, his performance in the work is improved. Mr. X is a bit skeptical about whether his decision to invest in the company upon the terms and conditions of his seniors was worth it or not since he does not even enjoy an equivalent 10 per cent share in the decision making. Mr. X says that his share in the company has hardly made any difference for him except for the fact that he gets the due profit whenever it is made. Mr. X says that quite often, he has to do unethical work upon the instructions of the top management that includes throwing the garbage near public places, which adds to environmental pollution. Mr. X is also not quite satisfied with the business practices of the ABC Company and is of the view that much of the profit is being made as a result of the compromise upon the health and safety of the environment. The top management has made such policies that tend to waste a lot of material. Their policies are not quite consistent with the idea of a green business. In addition to that, Mr. X is not at all satisfied with the health and safety conditions on the site. He thinks that the workers have not been provided with sufficient health and safety equipment because of which, every month, one or two accidents happen. The company has been working for one year on the latest project and there has been one casualty which could easily be avoided had the company maintained a strong health and safety system. Mr. X wants these things to change but unfortunately, he does not have the decision making power and his ideas or suggestions are hardly taken into consideration. Mr. X is very sensitive about the issues of global warming and sustainability and believes that “to the communities on which it has an impact, a business owes socially responsible behavior and ethical conduct” (Plunkett, Attner, and Allen 89). That is why, he is not comfortable being associated with a company whose practices expose the environment to potential threats and whose owners would not listen to him to change the business practices for good. Because of these factors, Mr. X is not quite satisfied with the work. He regrets having invested in the company. If he could wind the clock back, he would not invest in this business and would instead, look for a job in the Middle East as construction jobs are usually not hard to find there. Mr. X does want to establish a construction company of his own, but he says he could wait and do job until he had the required sum in hand to establish an independent construction company. Mr. X is basically a very sensitive, experienced, humble and responsible project manager who wants to work honestly and maintain the environmental health and safety along with doing the work. His super-sensitivity makes him more responsible, though he often does not consider himself as confident or effective as he should be because of his super-sensitivity. He is a considerate manager that gives due respect and importance to the opinions of his peers and subordinates, and tends to choose the course of action that is consistent with the profitability of the business rather than the satisfaction of his ego. These qualities make Mr. X a green manager who is as sensitive and possessive about the health of environment as he is about the success of his business. Works Cited: Plunkett, Warren R., Attner, Raymond F., and Allen, Gemmy S. Is Management Meeting and Exceeding Customer Expectations. 9 Ed. USA: Thomson South-Western, 2008. Print. Read More