affordable go to some interesting place in big groups
autocrat very advanced youngster who can work wonders
flock which any person can have
feasible having unlimited power
stumble in confusion
paternalism workable
in turmoil decided together
collegial stop or make a mistake
whiz kid the system of satisfying people’s needs depriving them
of any rights
2. What do the following phrases mean?
to be big on sth
to go for a spin
to throw into overdrive
a sprawling city of a place
to blow the money on booze and vice
Explain the meaning of the following sentences.
a. ‘He had also made labor peace’
b. ‘Its balance sheet was still being kept on the back of an envelope, and the guys in purchasing had to weigh the invoices to count them.’
c. ‘ it was Henry Ford II who rescued the legacy.”
d. ‘He played down his grandfather’s antics, and he made amends with the Jewish business community…’
4. The author paraphrases the common phrase ‘ vicious circle’ into ‘virtuous circle’. What is the difference between the two?
5. Answer the following questions.
a. What family did Henry Ford come from?
b. What were his early days work experiences?
c. How did it shape his later business outlook?
d. What was Ford’s role in altering the American landscape?
e. What authorizes the writer to state that Ford’s vision helped to ‘create a middle class’ in the U.S.?
f. How does friendship with Thomas Alva Eddison characterize Henry Ford?
g. What Ford’s innovations change management completely?
h. How did Ford’s origin tell on his attitude to his workers?
i. What aspects of Ford’s personality prove that there is always room for perfection?
j. What was his descendant’s role in ‘ rescuing the legacy’ of the family?
For discussion
- What do you think of Henry Ford’s commitment to create employee-friendly working environment? Can such expenditures be reasonable and economically justifiable in the long run?
- What do latter-day employers try to do foster healthy relationship? Do they do it of their free will?
■ 4.7 H. Sorry, He’s in Conference
How much of your time at work today will be spent at meetings? How much of that time was really spent working? Jean-Louis Barsoux on an essential part of management
Managers spend a great deal of their time in meetings. According to Henry Mintzberg, in his book. The Nature of Managerial Work, managers in large organizations spend only 22 per cent of their time at their desks, but 69 per cent of their time in meetings. So what are the managers doing in those meetings?
There have conventionally been two answers. The first is the academic version: managers are coordinating and controlling, making decisions, solving problems and planning. This interpretation has been largely discredited because it ignores the social and political forces at work in meetings.
The second version claims that meetings provide little more than strategic sites for corporate gladiators to perform before the organizational emperors. This perspective is far more attractive, and has given rise to a large, and often humorous, body of literature on gamesmanship and posturing in meetings.
It is of course, true that meeting rooms serve as shop windows for managerial talent, but this is far from the whole truth. The suggestion that meetings are essentially battle grounds is misleading since the raison d'etre of meetings has far more to do with comfort than conflict. Meetings are actually vital props, both for the participants and the organization as a whole.
For the organization, meetings represent recording devices. The minutes of meetings catalogue the changing face of the organization, at all levels, in a more systematic way than do the assorted memos and directives which are scattered about the company. They enshrine the minutiae of corporate history, they itemize proposed actions and outcomes in a way which makes one look like the natural culmination of the other.
The whole tenor of the minutes is one of total premeditation and implied continuity. They are a sanitized version of reality which suggests a reassuring level of control over events. What is more, the minutes record the debating of certain issues in an official and democratic forum, so that those not involved in the process can be assured that the decision was not taken lightly.
As Doug Bennett, an administrative and finance manager with Allied Breweries, explains: "Time and effort are seen to have been invested in scrutinizing a certain course of action."
Key individuals are also seen to have put their names behind that particular course of action. The decision can therefore proceed with the full weight of the organization behind it, even if it actually went through "on the nod". At the same time, the burden of responsibility is spread, so that no individual takes the blame should disaster strike.
Thus, the public nature of formal meetings confers a degree of legitimacy on what happens in them. Having a view pass unchallenged at a meeting can be taken to indicate consensus.
However, meetings also serve as an alibi for inaction, as demonstrated by one manager who explained to his subordinates: "I did what I could to prevent it - I had our objections minuted in two meetings." The proof of conspicuous effort was there in black and white.
By merely attending meetings, managers buttress their status, while non-attendance can carry with it a certain stigma. Whether individual managers intend to make a contribution or not, it is satisfying to be considered one of those whose views matter. Ostracism, for senior managers, is not being invited to meetings.
As one cynic observed, meetings are comfortingly tangible: "Who on the shop floor really believes that managers are working when they tour the works? But assemble them behind closed doors and call it a meeting and everyone will take it for granted that they are hard at work." Managers are being seen to earn their corn.
Meetings provide managers with another form of comfort too - that of familiarity. Meetings follow a set format: exchanges are ritualized, the participants are probably known in advance, there is often a written agenda, and there is a chance to prepare. Little wonder then, that they come as welcome relief from the upheaval and uncertainty of life outside the meeting room.
Managers can draw further comfort from the realization that their peers are every bit as bemused and fallible as themselves. Meetings provide constant reminders that they share the same problems, preoccupations and anxieties, that they are all in the same boat. And for those who may be slightly adrift, meetings are ideal occasions for gently pulling them round.
As Steve Styles, the process control manager (life services) at Legal & General, puts it: "The mere presence of others in meetings adds weight to teasing or censure and helps you to 'round up the strays'." Such gatherings therefore provide solace and direction for the management team - a security blanket for managers.
Meetings do serve a multitude of means as well as ends. They relieve managerial stress and facilitate consensus. For the organization, they have a safety-net-cum-rubber-stamping function without which decisions could not progress, much less gather momentum. In short, meetings are fundamental to the well-being of managers and organizations alike.
Culture
gamesmanship – the ability to succeed by using the rules of a game to your own advantage
posture – to stand or behave in a way that you hope will make other people notice and admire you; to pretend to have a particular opinion or attitude
Vocabulary
minutes – an official written record of what is said and decided at the meeting; a short official note on or about a document; minute (v). Compare mi’nute [] (adj) extremely small: in minute detail; paying careful attention to sth: a minute examination
conspicuous – easy to notice, especially because it is different from everything else around; unusually good, bad skilful: conspicuous by your absence
stigma - a strong feeling in a society that a type of behaviour is shameful; the stigma of alcoholism/abortion etc; stigmatize (v): be stigmatized – to be treated by society as if you should be ashamed of your situation or actions
upheaval – a very strong change that often causes problems: political upheaval; a very strong movement upwards, especially of the earth
bemuse – looking as if you are confused
fallible – able to make mistakes or be wrong; fallibility (n)
tease – to make jokes and laugh at someone in order to have fun by embarrassing them, either in a friendly or unkind way; tease (n) – a person who enjoys making jokes at people; teaser – a very difficult question, especially in a competition
censure – to officially criticize someone for something they have done wrong; censure (n) – the act of expressing strong disapproval and criticism. Compare ‘censor’ – to examine books, films, letters to remove anything that is considered offensive, morally harmful or politically dangerous; censorship – a practice or system of censoring something
solace – a feeling of emotional comfort at a time of great sadness or disappointment: seek / find solace in (After the death of her son, Val found solace in the church); be a solace to
relieve - to make a pain, problem, unpleasant feeling less severe: relieve the boredom/ monotony etc; relieve sb of their post/ duties/ command etc; to be/ feel relieved to see/ hear/ know etc – to feel happy because you are no longer worried about sth; relief (n): what a relief!; a sigh of relief; pain relief
facilitate – to make it easier for a process or activity to happen; facilitation (n)
momentum – the ability to keep increasing, developing or being more successful: lose/ gain/ gather momentum
