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.