Individual Assignment
Entry 1: The Manager.
For this week, our assignment was to interview someone who holds a management position in a company.
I interviewed a friend of my brother’s, Herbert Liu. He is a 27-years-old Freelance Emcee and a Marketing Manager at Jig Asia Entertainment Pte Ltd, an entertainment and events company that provides services of models, dancers, choreography and basically, Entertainment Consultation.
Herbert‘s everyday work involves maximizing revenue and profit for the company by overseeing his team’s sales result. He is also in charge of the some of the dancers/performers/free-lancers that his company hires. This means that he manages quite a big number of people.
Managing a large number of people involves applying a highly effective style of management to show excellent result. When asked about what he thinks is his style of management, Herbert says that his style is more “people-orientated”. His ideals and management style are a mixture of Human Relations School of Management and Modern Approaches to Management. He agrees that managers need to use different techniques to motivate people according to their needs. This comes under Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs under the Hawthorne Studies, which is under the Human Relations School of Management.
He also feels that a company’s aim always affects a manager’s choice of management style. “Customer-first” or “profit-first” attitude is also very important. He believes in effectiveness and leadership in an organization, especially in his job as a manager. He feels that that there should always be good communication between employee and management. As stated in the Modern Approach To Management, there should be an agreement between employees and managers regarding performance over a set period of time. This theory is part of MBO (Management by Objectives) which involves a particular type of interaction between managers and individual employees. Managers must set expectations for staff which they will be informed of.
Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts towards goal achievement in a given situation. Herbert agrees that it is important for a leader to have vision and passion in what he / she is doing. He strongly believe in what he does as well as the potential of his employees. He set goals for himself and the team to make sure they are clear about what they want to achieve and how to get there.
One of the problems faced by Herbert in his work as a manager is the different opinions expressed among the employees. There is often conflict in interest and belief because of the diversity of people working together, differing in many ways like educational background and more.
Another problem is that some employees tend to feel that they know best and they have their own idea on how things should be carried out. This is where discipline and unity of direction should be applied ( Henri Fayol’s 14 Principles). This theory is under classical school of management.
In his own words, Herbert mentions that in general, there are no right or wrong management styles. “It really depends on the perspective and attitude you take upon. There could be a thousand and one reasons that could result in a conflict/ disagreement. Therefore, it takes a good manager to resolve it patiently and calmly.”
Herbert deals with the difficulties at work based on the Human Relations School of Management’s principles under Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. He says that he would first try to understand what the employees’ concerns and problems are and then deal with it on a case-by-case basis because he understands that different people react differently to various management tactics. So it’s important to listen, understand and then, choose an appropriate way to deal with these difficulties.
Other than that, Herbert’s advice would be to try to preempt it. As they say “prevention is better than cure”. However, Herbert adds that if he feels like there’s no way he could do that in a situation, the least he would do is hold a meeting to find out what the problem / concern is and whether the employees are putting anything into execution. This ensures that he has control over the situation.
In his opinion, Herbert feels that a good manager should be able to strike a perfect balance between both the interest of the staff as well as the interest of the establishment. According to him, for most managers, it is easy for them to be caught in the center. A good manager would be one, who could somehow, strike a good balance between both.
Herbert ended the interview with this statement that he strongly believes in. “Whatever method one would use, it’s the efficiency and effectiveness that matters. Belief and passion is crucial to effective management.”
