PDF Management Gurus

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Management Gurus

INTERMEDIATE 4

Answers to Book activities

1 Open answer 2 a create. Make can mean the same as

create. b huge. When something is huge, it is

very big. c wind (wound). You wind a mechanical

watch. d worth. If something has worth, it has

value. e ton. A ton is a measure of weight. f replace. When you replace something,

you put sometning else in its place so you make a change. g tough. A tough person or thing is strong, difficult or hard. 3 a manufacturing b investment company c steel works 4 A rich and very religious family. 5 He had a serious problem with his eyes so he did not want to continue studying. 6 He and his partner, Clark, won the US national tennis competition, now called the US Open, in 1881. 7 He taught Schmidt that people prefer to earn more money for their time at work. 8 The shipowners asked some managers to talk to the US government about Taylor's new idea of scientific management. The next day, Taylor was in the newspapers. 9?10 Open answers 11 a united b downmarket c upmarket d automobile e hearing aid f finances g pressure h leadership 12 General Motors was losing money because it employed too many people and made too many cars. 13 They decided that black people should be the main market for Cadillacs. 14 He did not want to improve the workers' bad conditions at General Motors. 15 Henry Ford II was the boss of General Motors'biggest competitor, the Ford Motor Company, which was in serious trouble. Sloan helped him because he believed that a successful business needs strong competition. 16 Harley Earl, the man responsible for the look of GM's cars, had worked for Hollywood films and only cared about style. 17 Good points: Sloan believed in a mix of central control and independence for managers. He controlled the direction and finances of GM but allowed its car companies to work as separate organizations. ? He introduced the idea of the manager as a professional who puts facts before emotions. ? He thought about the market in a new way, showing that a new product creates a new market. Bad points: ? Sloan's method of organization meant that managers had to spend a long time in meetings and so the company often took decisions slowly. In later years, the company found that it was sometimes too slow for the modern world. ? He did not want to improve the conditions of his workers.

18 Open answer 19 a A scientific or practical fault. For

example, a fault in a car engine or computer, is a technical fault. b Books, magazines, newspapers, etc. c Open answer. Possible answers: two or more people who own a business, a marriage, partners in sport, showbusiness, etc d Someone who has an aim. e Examples: clear, plain, unmistakeable f To tell a lie. 20 The Nazis hated his book and had burnt it. 21 Drucker wanted to find out more about big business organizations and GM was the most powerful company in the world. 22 He found that GM had a bad attitude towards its workers. The workers at GM were only employed when there was a job to do. During the company's quiet times, they sat at home and did not earn any money. When they were able to work, the managers ordered them to work harder. 23 To show that a true manager looks into the future and brings together people's skills and energies to produce something exciting and new. 24 Drucker's belief that governments should sell their businesses to private companies. 25 Open answer 26 a A person who appears tough (hard or strong). b Open answer c Open answer d You act like that person is not there. 27 He studied engineering at Cornell University. 28 The management consultant company. 29 The book said that Americans didn't need to worry about Japanese competition and described many excellent US companies. It also made business fashionable for the first time. 30 Computers have increasingly taken the place of middle managers in large companies, so it looks like there is no future for middle managers. 31 People in big business should be ready to change every day of the year, like the US company, CNN. They should not expect a job for life and should be happy to move from job to job. 32?33 Open answers 34 Modern business tests the skill and strength of people who work on their own and people who work in teams. 35 They need to have the size and strength of the old business and to be as fast and inventive as a modern small business. 36 The story reminds us of the importance of looking ahead and seeing the shape of our future lives. 37 More people will work from home so the companies won't need to have expensive office buildings and they won't need to pay so many people regular money. 38 The management gurus and the Hungarian soldiers found solutions to problems by thinking about the problems themselves. 39?45 Open answers

Answers to Factsheet activities

s Communicative activities

Open answers

s Student's activities

Activities before reading the book.

1 (a) It is an Indian word which means `religious teacher'.

(b) Frederick Taylor (c) Rosabeth Moss Kanter (d) Peter Drucker (e) Frederick Taylor (f) Alfred P. Sloan (g) Charles Handy (h) Tom Peters 2 (a) Open answer. Look at the beginning of

each chapter to see if you are right. (b) An Indian guru is religious, and thinks

and teaches people about life. Indian gurus are admired because they understand many things about life. Management gurus do not think about the meaning of life. They are interested in how to make business more successful and profitable. (c) Business people admire management gurus. We know this because business men and women listen to what the gurus say and the gurus'ideas have greatly affected business and other types of organisations.

Activities while reading the book.

Chapter 1

1 (a) True. Even Lenin in Russia used his ideas.

(b) False. In fact he was no good as a manager because he had arguments with people. He did not understand or value the workers.

(c) True. For example, he worked so hard as a student that he hurt his eyes.

(d) False. The workers didn't like Taylor's methods so they started breaking the machines and possibly made plans to shoot him

(e) Probably true. Taylor and Clark tried out new ideas for their equipment. And they won all their games.

(f) False. His results were good but the workers didn't like him and the employers were worried because he spent a lot of money on equipment

(g) True. Ford and Taylor thought that workers received pay for their work so their happiness was not important.

2 (a) the job of a manager: the manager's job was to make all the decisions and tell the workers what to do.

(b) the job of a worker: the worker should just do what he was told, exactly as he was told. The worker did not need to have responsibility or opinions.

(c) the way people worked: Taylor studied the quickest way to do something and how much rest a worker needed, as if the worker were a machine. In the Ford factory, they found that if people only did one small job as the car passed in a line, it was possible to produce large numbers of cars very cheaply.

(d) how to make people want to work harder: Taylor believed that people would want to work harder if they were paid

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Penguin Readers Answer Key

Management Gurus

more money. Nothing else was important. (e) choosing people for a job: he believed that only the best person was right for a job. If someone was no good, they should be sacked. (f) factory equipment: companies should buy equipment because, as he explained to the Midvale Manufacturing Company, if a machine cost less than a worker, it was a good idea to change the worker for a machine. 3 Open answer

Chapter 2 1

1900s 1920s 1930s

1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s

c Sloan bought the Hyatt company.

f Durant's methods led to problems for General Motors.

g Sloan was given the job of managing GM.

l Sloan made GM into five separate companies with central financial control.

e GM became more successful than Ford.

a Share prices on Wall Street crashed and many people lost their money.

h The Cadillac company was saved by Dreystadt's plan.

j GM's workers went on strike.

m The USAentered the Second World War.

d Sloan helped Henry Ford II.

k Cadillacs became very popular because they looked so strange.

b Sloan died.

i Sloan's management methods led to problems for GM.

2 (a) Perhaps so that he could not hear if anyone wanted to interrupt him or spoke while he was speaking

(b) Sloan believed that competition was important. He also wanted to make different types of cars for different types of people.

(c) Sloan always wanted to hear other managers'opinions and he liked people to disagree and discuss. It shows that he valued opinions at all levels of management

(d) His ideas about the market were new. He realised that a new product could create a new market. Before Sloan, people thought that products were made because a demand for them already existed.

Chapter 3

Suggested answers People say that the most important thinker in modern management is Peter Drucker. Although he was not a managerhimself, he saw that many of the problems of modern society had been createdby business. For

this reason businesses should act responsiblyand their purpose is to serve society. Businesses also have a dutyto look after their workersand employ them fairly. Drucker said companies should not see their workers simply as a costbut should instead remember that people are the most important thingin any company. He said that workers will work better if their work is valuedand that they should also help to manage/runthe company. For Drucker, a manager does not just run/manage a businessbut is also a creativeperson who thinks about the future and knows where he or she wants to go. Drucker's later thinking was about governments. Governments, he believed, should makedecisions and lead. They should not try to run businesses.

Chapter 4

1 (a) False. He may say he knows nothing but in fact he has a lot to say to business and business people.

(b) False. He says that the GM managers were `probably'very good. But they were not good enough to realise what was happening in the world.

(c) False. Behind his acting, he is actually a very serious thinker.

(d) Half true. His books came out at the right times. But he also worked very hard, too.

(e) False. He wrote far too much. (f) False. Peters thought that only

about 100,000 people had really read his book. (g) False. He changes his ideas completely. (h) False. In Thriving on Chaos Peters says some things which turned out to be right. After `Black Monday' many companies had financial problems and had to become smaller to reduce their costs. Also computers became more important. As a result of these two things, middle managers lost their jobs. 2 (a) excellent companies knew exactly what their customers wanted. (b) excellent companies were good to their workers and valued them. (c) It was the big companies that were the best. (a) Big companies were not so good because the bosses did not communicate with their workers. Too many people were employed and they were controlled by only a few people at the top. (b) The job of a middle manager could be done by a computer since it was only managing information. Middle managers were not necessary. (a) The world is continually changing and so business must be ready to change as well. (b) People should not expect to have the same job all their life but should expect to change their jobs.

Chapter 5

1 (a) Kanter says business is like the Olympic Games; but the games are like the game in Alice in Wonderland. Handy compares people to South American people 500 years ago who refused to see the Spanish ship and did not recognise the danger.

(b) Open answer but some suggestions are: big businesses must move quickly; they may not travel in straight lines; they must move with music which is played by some one else, in other words they must change when something or someone makes them change.

(c) Open answer but some suggestions are: not thinking in the usual way; using imagination to think of all possibilities; preparing for all possibilities.

2 Suggested answers: (a) People are always looking for new ideas because the business world is very competitive. (b) Companies will pay a lot of money for new ideas so there are lots of people who would like to be gurus. (c) Business is like a sports competition because only the best people or teams can win. (d) But business is also not like a sports competition because the rules are always changing. (e) In order to be successful in the modern world, companies must be strong like the big companies and easily managed like small companies / use intelligence, information and ideas. (f) In the future, more people will be able to work from home because they can use the computer to communicate and work. (g) Many people think that management gurus are a waste of time and money.

Activities after reading the book

Open answers

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