Manager Interview
By
Suhas Rajaram
IST 614 - Management Principles for Information Professionals
My Interviewee Mr. Niti Badrinath is working as a Senior Vice President, Head of Mobile Banking and Payments at U.S.Bank, fifth largest bank in the United States based on the total assets and fourth largest in terms of branches. He completed his under graduation majoring in Mechanical Engineering, from Indian Institute of Technology - Madras which is ranked among top technological schools in India. He then completed his Masters in Information Systems from Krannert School of Management – Purdue University. He has had a very illustrious career, working with major companies in the United States, holding highly responsible positions. He started off his career as Senior Manager with Ernst and Young, one of the Big Four consulting firms in the world. He then held the position of Principal with PricewaterHouse Coopers. He then went to become the Vice President of Gartner Group, another major consulting firm. Further he served as Associate Partner with IBM and then between 2006-2009, he served as Executive Vice President- Global Direct Banking with the Citi Group. He has been in his current position over 5 years working out of the San Francisco location.
Mr. Niti Badarinath is a very close family friend. It would not be an exaggeration if to say that he inspired me to pursue Masters in the field of Information Management. Though he is extremely busy and loaded with responsibilities, he was extremely kind to spare few minutes and provided me with valuable inputs, which has further bolstered my decision of pursuing Masters. I have never got a chance to meet him in person, but this meeting helped and it gave me a chance t...
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... interview gave me a lot of insight about management and made me realize the importance of communication. The kind of real time examples I got to hear from my interviewee was so inspiring and helped me in learning the diversity that exists in the market. And to deal perfectly with everything is very much necessary to be a good manager. Manager has to keep a lot of things in mind like the company budget, man power, time frame etc. And performing very well at the same time is possible only by developing all the managerial qualities. Observation and interaction with people teaches us a lot of things and a good manager should be able to differentiate between the good and bad. And continuous learning is the key to be a good manager. And I truly believe that the statement “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them” holds good.
...s not only about learning how to be a great manager, but also about what I as the employee should be doing to improve my work experience with my manager and how to evaluate my job in terms of growth. It’s a tremendous concept to be able to have a great manager, leader, or mentor to learn from, but unfortunately that’s not always the case and this book will come in extremely handy and useful to learn more about becoming a great manager.
I interviewed Manuel, co-owner of All Pro Motor Sports, because his business is extremely innovative and growth-oriented. The purpose of this interview was to learn the following:
Polycom was founded in December of 1990 and went public in 1996. Its global workforce is comprised of approximately 3200 employees. Revenues for 2010 were posted at $1.2 billion. Polycom prides itself in being
How well a business manages its assets and resources predicates its overall success. Companies that spend financial resources foolishly are apt to find themselves in bankruptcy. Companies that work capital equipment resources beyond the machine’s capabilities or for other than intended purposes are apt to experience downtime and/or lose the equipment to failure. The same premise holds true for a company’s human assets. However, unlike other company assets, which depreciate over time, human assets appreciate over time when managed properly. The article, Importance of Human Resource Investment for Organizations and Economy: A critical Analysis, explains the importance of managing human assets as follows:
In order for a company to be successful, the employees must have a leader who can motivate and guide them. That is the role of a manager. The best managers in the world are different in all aspects, except that they break set boundaries and take risks to thrive in the business world. The methods that may seem unconvientional and unethical to most, are what sets apart good managers from great ones.
I chose to interview Regina Geis, who holds the administrative role as acting supervisor for the County Mental Health adult day program, which provides services for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Ms. Geis has held this position for 15 months. This is her first managerial position within a human service agency. Her style of management has changed over this short period of time. She feels that she is now more direct with her direction with staff. She stated, “Maybe now I come across as a little bit cold. But I have learned that I now have to use the least amount of words to get my point across.”
This morning I interviewed a lovely young lady from the Key Peninsula Family Resource Center. Gina is the Center’s Coordinator and a social worker. Gina earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Social Work from the University of Washington and has been employed at the center for six months. She will be continuing her education at the University of Washington for her Masters in Social Work. She informed me that a Bachelor’s in Social Work or a similar degree in Human Services is very important to attain work in the field. Additionally good time management skills, a good sense of professionalism and how to work with people from different social and economic backgrounds. However, the most important quality is a good attitude.
A great manager may not be a great leader. Great leaders must be able to communicate as well as motivate employees. “The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager imitates; the leader initiates” (Bennis, 1994). Jon Katzenbach best described leadership “as a mind set of adaptive responsiveness” (Gale, 2002, p.2). Some will argue that leaders are born, while others will say leaders are trained. In either case, a qualified well-rounded leader must be found.
Management is the ability to get a job done using appropriate processes, models and systems to achieve an objective. Managers think radically, abide by principles, rules and use experience in their respective fields to make things work. A good manager goes about the ordinary activities such a staffing, organizing, planning (Robert, 2007). The very ability of his/her colleague to discover the uniqueness in each of the subordinates, capitalize on it, harnessing the best out of them to accomplish goals clearly distinguishes such a person as great when compared to others. Great managers develop people and enthusiastically transfer acquired skills to others, work progress is constant and usually by leaps and bounds. In addition, a great manager outlines and strategizes his/her team for project plans such that there is a “buy in” on delivered commitments. In contrast, the former just transfers the required skills to subordinates; work progress is notable, vice versa of the latter. Rupert Murdoch of the News Corporation is ...
When we were given the task of interviewing a manager; many questions and thoughts came to mind. But the main thing we were worried about was “Whom would we interview?”We were lucky enough to have a close connection within the group to Mr John Doe; the National Retail Field Operations Manager of Nova Energy. We set out to interview him with the aim of gaining some insight on what being a manager truly involves on a business and personal level and how we could become strong managers in the future.
To inspire and influence others, a leader must possess many skills and abilities. As motivational speaker Peter Northouse, states, “a leader should be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant” (Northouse, 2013) Moving an entire group of individuals toward a singular goal is a considerable undertaking. Without effective communication skills and a clear vision of what needs to be accomplished, one will feel like they are trying to herd cats rather than leading.
As per the research a good leader should be honest, sincere, recognise talent, appreciate good work, treat everyone equally, communicate well and ask for the team’s opinion. In our study we are going to showcase the characteristics of two managers whose behaviour reflect on the outcome of the organisation.
A manager plays a pivotal role in steering the success and failure of the organization. As a budding manager, I wanted to get an insight about the daily activities of a manager and learn about their ‘typical day’. Therefore, an interview was scheduled, where the manager shared her views and gave invaluable advice on becoming an effective manager. This helped me in integrating the management concepts taught in the class and its implications in the real world.
The first interviewee is a 29 years old man, who originally from India. He is a single graduate student of Murray State University with Information System Major. His previous educations were a bachelor degree in Mathematics and a master degree in Marketing. He was born and raised in India and this is the first time he comes to the United States.