Interview Assignment 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.
About the Interviewee
The name of the interviewee is Seema Sivanandan and she currently works with Caterpillar Inc. Her designation is Senior IT Analyst. Her major responsibilities include Operations management, handling new applications deployment pertaining to engineering…show more content…
I prepared a questionnaire and included all the relevant questions as stated in the assignment. I was fortunate to get a prompt reply with a narrative description. A phone interview was scheduled on September 23rd to fill in the gaps of the questionnaire which help me in articulating the details for the questionnaire. Since I already had a questionnaire completed by the manager, I was able to formulate more questions based on the questionnaire. This made my note-taking using MS OneNote easy and aided me in preparing the content for this…show more content…
She personally has adapted herself to speak in a particular way that it is easy for them to understand.
According to her, conflict and changes can be managed with flexible mindset. She encourages to have periodic one on one meeting with the employees. Also, she stresses on frequent communication sessions/webcast with the leadership team to avoid any last minute surprises. There is also an employee grievance program where employee can report their woes anonymously or to any senior management which promotes transparency between the employee and employer.
Her advice for the first time managers would be to have more clarity on the roles and responsibilities and be clear on what is expected out of them. They should hesitate to ask questions with their seniors and during the initial days they could have mentors to learn the nuances of the business. The other key trait is to have clear understanding on the power of delegation and efficiently dealing with uncertain situations.
Lessons
About the Interviewee
The name of the interviewee is Seema Sivanandan and she currently works with Caterpillar Inc. Her designation is Senior IT Analyst. Her major responsibilities include Operations management, handling new applications deployment pertaining to engineering…show more content…
I prepared a questionnaire and included all the relevant questions as stated in the assignment. I was fortunate to get a prompt reply with a narrative description. A phone interview was scheduled on September 23rd to fill in the gaps of the questionnaire which help me in articulating the details for the questionnaire. Since I already had a questionnaire completed by the manager, I was able to formulate more questions based on the questionnaire. This made my note-taking using MS OneNote easy and aided me in preparing the content for this…show more content…
She personally has adapted herself to speak in a particular way that it is easy for them to understand.
According to her, conflict and changes can be managed with flexible mindset. She encourages to have periodic one on one meeting with the employees. Also, she stresses on frequent communication sessions/webcast with the leadership team to avoid any last minute surprises. There is also an employee grievance program where employee can report their woes anonymously or to any senior management which promotes transparency between the employee and employer.
Her advice for the first time managers would be to have more clarity on the roles and responsibilities and be clear on what is expected out of them. They should hesitate to ask questions with their seniors and during the initial days they could have mentors to learn the nuances of the business. The other key trait is to have clear understanding on the power of delegation and efficiently dealing with uncertain situations.
Lessons