1) Read the Harvard Business Review article, Are you Leading through the Crisis…
https://hbr.org/2020/03/are-you-leading-through-the-crisis-or-managing-the-response (Links to an external site.)
2) Find a manager (this can be your past or present manager) or another manager–a manager of at least two people. Set up a time to talk to this manager In-person, or by phone, Zoom, FaceTime, or by another remote communication platform. You are not required to talk to the manager in person, and that is optional. You can do this remotely. However, if you do choose to interview in person (face-to-face) please use safe social distancing protocols and mask-wearing guidelines.
2) Ask these six (6) questions of your chosen manager:
What do you believe are the two most important skills that a manager must have to be effective?
What are your strategies to achieve your team’s goals and what methods do you use and your team uses to achieve the goals?
What are some ways in which you motivate your employees?
What are your strategies to overcome the challenges you face or have faced with your employees? Specifically, what has been an important strategy during this COVID-19 crisis?
How do you manage non-performing employees? What is a strategy used to help improve a non-performing employee?
What is your best advice for a new manager?
3) Share with us your manager’s responses. Please keep this confidential by not using the person’s real name or the company name, but instead, let us know what type of work this manager is in (works at a bank, hospital administrator, financial advisor, retail manager, etc.). Provide the date and time you interviewed this manager. Also, provide the way in which you interviewed this manager (in-person, Zoom, phone, etc.)
4) Share with us what you have learned about management from 1) doing this interview and finding out about the manager’s challenges, and 2) collectively what you’ve learned over the semester about management from readings, etc. What did you learn that you did not know before coming to this class? What did you learn after doing this interview that you didn’t know before?
This should be a fun and an applicable assignment, given that we are learning about management, right? We should find out from those who do it!
