P. 122 ex. 1

Part 1 (I = Interviewer, SC = Stuart Crainer)

I

Is there such a person as an ideal manager, and if so what essential qualities should they have?

SC

I don’t think there’s such a thing as an ideal manager in the same way as there’s no such thing as an ideal chair or an ideal piece of furniture. Er, it’s an impossible aim. The qualities er, managers need are increasingly complex and many in number. First of all they’ve got to be able to manage their time successfully, because they’re inevitably juggling lots of activities and projects. Secondly, they need to be able to deal with complexity. Increasingly the management task is not about simple budgeting but is about far more complex issues. Er, thirdly, they have to be able to deal with uncertainty. In the past, management was about creating certainty. Now managers have to live with uncertainty. Er, the uncert... uncertainty of not knowing what will happen in the future, how secure their jobs will be, what their organisation will do in the future. The fourth aspect of management is being able to deal with people. Er, managers, for all the training they’ve received, are notoriously poor at managing people and relating to people. Added to that are other ingredients such as flexibility. Managers have to be able to change their... their styles to fit the circumstances and they have to be sensitive to these circumstances. They have to recognise when things are different and they have to behave in different ways. They have to change their styles to fit the moment. So, if you put all these er, skills and competencies together then you would have an ideal manager. But in the real world, there aren’t any ideal managers out there.

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