Managing in the Present
Present Tenses
Focus: time management and current problems facing a service company
1. Management themes
Read the following text and then discuss the questions below.
Time management has become one of the key issues of the second half of the twentieth century. Managers, grappling with work pressures and deadlines, have come to recognise that time is a precious commodity to be 'saved', 'gained', and not 'wasted' or 'lost'. But if time is a commodity, how then can we best describe, measure and manage it?
To describe and manage it, imagine a line that goes back to the beginnings of creation and continues into the mists of the future. And on that line are a number of significant marks-these separate the past from the present from the future. And within each time zone-past, present and future-we can differentiate periods of time from points of time. For example, the 1980s gave us a period of rapid economic growth; black Monday was a point of sudden financial catastrophe.
How can this brief analysis help the international manager? Firstly, there is the link between past, present and future. In other words, historical performance should be a guide to the future, and the present ought to represent last year's forecast. So change-that which normally differentiates any two periods on our continuum-can be seen as a gradual evolution rather than a dramatic revolution.
Secondly, the use of a time-planning system, on which key points and periods are plotted, enables managers to organise their activities so that bottlenecks can be avoided and deadlines can be met. So stress, where the jobs to be done exceed the available time, can be reduced to an acceptable and productive level.
1.1 Discussion
Does your organisation live in the present? Does it change with the times?
Do you work in a stressful environment? Do you think that time management can reduce stress?
1. 本课主题
阅读下面这篇由一位“商业医生”撰写的文章并就列出的问题进行讨论。
成功的起因
精神分析家们通过深入病人的过去——通常是病人的童年时代——来给他们治病，试图以此帮助他们了解现在的感觉和行为。公司顾问们试图通过了解他们客户的历史和跟踪记录来找出失败的根源或成功的起因。
从某些方面讲，公司顾问们的工作有时很简单，他们可以察看资产负债表和损益表来分析该公司的资产管理、盈利状况和费用控制情况。他们可以跟踪公司的历史，从开始盈利的头一件产品到现在的生产和服务规模。他们可以研究公司的组织结构、市场营销和人事制度，甚至工厂和办公室的布局等等。
然而，要正确指出一个公司失败而另一个公司的原因常常并非易事。公司向外界寻求建议是因为从内部找不到答案。公司期冀咨询人员能运用其丰富的经验——或许就是他（她）以前所诊断过的类似病例来为公司找出症结所在，开出使公司复苏的良方，进而为公司推荐一种新的自下而上方式以保证他们未来的健康发展和繁荣。
1.1 讨论问题
你们的公司是现代企业吗？它随着时代变化而变化吗？你的工作环境压力大吗？你认为很好地管理时间能减轻这种压力吗？
—生词与短语—
1．grapple with 与……搏斗，尽力解决
e.g. Some one tried to poach our market manager; she grappled with her moral dilemma.
有人企图挖走我们的市场主管，面对这种道德难题，她进行了激烈的思想斗争。
2．differentiate 加以区分
3．black Monday 黑色星期一，指1987年10月国际股票市场崩溃的日子。
4．catastrophe 大灾难，大祸
e.g. The financial catastrophe initiated by the collapse of the stack market hit the country a deadly blow.
由股市崩溃引发的金融灾难，使这个国家遭受了致命的打击。
5．continuum 连续时间
6．dramatic 戏剧性的
7．exceed 超过
e.g. Supply exceeds demand. 供过于求 |