Writing

Write an essay about a successful company, which is considered to be a global player. Dwell on its history, mission, vision, corporate culture and management. The information below can serve you as an example.

The Starbucks chain is an example of a successful company with a mission. It was bought 15 years ago by Howard Schultz when it was a small coffee chain operating in Seattle, USA. Since then he has established the brand worldwide and the business has grown at an extraordinary rate. In 1987 it had 17 coffee shops. Now it has over 5, 600 worldwide – and it is still growing.

The company’s name originally came from an old mining camp called Starbos near Seattle; it was then changed to Starbucks after a character in the book Moby Dick, which also inspired the mermaid logo.

The company’s success has been driven by Howard Schultz, who is often described as ‘a man with a mission’. Schultz’s vision is based on the idea of Starbucks as the Third Place: an oasis of tranquility and calm between home and office. ‘The beverage is just a vehicle for crafting an experience, ’ says Schultz, ‘It’s a theatrical presentation – the music, the lighting, the atmosphere, the people – so that when people walk into our stores they feel better about themselves … coffee has been a stimulus to conversation for hundreds of years, and that’s what people in our stores are doing: speaking, reading, writing… We’re in the business of creating an experience around coffee and culture and the sense of community, and the Third Place.’

In short, Howard Shults sees the Starbucks mission as the following:

‘Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles while we grow. The following six guiding principles will help us measure the appropriateness of our decisions:

· Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity.

· Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business.

· Apply the highest standards of excellence to the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffee.

· Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time.

· Contribute positively to our communities and our environment.

· Recognize that profitability is essential to our future success’.

TRANSLATION

A. Translate from English into Russian.

What Makes a Good Manager?

(10 Tips for a Successful Manager by Bill Gates)

There isn’t a magic formula for good management, of course, but if you’re a manager perhaps these tips will help you be more effective.

1. Choose a field thoughtfully. Make it one you enjoy. It’s hard to be productive without genuine enthusiasm.

2. Hire carefully and be willing to fire. You need a strong team, because a mediocre team gives mediocre results, no matter how well managed it is.

3. Create a productive environment. This is a particular challenge because it requires different approaches depending on the context.

4. Define success. Make it clear to your employees what constitutes success and how they should measure up their achievements.

Goals must be realistic. Project schedules, for example, must be set up by the people who do the work. People will accept a “bottoms-up” deadline they helped to set but they’ll be cynical about a schedule imposed from the top that doesn’t map to reality. Unachievable goals undermine an organization.

5. To be a good manager, you have to like people and be good at communicating. This is hard tofake. If you don’t genuinely enjoy interacting with people, it’ll be hard to manage them well.

6. Develop your people to do there jobs better than you can. Transfer your skills to them.

7. Give people a sense of the importance of what they’re working on – its importance to the company, its importance to the customers.

When you achieve great results, everybody involved should share in the credit and feel good about it.

8. Take on projects yourself. You need to do more than communicate.

The last thing people want is a boss who just doles out stuff. From time to time prove you can be hands-on by taking on one of the less attractive tasks and using it as an example of how your employees should meet challenges.

9. Don’t make the same decision twice. People hate indecisive leadership so you have to make choices.

10. Let people know whom to please. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your boss and maybe it’s somebody who works for you.

B. Translate from Russian into English.

Менеджеры высшего звена разрабатывают политику своей организации, определяют ее миссию и видение – образ организации в будущем.

Миссия организации определяется на этапе становления организации.

В качестве примера реальной миссии компании мирового уровня можно привести миссию компании Matsushita, которую Коносуке Мацусита определял как борьбу с бедностью общества и повышение его благосостояния.

Обычно миссия формулируется в двух вариантах. Короткий вариант миссии представляет собой пару предложений – слоган организации, направленный, прежде всего, на формирование имиджа компании в обществе. Другой, расширенный вариант, формулируется для внутреннего пользования и подробно раскрывает детальные аспекты миссии организации: цель функционирования и область деятельности организации, ее философию, методы достижения поставленных целей, а также методы взаимодействия организации с обществом (социальная политика организации).

С понятием «миссия» тесно связано понятие – «видение».

Видение – образ организации в будущем. Если миссия формулируется в общих словах, то видение должно быть предельно конкретно. Например, «стать первой компанией в отрасли».

Принципиальная разница между миссией и видением заключается в том, что миссия демонстрирует, каким образом достигаются те или иные цели. Видение же, в свою очередь, – это картинка будущего, то идеальное положения дел, к которому стремится компания.

LISTENING

You will hear part of an interview with Steve Moody, the manager of the Marks & Spencer store in Cambridge, England. What do you know about Marks & Spencer? What do they sell?

A. Listen to Part One, in which Steve Moody describes the role and responsibility of a store manager. Which of the following tasks is he responsible for?

1) designing the store and its layout

2) displaying the merchandise

3) employing the sales staff

4) insuring the safety of staff and customers

5) establishing the company’s principles

6) getting commitment from the staff

7) increasing profits

8) maintaining a pleasant working environment

9) motivating staff

10) organizing the day-to day logistics

11) pricing the merchandise

12) running 40 out of 280 stores

13) selecting the merchandise

14) supervising the day-to-day running of the store

15) training staff

B. Listen to Part Two, and answer these questions:

1. Why are Marks & Spencer’s store managers limited in giving accountability to their staff and delegating responsibility?

2. What do they concentrate on instead?

C. Listen to Part Three, and answer the following questions:

1. Steve Moody mentions two kinds of regular meetings. The first is weekly meetings for management and supervisory staff. What is the second kind of meetings called?

2. Who attends them?

3. What are they designed to achieve?

4. What kind of problems cannot be dealt with by meetings?

5. How are such problems dealt with?