Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 928, Understanding Corporate Structure.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 928.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to become a member of this podcast and download the learning guide for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue about the way that a company is organized.
Let's get started.
This organizational chart is really confusing.
Why are you looking at that?
Let me see.
It's a simple flowchart.
You have your board of directors at the top, with the managing director reporting to them, and then the executive officers overseeing major departments.
But I thought managers work below the executive officers.
You're confusing managers with managing directors.
The managing director oversees the entire company, and the managers oversee daily operations.
Oh, I see.
So these here are the departments.
Accounting, marketing, purchasing, personnel, R&D, sales, and production.
That's right.
I think the job is in purchasing.
Don't you think that's something you should get straight before you do anything else?
You might have a point there.
Our dialogue begins with Andrea saying to Raphael, this organizational chart is really confusing.
An organizational chart is a diagram or an image that shows you the structure or organization of a company.
Here's the president.
And then below the president, there are two vice presidents.
And then each vice president has an assistant vice president and so forth.
An organizational chart is like a map of the company.
Who is the boss and how are they arranged from the president down to the lowest worker?
Rafael says, why are you looking at that?
Why are you looking at this organizational chart?
Andrea says I have an interview next week and I'm trying to bone up on the company I'll be interviewing with.
So Andrea is going to interview, I guess, with a new company, and she wants to bone B-O-N-E up.
To bone up is an informal two-word phrasal verb meaning to study, to study a lot.
Usually to try to memorize a lot of information in a short amount of time.
Andrea is trying to bone up on the company with which she'll be interviewing.
She says, I want to impress them.
I want them to think that I'm good.
But this chart is really confusing.
She can't figure out how the company is organized.
Rafael says, let me see.
Let me look at that.
He says it's a simple flow chart.
A flow, F-L-O-W, chart, C-H-A-R-T, is actually a diagram that shows how a process works.
For example, you could do a flow chart on how to make a cake or bake a cake.
First you buy the ingredients, then you mix them together, then you put them in the oven, then you take it out of the oven.
That could be made into a flowchart so you could see on a piece of paper how one thing causes another thing, or you do one thing and then another thing.
Flowcharts usually have boxes and circles with arrows that connect the different steps of a process.
Raphael says that this organizational chart is a flowchart, which is probably not correct.
Raphael isn't the brightest person in the world, not the smartest person in the world, let's say.
I don't think the organizational chart is not a flow chart.
A flow chart is a chart that shows you how a process works.
But an organizational chart shows you how things are arranged, one on top of the other or one higher up than the other.
But we continue with Rafael's explanation.
He says you have your board of directors at the top, with the managing director reporting to them and then the executive officers overseeing major departments.
We have a lot of vocabulary there.
Let's go back and look at that sentence.
You have, meaning here you have on the chart, board of directors or the board of directors.
A board of directors is a group of people who make the most important decisions for a company.
Often people on the board of directors don't work for the company full time.
They might even be from another company.
Large corporations and companies in the U.S. typically have a board of directors.
In fact, the government requires corporations in most places to have a board of directors.
Sometimes the board of directors can just be one or two people.
Typically it's 10 to 15 people if it's a big company.
The board of directors is at the top of the organizational chart.
They're sort of like the leaders of the whole company.
Below them, at least on this organizational chart, we have the managing director.
The managing director can also be called the CEO, the chief executive officer.
This is the highest level position administrator in the company, sort of like the president of the company, although he may not be called the president of the company.
Below the managing director, below the CEO meaning below in terms of power and authority come the executive officers.
Executive officers are high-level members of a company that are usually in charge of a certain section or part of the company.
These executive officers oversee major departments.
To oversee O-V-E-R-S-E-E as a verb means to supervise, to make sure that employees are doing their work.
These executive officers are in charge of or oversee major or important departments.
A department is a section or a part of a company.
Andrea says, but I thought managers work below the executive officers.
Rafael says, you're confusing managers with managing directors.
The managing director oversees the entire or the complete company, and managers oversee daily operations.
So the managing director is in charge of the entire company.
The managers are only overseeing daily operations, usually in just one small part of the company.
Andrea says, oh, I see, meaning I understand.
So these here, pointing at the organizational chart, are the departments.
Then Andrea lists the departments in this company, the sections or parts of this company.
They are accounting, marketing, purchasing, personnel, R&D, sales, and production.
We have lots of terminology here.
Let's start with the first department, which is accounting.
The accounting department is in charge of keeping track of the money how much money comes into the company and how much the company spends.
The marketing department is in charge of getting people to buy the product or service that the company makes.
That could be advertising, that could be doing other promotions.
There could be a lot of things involved in marketing.
The marketing department is usually the most important part of the company.
In some ways, often the part of the company that gets the most money because, of course, if the company doesn't sell anything, then the company won't survive.
Purchasing is another part of this company.
Purchasing comes from the verb to purchase, P-U-R-C-H-A-S-E, which means to buy.
This is the part of the company that buys the things that the company needs to make, whatever product it makes.
Another department is personnel, P-E-R-S-O-N-N-E-L.
Personnel is the department that is in charge of hiring people, of getting new people to come into the company.
Personnel also takes care of other things related to the employees and their stay at the company.
R&D is another department mentioned by Andrea.
R&D is...
Research and development.
The R&D stand for research and development.
This is the part of the company that creates new products or new services.
Sales is the part of the company that actually goes out and sells the product or service to the customer.
The difference between marketing and sales is that the marketing people are trying to get people to buy the product in a general way by advertising.
The sales department are the actual people who go and talk to the customer, who perhaps collect the money, who give the product to the customer, and so forth.
Production is the final department mentioned by Andrea.
Production is the part of the company that actually produces or makes the product.
Rafael asks Andrea, which department are you interviewing for?
Which of these departments are you trying to get a job with?
Andrea says, I think the job is in purchasing.
Rafael says, you think? meaning you're not sure.
He says, don't you think that's something you should get straight before you do anything else?
To get straight means to clarify, to understand something that might be confusing.
Raphael is saying that obviously Andrea needs to know what job she's applying for before she goes to the company.
Andrea says, you might have a point there.
She agrees with Raphael.
She says, you might have a point there.
To have a point means to have said something important, to have said something that is worth paying attention to.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
This organizational chart is really confusing.
Why are you looking at that?
I have an interview next week, and I'm trying to bone up on the company I'll be interviewing with.
I want to impress them, but this chart is really confusing.
Let me see.
It's a simple flowchart.
You have your board of directors at the top, with the managing director reporting to them, and then the executive officers overseeing major departments.
But I thought managers work below the executive officers.
You're confusing managers with managing directors.
The managing director oversees the entire company, and managers oversee daily operations.
Oh, I see.
So these here are the departments.
Accounting, marketing, purchasing, personnel, R&D, sales, and production.
That's right.
Which department are you interviewing for?
I think the job is in purchasing.
You think?
Don't you think that's something you should get straight before you do anything else?
You might have a point there.
She oversees the writing of all of our scripts.
I speak, of course, of our own wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
