Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1032, Different Management Styles.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1032.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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On this episode we're going to listen to a dialogue between Bianca and Conrad about management styles the way people handle or manage other people.
Let's get started.
Today's the day.
We're supposed to find out who the new manager is going to be.
I hope they're not making a mistake by hiring internally.
I just hope they don't pick Melissa.
She would be a disaster.
Why do you say that?
I like her too, but she can be so autocratic.
Give her a little power and it goes to her head.
Every decision would be top-down.
You might be right, but I think Quentin would be worse.
He would be so laissez-faire that it would be like not having a manager at all.
He'd delegate everything and then sit back and do nothing.
I'll grant you that.
Quentin would be a horrible manager.
What about Jemima?
She's popular with nearly everybody in the office.
I suppose Jemima would be a bearable option.
She likes to collaborate and often consults with other people to get their feedback.
But I'm backing a different horse, one that would be the ideal.
Who?
You.
Me?
No way!
I don't have a chance in hell.
And plus, how do you know I'd be a good manager?
You'd be democratic in your decision-making and I'd like that.
You wouldn't rule with an iron fist.
That's what you think.
Give me a little power and And you can start calling me Commandant.
Bianca begins our dialogue by saying to Conrad, Today's the day.
This is a common expression in English, which means simply that something important is going to happen today, or something I am about to tell you is going to take place today.
Bianca tells us what is going to happen today in the dialogue.
She says, we're supposed to find out who the new manager is going to be.
A manager is a person who is responsible for controlling or handling or taking care of other people, usually related to some project for your work.
We might also use the word supervisor.
A supervisor is a manager who takes care of other people.
Who is in charge of other people?
Usually in a work environment.
Bianca says, I hope they're, meaning the company, not making a mistake by hiring internally.
To hire, H-I-R-E, means to give someone a job.
Sometimes you'll walk into a grocery store or a restaurant and there will be a sign on the window that says now hiring.
That means they're looking for people for jobs that they have available.
To hire internally I-N-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y means to hire someone for a job from within your organization, from within your company.
When you hire internally, you don't bring someone new to the company.
You take someone who's already working at the company and And you give him or her this job.
That's often the case in large organizations, where there are a lot of employees who already understand what the company does and the way it works.
So it's easier to put one of them in charge as a manager.
Conrad says, I just hope they don't pick Melissa.
To pick here means to select, to hire in this case.
Melissa, according to Conrad, would be a disaster.
She would be a terrible manager, is what he means.
Bianca says, why do you say that?
I like Melissa.
Conrad says To be autocratic.
A-U-T-O-C-R-A-T-I-C means to be someone who has a lot of power and uses that power very controllingly.
We might say
Someone who is very strict with his or her employees, who's always telling people what to do, who is always using his or her power to control other people.
Conrad says, give her a little power and it goes to her head.
The expression to go to one's head means something makes one feel very proud, very important and usually superior to other people.
In other words, you think you are better than other people because you were given this power and suddenly you start to use this power.
You start to think that you are more important than you really are.
Conrad then says, every decision would be top-down.
The term top-down refers to a system of decision-making in an organization where everything is decided by the people at the top of the organization, that is, the leaders.
Now, of course, generally speaking, the leaders of any organization or company are the ones who make the big decisions.
But if you describe a company or an organization as having a very top-down management style, You mean that almost everything gets decided by the leaders.
The people who work at the company don't have very much power.
They don't have a lot of influence on the decisions that are made.
The opposite of top down would be bottom up.
Bottom up would be where people who are at the bottom of the company, the lowest employees.
If you will have some power and some influence on decisions that are made.
Bianca says you might be right, but I think Quentin would be worse.
He would be so laissez faire that it would be like not having a manager at all.
The term laissez-faire, L-A-I-S-S-E-Z hyphen F-A-I-R-E, means hands-off, someone who lets things go and doesn't interfere, someone who doesn't try to control or direct a situation.
The term is often used in the world of economics to talk about an economic policy where the government doesn't interfere with business or only interferes very minimally, not very much at all.
If we describe someone's management style as laissez-faire, we mean that this person just lets things happen, doesn't try to control things or interfere with things.
That's why Bianca says it would be like not having a manager at all.
It would be as if there were no one in charge, no one involved. serving or acting as a manager.
Bianca says Heed, meaning Quentin, would delegate everything and then sit back and do nothing.
To delegate D-E-L-E-G-A-T-E means to give other people things to do, to assign tasks to someone else, particularly things that are part of a larger project.
That is what the verb to delegate means.
Conrad says I'll grant you that.
That expression I'll grant G-R-A-N-T you.
That is used to express agreement with what another person has said, to indicate that the other person has made a good point, has said something that you agree with, and that is correct.
We use that expression when we are having a disagreement with someone, but there's something the other person said that we do want to agree with.
So we are using this expression to say, yes, on that specific thing, I agree with you.
Conrad says, Quinton would be a horrible manager.
What about Jemima?
She's popular with nearly everybody in the office, Conrad says.
Bianca says, I suppose Jemima would be a bearable option.
When we say something is bearable B-E-A-R, A-B-L-E we mean it would not be too difficult, it would not be too awful, but bearable.
It wouldn't be very good either.
Bianca says that Jemima likes to collaborate and often consults with other people to get their feedback.
To collaborate means to work with other people in order to get something done.
To consult C-O-N-S-U-L-T means to ask other people's opinions, to get other people to tell you what they think.
To get feedback, F-E-E-D-B-A-C-K, is to get the opinions and reactions from other people.
It's similar to consult.
Consult, however, has some other meanings in English, which we won't talk about here.
But here it simply means to ask other people for their opinion.
Bianca is saying that Jemima is the kind of person that would collaborate, consult and get people's feedback.
She says, however, I'm backing a different horse, one that would be ideal.
To back B-A-C-K.
A different horse is an expression that means to support a different person or a different idea, to hope that someone else wins or something else is adopted or is successful.
The verb to back means to support, usually by giving money to someone or supporting doing something to help that person win.
We can talk about people who invest in a new company, backing the company.
They are supporting the company by giving the company money.
Conrad asks who Bianca is backing.
Bianca says, you, meaning Conrad.
Conrad says, me, no way.
No way is an informal way of saying absolutely not.
I don't have a chance in hell.
The expression to not have a chance in hell means that something is simply not going to happen.
It's going to be nearly impossible, or at least extremely unlikely, that this will happen.
I'm guessing the expression comes from a longer phrase, which is a snowball's chance in hell.
A snowball is made of cold snow and ice.
Hell is traditionally thought of as being a place that is very hot.
So if you put a cold thing into some place that is very hot, it probably won't survive.
In this case, the snowball will melt.
Hence, we have this expression, a snowball's chance in hell, meaning not very likely.
If you see a beautiful woman, your friend may say to you you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting her telephone number.
That would be an example.
Conrad says, how do you know I'd be a good manager?
He's asking Bianca why Bianca wants him to be a manager.
Bianca says, you'd be democratic in your decision-making, and I'd like that.
To be democratic here means that a person would allow other people on the project to vote or to give their opinions and have their opinions matter.
Bianca says, you wouldn't rule with an iron fist.
The expression to rule with an iron, I-R-O-N, fist, F-I-S-T, means something similar to autocratic.
It means to be very strict, very controlling.
Conrad says that's what you think.
The expression that's what you think is used to mean you have the wrong idea.
You may think that, but it's not true.
Conrad says, that's what you think.
Give me a little power and you can start calling me Commandant.
Commandant, C-O-M-M-A-N-D-A-N-T is a senior military leader.
The idea here is that Conrad would be like someone in the military, giving orders and not asking for anyone's opinion.
Certainly the military is not normally known to be very democratic.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Today is the day.
We're supposed to find out who the new manager is going to be.
I hope they're not making a mistake by hiring internally.
I just hope they don't pick Melissa.
She would be a disaster.
Why do you say that?
I like Melissa.
I like her too, but she can be so autocratic.
Give her a little power and it goes to her head.
Every decision would be top-down.
You might be right, but I think Quentin would be worse.
He would be so laissez-faire that it would be like not having a manager at all.
He'd delegate everything and then sit back and do nothing.
I'll grant you that.
Quentin would be a horrible manager.
What about Jemima?
She's popular with nearly everybody in the office.
I suppose Jemima would be a bearable option.
She likes to collaborate and often consults with other people to get their feedback.
But I'm backing a different horse, one that would be the ideal.
Who?
You.
Me?
No way.
I don't have a chance in hell.
And plus, how do you know I'd be a good manager?
You'd be democratic in your decision-making, and I'd like that.
You wouldn't rule with an iron fist.
That's what you think.
Give me a little power and you can start calling me Commandant.
Although she's a very powerful person, power has never gone to our scriptwriter's head, the wonderful Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen 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 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
