Exam 16: Building a Team and Management Succession

The ________ design strategy involves cross-training workers so they can move from one job in the company to others, giving them a greater number and variety of tasks to perform.

Mini-Case 16-3: The Pride of Vicksburg Wallace Fry had been a lover of good food from the time he was a child. The only son of wealthy Southern parents, he spent hours with his mother watching her prepare meals for the family and friends. By the time Wallace was in high school, he had already won a number of awards for his original recipes. After leaving Vicksburg, Mississippi, to attend college in the Midwest, Wallace returned home to what must have been an unbelievable graduation present. His relatives purchased an old paddlewheel riverboat and had begun initial preparations to have it moored permanently at the foot of the Vicksburg landing on the Mississippi River. Wallace was presented with a 50 percent interest in the restaurant named "The Pride of Vicksburg." The complete renovations and restoration of the beautiful old riverboat took an additional four months. Wallace was planning to have his new restaurant open for the spring tourist season. A number of regional magazines had already run feature stories on the project. With the opening one month away, Wallace decided it was time to staff the restaurant. -Has Wallace waited too long to begin searching for employees?

A strong leader does not share aspects of his or her company's financial health, its future plans, or her vision for it with employees.

________ is the distinctive, unwritten code of conduct that governs the behavior, attitudes, relationships, and style of an organization.

Successful interviewers always listen for these in an interview to see whether it matches the candidate's words. This interviewer is referring to the candidate's:

To be effective, a small business leader must perform three vital tasks. List and briefly explain these three tasks.

Mini-Case 16-1: Kansas Manufacturers and Assemblers Rose Richardson always knew that if she could land a major order for her firm, she could prove its quality to the industry. Kansas Manufacturing and Assemblers was a job shop manufacturing and assembling operation specializing in fast turnaround projects for manufacturers with orders in excess of production capacity. Each job Rose's firm did was on special order. In September, a major appliance manufacturer approached Rose and inquired about her ability and willingness to manufacture and assemble a new appliance. This order could mean a very substantial profit for the firm, as well as recognition throughout the industry. Rose was asked to undertake a project that would require a 100 percent assignment of the firm's personnel for seven months. In addition, any slight modification in design or material would require overtime. If this job went as most, changes could be expected. On this short notice, it would be impractical for Rose to hire additional personnel because it takes weeks, even months, to learn the necessary skills. Rose faces an interesting dilemma: If she doesn't take the job, it may be years before another one of this magnitude comes along; but if she takes the job and then fails to deliver on time, or fails to meet the quality specifications because of her overworked employees, her reputation will be hurt for years. Rose sees this opportunity as a crossroads in the firm's history, but knows that she must gain the full and unquestioned support of the employees if the project is to be a success. -If you were Rose, how would you go about gaining the commitment of your employees to a project that will last a full seven months and will likely require each person to work overtime and weekends and to forgo vacations for the duration of the project?

Explain the differences among job simplification, job enlargement, job rotation, and job enrichment. Why should small business owners utilize these concepts?

When transferring power in a management succession, the small business owner should do all but which of the following?

The first step in creating a management succession plan is to:

Effective interviewers ignore candidates' nonverbal clues ("body language") in interviews because they know that most candidates are so nervous that their nonverbal communication is meaningless.

The intent of a situational interview is to make the interviewee as uncomfortable as possible without violating legal or ethical standards.

In a grantor-retained annuity trust (GRAT):

Which of the following types of questions should a business owner ask a candidate in a job interview?

A buy/sell agreement allows the founder of the business to sell it outright to the successor and avoid taxation on the transfer.

Mini-Case 16-4: Plumbers Don't Want Recognition "If I ever went out to those guys and asked them if they wanted a little more recognition, they would laugh me out of the shop. People work for money." Norm Schultz had been a plumber himself for 18 years before he saved enough money to open a small plumbing contractor business. The men who worked for Norm knew what was expected of them-a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. "You don't need to tell a person that he or she is doing a good job; the person is either doing the work or not working for me!" Norm's son-in-law was taking a management course at a local college. When Norm asked him what he was learning in class, he told him the management of people. Norm was very emphatic about managing the plumbers who worked for him. "Tell an employee what you expect from the beginning. Watch to see if they perform the job properly. Treat your people fairly and never cheat them." Norm went on to tell his son-in-law that this was the way good managers did things. "Recognition won't put bread on the table." -Is Norm Schultz correct in his attitude about workers not wanting recognition?

As a motivator, money:

Which of the following is not a recommended guideline for developing questions to ask candidates in job interviews?

To enrich employees' jobs, a business owner must build five core characteristics into them: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

In the breaking-the-ice phase of the interview process, skilled interviewers often use the job description to explain the nature of the job and the company's culture to candidates.