Business Stripped Bare Summary

The key to having a successful business is being different than your competition. The central theme of Handy’s book

ARMSTRONG, M. (2011) How to be an even better manager. 8th ed. London: Kognan Page.

The feeling of being on a team is like no other. The emotional roller coaster takes you through the highest highs and the lowest lows. You feel so good when you win but feel like a chump when you lose. Something I have learned over the years of being on a team is the rewards are gratifying, but it takes a lot of work to get there. The effort required to win must be put in every time you touch the ice or else disaster strikes and the team fails. Every member of the team has to buy into the systems and plays you run to be successful. Recently this year I learned that division within a team makes for a long hard year. Also I believe that to be successful as a team goals need to be set, and they need to be rigorous enough that it requires work

The Ideal Team Player and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team are authored by Patrick Lencioni. In the book, he references the importance and dysfunctions of teams in today’s business world.

Organizational Behavior incorporates all types of philosophies, trained and learned processes. Another aspect I believe that helped and will help me to be a successful manager is the ability to create vision. I am not just thinking about myself when it comes to creating a vision, but also the team members that I will be working with or the staff that will support me. Usually with all tasks there is an objective that we must reach to be successful. Managers have to be able to get themselves and those who work for them to see where they are going. The manager, or as in the case of me being in the Army, the leader has to provide the leadership that provides the direction, focus, and motivation to get the team members to see where he is trying to get them to is worth it. The team members have to see the vision the leader is attempting to get them to accept. Once the team members believe in the leaders’ ability to get them to the final objective, successfully, they too will begin to have the ability to create vision, accept the direction and obtain

Their aim is “to create a better business with a better future” and their objectives are to be the brand for business for UK SME’s, to drive broadband based consumer services, to be the best network provider, to be a responsible and sustainable business leader, Virgin make a profit by providing a range of Virgin branded products and services which endeavour to be ‘better, fresher and more valuable’ than those that are currently

Many people believe they can either be a good or great manager. The actual reality to this is some people are actually not fit to be a manager either because they do not know what to do or because they do not know how to handle themselves. Throughout this paper, management styles will be discussed, and the qualities of a good manager.

Welch, J. W. (2006, October 1). The case for-20-70-10 - Buinessweek. Retrieved October 10, 2013, from BusinessWeek: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-10-01/the-case-for-20-70-10

Today, Branson has amassed the Virgin Group of business. His group of businesses is successful across several unrelated industries. Ultimately, Branson links his companies through a common Virgin Group vision that states, “We believe in making a difference. Virgin stands for value for money, quality, innovation, fun and a sense of competitive challenge. We deliver a quality service by empowering our employees and we facilitate and monitor customer feedback to continually improve the customer 's experience through innovation.” (Virgin) This succinct yet powerful vision reflects Branson’s leadership style and vision.

Teams are an integral part of the success of organizations today. There are various types of teams found within today’s companies, and some teams perform at higher levels than others. The performance of a team can depend largely on its structure. To understand what makes a team operate be effective and productive requires looking at the various types of teams.

To fully discuss this topic, we must start with a simple definition of a team. Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith define a team in their best-selling book The Wisdom of Teams (Harper Business Essentials 1994), as

The purpose of this report is to identify key issues of strategic management that have influenced the achievement and failures in Virgin Group. The case study will be focusing on three topics: Organisational culture, Leadership, Entrepreneur and Innovation.

According to Adamson, et al (2004), managers must display skills of strong business knowledge, must have an awareness and sensitivity to cultural differences and standards, and must show courage, commitment and integrity (p. 54). Anyone can be a ‘good leader’ but if you are a leader with a great sense of work ethic, personal and professional integrity and determination for success, then managing a large diverse group of people wouldn’t poise such a challenge.

There are many skills and competencies that are required for a manager to be successful. I feel that that the two most important skills are Self Confidence and Leadership Ability. I’ve seen people in a managerial position and I’ve read about them. There are two things that I’ve always observed about them. They are that they are always confident when they speak and they create an impression that they have always believed in themselves. Secondly, they never forget to credit their team for the work they have done. Whether a manager is aggressive or not, or if the manager is an introvert or an extrovert, the selfless decisions that a manager takes always showcases a positive work ethic. There are a few personality characteristics that define who how a manager is. They are as the following:

Becoming an efficient and effective manager is an extremely challenging role especially in today’s challenging business environment and during times of economic downturn. According to Aaron G.A. (2006), leadership is correlated to organizational and employee performance as leaders influence employees to help achieve organizational goals. Managers need to adopt a continuous learning attitude, personally aware of own strengths and weaknesses and practicing high emotional intelligence in order to be a sustainable competent manager. According to Mcgregor’s theory, Theory-X managers perceive employees to have a tendency to avoid work, while Theory-Y manager gives employees flexibility and empowerment this in return helps develop employees’ decision making skills (McGregor, D. (1960)).