Making Your Employees More Creative Unit Three

Reading A Reading B Simulated Writing Listening and Speaking

Reading A: How to Adapt to Various Work Styles It is well known that, as secretaries, we work close by our employers. We should have a clear understanding of our managers’ work styles and their true temperament. We should know what our managers expect us to do even before we are told. One thing we need to keep in mind is that our managers and we are different people with different ways of doing things. We should adapt to our managers’ work styles and try every means to establish a good relationship with them. Having a good working environment is desirable to all employees in a company. Here are some elements secretaries should always keep in mind. What should secretaries keep in mind?

Remember that our managers are human beings not perfect beings. Both our managers and we have strengths and weaknesses, have areas of confidence and areas of fear. Sometimes, our managers may seem unreasonable in what they say or in what they do. We should try to understand them and help them, for we all face different challenges in our work and have different expectations placed upon us. We should look at our managers as people as well as managers. Why should secretaries try to understand and help their managers?

Remember that our managers may not be as confident as they appear. Being managers with multitudes of responsibilities is not an easy task. If your managers are working within their “circle of confidence” – an area of responsibility in which they have good training and experience – they may be effective; otherwise, they may be experiencing internal fears and frustrations, and thus they may lack confidence. This internal conflict may cause our When will the managers feel fearful?

managers to be unreasonable in their attitudes and expectations of us as well as critical of us. By being critical of us, he feels stronger. While this is not a positive trait, we should accept it and seek ways to help relieve some of our managers’ possible stress and feelings of inadequacy. Remember that our goal is to become a “team of two” with our managers.

Remember that communication is the key to a successful working relationship. If we continually experience frustration while attempting to build a better working relationship with our managers, we should be honest about how we feel. Most managers appreciate honest communication and will respond positively to it.

Remember that we need to have boundaries in our job. If our managers ask us to do something that is against our personal values or beliefs, we have the right to say “no”. We need to explain to them why we cannot carry out that particular assignment. Remember that no one can build us a better boss, but we can build a better “we”. Can we say “no” to our managers?

Remember to never try to change our disorganized managers into completely organized ones. People with different personalities and temperaments have different styles of relating to people and tasks. As secretaries, we can seek ways to help our disorganized managers be more organized in their thoughts and instructions. Remember that our goal is not to change our managers, but to help them be more successful.

Remember that our questions may help us understand our tasks better. When our managers instruct us on a project or assignment, we need to ask as many questions as possible. Our questions will help prompt our managers to provide the information we need to accomplish our assignment well. Our questions might also cause our managers to think of other related things that we can do to help them. How will our questions help managers?

Remember that frequent contacts may help us do the task better. We should suggest meeting together weekly so we know what our managers expect of us and how we can better anticipate what is ahead for our work.

Vocabulary Work style 工作风格 Circle of confidence 有把握的范围 Lack confidence 缺乏自信 Internal conflict 内心冲突 Personal value / belief 个人价值 / 信仰

Reading B Employee Performance Appraisal Form in XYZ Company The Five Evaluation Criteria for Employee Performance: Excellent Good Qualified Fair Unsatisfactory

Simulated Writing Notice 告示是一种文字简短的应用文。公 司、学校或企事业单位可利用告示向 公众告知某一事情或事件，通常张贴 在公司、学校或企事业的 公共场所。 英文告示一般用 Notice 作标题，写在 政务上方正中部位。

英文告示组成部分 标题 headline 正文 body 落款 inscriber 日期 date

Listening and Speaking Meeting People Role-play