Manager Project

I. Introduction

As an international business major, I am surrounded by many success stories from

internet, magazines, and attending business professional speech events. They all achieve certain

kind of success although they may have totally different background, organizational culture and

management style. In order to broad my understanding on how managers implement academic

concepts in a real work scenario, I interviewed Carolina Severino, a senior export manager at

Marco Polo International Inc. This paper aims to analyze her style of management, what kind of

manager she is, her communication style and so on.

II. General Background: Work History & Company Profile

1. Work History

Carolina Severino is a senior export manager at Marco Polo International. During her

career path, she accomplished sales leader with over 15 years of experience; 7 years in the

commodity trading business, marked by consistent growth and success, building a multi-million-

dollar book of business from the ground up; 7 years of sales management background,

developing innovative strategies to enhance brand perception, strengthen profitability, and

maximize cost savings. She built a strong background in account management and global market

development, with the ability to forge strong customer relationships predicated on credibility and

trust. Exceptional organization and communication skills with bilingual fluency in English and

Portuguese.
 From 2014 to present, she holds the positon of senior export manager. In this position,

she directs a high volume team and manages purchasing relationships with 16 international

suppliers, leveraging a deep knowledge of global pricing and polymer trends. Recognized for

delivering consistent year-over-year growth. Also, she was appointed as the lead manager for all

export inventory representing 30% of total company sales, and continues to support business

growth through oversight of more than $150M in revenue. Hired and trained a team of Spanish,

French, Russian, and Portuguese speaking sales reps to manage accounts in 40 countries. Ensures

the sales group remains updated around all aspects of export and purchasing activity.

From 2012 to 2014 she worked as sales and purchasing manager to the same company. In

this position, she promoted to manager within 24 months, leading a six-person sales team in

managing a $50M international territory. Grew and managed a portfolio of 100 accounts,

individually securing 30 accounts valued at over $35M within one year. Hired and trained a team

of native Spanish and French speakers to service accounts in 30 different countries. Continued to

manage purchasing activity, securing seven new supplier accounts within two years. And from

2010 to 2012, she was an account sales manager in the same company, in which she grew the

Brazilian market from ground-up by assembling a dedicated regional sales team. Leveraged

existing expertise and network to build out a robust client base and pipeline of industry contacts.

Opened 30 new international accounts representing $10M in revenue within the first year,

achieving recognition as a top sales producer after six months.

2. Company Profile
 Marco Polo International Inc. (MPI) was founded in 1985 by Nico Liuzzo. Marco Polo

International Inc. is a privately-held, American-based company that is an international trader and

distributor of prime, generic prime, and wide-spec polypropylene, polyethylene, and polystyrene

resin pellets. Headquartered in New York, it operates a network that spans the globe including

offices in NYC, Houston, Ohio, Atlanta and Mexico. MPI has always strived to put our clients

needs first and its values reflect this commitment: trust, partnership, integrity, honesty and

loyalty are the foundations of its customer relationships. Currently, MPI has 50 full time

employees and generates an estimated of $74.8 million in annual revenue.

III. Analysis

1. Style of Management

Carolinas management style varies depending on the employee. During her career as

manager, she knows that one standard style does not work as people are different. She stated that

some people respond very well and quite competitive aggressive to achieve the corporations

goals, while others don not thrive on pressure. Also, some people prefer frequent check-ins,

while other prefer clear direction and then giving them space to get the work done. However, she

established some general rules such as taking time to explain the business value of the work they

are assigned ensures motivation, and most important, show the employees that their manager

values and care for them and their opinion.

2. Kind of Managers

After pondering Carolinas response to my overall questions, I have concluded that she is

a Team Builder manager. Among many characteristics, team builder managers listen to their

employees concerns and problems (when she was responsible to resolve her team members
conflict, she made sure she understood each partys point of view), are competent at what they

do, and know how to be open. Therefore, Carolinas employees must be open with her by telling

her what they want and think, must make sure that they understand their role in the team and

know what is expected from they, and more importantly, they do not need to be afraid to share

their ideas and creativity with her.

3. Assimilation Process

Based on Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX Theory), by George Graen, Carolina

is a Role Taking. Generally, when a new member joins her team, she gives a variety of tasks and

evaluate how the new member perform those tasks. By doing so, she is able to assess the

persons major strengths.

4. Mentoring

Research has shown that mentoring programs increase subordinates communication

satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. (Richmond) When asked about

mentorship, Caroline said that she is thankful for her mentor who helped her to become the

successful manager she is today. In her opinion, mentorship programs are very important to

create great managers. One of her favorite mentees was a MBA student at NYU in the

Management and Organization Program; during her mentorship program, she gained a great deal

of knowledge and skills throughout her collaboration, including market research, and follow up

with potential customers.

5. Nonverbal communication & Meetings

Nonverbal communication are all intentional and nonintentional messages that are

neither spoken nor written. Carolina has her private office with a large window and her

subordinates need to ask for permission before entering in her office. Since the NYC offices
premises is not big, they do not have a meeting room. In this case, meetings are held at one of the

managers office at closed doors. As opposed, she related that when she needs to talk to one of

her subordinates, she just approaches the subordinates desk. The nonverbal communication and

meetings regarding to territory and space are held, indicates high status in which she is allowed

to invade the personal space of lower status.

6. Communication Styles

According to her responses, I would classify Carolina as an open style communicator. By

interviewing her, I could conclude that she is honest and open, examines all sides of an issue and

listen to her employees needs; she demonstrates these characteristics when she had to deal with

conflict at the workplace caused by two of her subordinates. An open style communicator is very

flexible in meeting the needs of others. However, this style of communication may make other

styles uncomfortable.

7. Communication Network/Channels

According to the Organizational Network and Channels lecture, network is defined as

patterns, flow and pathways of communication interaction both formal and informal. Can

occur spontaneously. While channels are organizationally sanctioned and used to structure the

flow of information and messages. Are usually prescribed and restricted. Since Carolina

manages a team of 7 people in the export department in the NYC office today, in my opinion her

role in the network would be a combination of cosmopolite, gatekeeper and representative. My

assumption is based on Carolinas response about how her employees deal with changes, where

she stated that when the change comes from the upper management (headquarters), there is not

too much she can do to avoid this change.

8. Organization Culture
 According to the textbook Organizational Communication for Survival, understanding

the culture of ones organization is crucial to success within that organization. When asked how

she would define MPIs organizational culture, Carolina responded that MPI culture is to achieve

higher customer satisfaction; MPI business model is centered around meeting the needs of its

clients, hence, achieving higher customer satisfaction. Therefore, based on the lecture about Deal

and Kennedys model, I believe that MPI would fall within is Bet-Your-Company and Work

Hard/Play Hard, because the company is customer focused, but based on her response about how

employees deal with changes, it seems that major decisions are made top-down.

9. Office Politics

There are many factors that lead to office politics, such as scarcity of resources, unclear

job definitions, down period of workload, and self-interests of organizational interests. When

asked about office politics she have applied in her department, Carolina stated that in 2010 she

had applied office politics as a requirement of upper management due to a down period of

workload as an effect of economic world crisis. In this case, these politics affected the entire

organization.

10. Conflict Management

Regarding to conflict between employees, she prefers not to be involved, unless the

situation requires. For example, about two years ago she was responsible to resolving a conflict

between two members of her team; their nasty relationship began to affect productivity and the

work environment. She organized a meeting with both members, and after listening carefully the

perspective of both parties, she made it clear that a solution must be reached, and before

concluding the meeting, she emphasized that moving forward, each party must act considerably

and professionally. Afterwards, the work environment became more pleasant.

 11. Diversity

According to the textbook Organizational Communication for Survival, diversity is a

fact of life in the organizations today. MPI is an international and cross-cultural organization.

Carolina is Brazilian and she works with people from other different parts of the world such as

Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and German. Furthermore, the President & CEO Marco Liuzzo is

Italian/American. Diversity if the most important aspect of international business, and since MPI

has offices throughout, we can surely say that MPI welcome diversity.

12. Organizational Change

I asked Carolina about the challenges she has faced when it came to his employees

accepting and embracing change. Although she has not faced many issues about her employees

negative reaction towards changes, she said that few employees who were somehow resistant to

changes were her most senior employees. However, when asked why she thought that senior

employees did not accepted changes very well within the organization and/or department, she

stated the reasons for the resistance were due to lack of trust from upper management and their

decision making, as well as the feeling that decisions were made without their voice being heard.

However, she stated that she has been working hard to make sure that they participate whenever

possible in the decision making within the department that directly impact her employees.

Unfortunately, when the changes come from the upper management, there is not too much she

can do, principally because the headquarter is located in another location.

IV. Personal Reflection What have you learned from doing this project? What is your take-away?
 From my perspective, Carolina Severino is a successful export manager in international

business field. She tries to motivate employees by setting harder goals and giving them timely

feedbacks. In her management philosophy, helping employee growth would lead to further

development of the organization. Just like Jack Welch said, Before you are a leader, success is

all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

I definitely benefited a lot from this interview, since Carolinas unique thoughts inspired

me on both this academic research and future growth. This opportunity gave me a deeper

understanding on how the concepts and theories of managerial communication work in the real

world. Moreover, good managers should always improve themselves by learning from your own

experience and from other peoples experience; this is one of the ways a manager could gain

respect and trust from their employees.

V. Conclusion

Life experiences help to shape who we are and the way we respond to the world.

Managers need to perform five managerial functions: planning, organizing, coordinating,

commanding and controlling. Therefore, it is not an easy task for someone to become a good

manager. There are so many things to learn during the path until you achieve a manager position,

and by far, the most challenging task is managing people from different cultures and background.

In conclusion, managers must have high knowledge about all theirs function, and one way to

achieve the knowledge is through constant learning from personal and third parties experience.