Personal Narrative: An Interview With A Manager

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On Friday afternoon (7/22), I sat down with Steve Ray before starting the weekend to interview him and get to know him better. To start off the conversation, I simply asked Steve to bring me up to speed with his life to now. He chuckled of course, and then began. Steve grew up in St. Elmo, IL, where his father worked for Exelon Energy. Steve went to LakeLand College for their date processing program that they offered at the time. He had some friends that were attending there on the GI bill from the Vietnam War, so he decided to attend since they were there. After getting through the program, Steve moved back home and worked for Fedders making air conditioners. After working 5 years in the factory, Steve realized that this is not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life so he went back to LakeLand College. This time he took classes and transferred to Eastern Illinois University to major in Accounting. Steve liked to …show more content…
This is a very sensitive area as everyone reacts differently to feedback - some people take it positively, and other take it personally. Steve had some tips on giving feedback to others. The first is to keep the feedback short and concise. He recommends having 2-3 brief bullet points. Often he will write out the feedback he would like to make, and he continues to read and re-read the items until he can summarize the feedback into just a few points. If the feedback has more than 4 points, he blames himself for not giving enough direction and intervening earlier. The second tip is go give examples. If there is no example to back up the bullet point, then the person giving the feedback has lost credibility and really has no proof or reason for the point. The last tip is to ultimately take full responsibility. Steve said that even if he did not make the mistake, he takes ultimate ownership for it because he is the one who is the leader and everything starts and end with