Пособие Л. Д. Червяковой «Язык делового общения» стр. 4-10 Чтение и перевод рекламных текстов
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^ 4.10 Making a letter more personal
Normally, if you know the person that you are writing to and have met him/her socially, you will want to make your letter less formal and more friendly. Less formal letters often have a different structure from formal business letter.
Dear Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms...
- An opening
This mentions your feelings about the last contact you had with each other.
- The main message
This says why you are writing now and gives the details.
- The close
This talks about the future and often mentions some personal information.
Yours sincerely / Best wishes.
Note: If you have not recently had contact with each other, you can open by saying why you are writing (see below).
^ 1. Personal business letters: the opening
Here are some ways to open a less formal letter. You can use each phrase to talk about the last time you contacted or could not contact each other.
Thank you for your letter / telephone call / telex.
It was a pleasure to (meet you at/on ...)
It was good to (see you again at/on ...)
(hear from you again.)
It was a pity that (we did not have more time to talk at/on ...)
I am sorry that (I missed you when you visited my office.)
After each phrase you can say something about what you said – or could not say – to each other. Like this:
Thank you for your letter. It was very interesting to hear about the new developments at Wentol Ltd.
It was a pity that I missed you when you visited my office last week. I would have liked to have heard all your news.
It was a pleasure to have dinner with you last thursday. I think we had a very useful discussion.
It was good to talk to you on the telephone today. I was sorry to hear that you had not been well.
Thank you for your telex. I was pleased to hear that you will be coming to visit us next month.
A. Fill in the gaps in these openings with a suitable phrase.
a)…………………………………. to talk to you on the telephone this morning.
………………………….….to hear that you are enjoying your new job.
b)………………………….. your letter ……………………… to hear that you have had so many problems in your office.
c) …………………..to see you at the conference last week.
……………………....... that we did not have enough time to talk.
d)……………… that you could not come to the meeting on Saturday. I am sure that you would have it quite interesting.
e)…………………… to meet you yesterday. I found many of your ideas very interesting.
^ B. What opening would you write in each of these situations?
a) You met he addressee on Thursday. He told you that he had been ill.
b) You had dinner with the addressee Last week at his house. He told you about his holiday in Iceland.
c) You visited the addressee in his office last week but he could only talk to you for five minutes.
d) You received a letter from the addressee this morning. He told you that he had been promoted.
^ 2. Personal business letters: saying why you are writing
In earlier units you learnt how to start formal letters. For example:
Dear Sir
I am writing in reply to your advertisement in The Times
or:
Dear Sir
We are interested in hiring a word processor and we would like to know if you rent them.
If you are writing to someone you know and you want to be more friendly, you should introduce your letter in a different way. Here are some examples.
| Giving information: | I thought you might be interested to hear about … |
| Requesting information or action: Complaining: | I was wondering if you could help me. |
| I am afraid we have a small problem. | |
| Giving bad news: | I am afraid I have some bad news. |
^ 3. Personal business letters: the close.
Less formal letters often close by mentioning something personal. For example:
I look forward to seeing you again next time. I am in Bahrain.
If ever you are in London, please do not hesitate to call me.
Sometimes, you can mention somebody that you both know, like this:
- Please give my regards to Peter Smith.
- Please pass on my best wishes to Mr. Lund. I hope, that he has now recovered from the flu.
4. Practice
These two letters are all mixed up. Put the sentences in the right order. Each letter has three separate main parts.
a)
Mrs. S Weinburger 12 December 1997
ABC Business Consultants
1911 N Formosa Avenue
Los Angeles
California USA V
Dear Mrs. Weinburger
- Please give my regards to Steven Hill.
- It was interesting to hear your views on our new products.
- I would be very grateful, therefore, if you could send me a list of agents — perhaps from the yellow pages.
- As you know, our company is planning to open a branch in Los Angelos.
- I was wondering if you could help me.
- It was a pleasure to meet you at the Trade Fair last month.
- We are now looking for office space in the town centre and we need to know the names and addresses of some property agents.
With best wishes
Hans Seitz
Divisional
b)
Ms F Soares 15 October 1987
Rua J Falcao 20-7
4001 Porto
Portugal
Dear Ms Soares
- I am afraid that I have some bad news.
- Thank you very much for your letter.
- I hope that this does not inconvenience you in any way.
- I hope that you have completely recovered by now.
- Due to unforeseen problems, we are unable to deliver your order on time.
- Please give my regards to Mr. Segall.
- We expect to be back to normal by the end of this month, so I am sure that you will receive the goods within three weeks.
- I was sorry to hear that you have been ill recently.
Kind regards
Ke Soon Lee
Overseas Sales Dept
Занятие 18
English Discoveries. Market 03. Reading Practice.
Занятие 19
Старая и новая системы приема на работу, их положительные и отрицательные моменты.
^ UNIT 5. READING: NEW AND STANDARD SYSTEMS OF APPOINTING APPLICANTS
Text 1. Fit For Hiring? It’s Mind Over Matter.
By Judith H. Dobrzynski
NEW YORK — Members of America’s professional and managerial classes have always left college confident of at least one thing: they had taken their last test. From here on, they could rely on charm, cunning* and/or a record of accomplishment to propel them up the corporate ladder.
But that’s not necessarily true any longer. A growing number of companies, from General Motors Corp to American Express Co., are no longer satisfied with traditional job interviews. Instead, they are requiring applicants for many white-collar jobs – from top executives down – to submit to a series of paper-and-pencil tests, role-playing exercises, simulated decision-making exercises and brainteasers*. Others put candidates through a long series of interviews by psychologists or trained interviewers.
The tests are not about mathematics or grammar, nor about any of the basic technical skills for which many production, sales and clerical workers have long been tested. Rather, employers want to evaluate candidates on intangible* qualities: Is she creative and entrepreneurial? Can he lead and coach? Is he flexible and capable of learning? Does she have passion and a sense of urgency? How will he function under pressure? Most important, will the potential recruit fit the corporate culture? These tests, which can take from an hour to two days, are all part of a broader trend. ‘Companies are getting much more careful about hiring,’ said Paul R. Ray Jr., chairman of the association of Executive Search Consultants.
Ten years ago, candidates could win a top job with the right look and the right answers to questions such as ‘Why do you want this job?’. Now, many are having to face questions and exercises intended to learn how they get things done. They may, for example, have to describe in great detail not one career accomplishment but many – so that patterns of behavior emerge. They may face questions such as ‘Who is the best manager you ever worked for and why?’ or ‘What is your best friend like?’. The answers, psychologists say, reveal much about a candidate’s management style and about himself or herself. The reason for the interrogations is clear: many hires* work out badly. About 35 percent of recently hired senior executives are judged failures, according to the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, which surveyed nearly 500 chief executives a couple of months ago.
The cost of bringing the wrong person on board is sometimes huge. Searching and training can cost from $5000 for a lower-level manager to $250,000 for a top executive. Years of corporate downsizing, a trend that has slashed* layers of management, has also increased the potential damage that one bad executive can do. With the pace of change accelerating in markets and techno-logy, companies want to know how an executive will perform, not just how he or she has performed.
Years ago, employers looked for experience has a candidate done this before? But having experience in a job does not guarantee that you can do it in a different environment. At this point, most companies have not shifted to this practice. Some do not see the need or remain unconvinced that such testing is worth the cost. But human-resource specialists say anecdotal* evidence suggests that white-collar testing is growing in popularity. What has brought so many employers around to testing is a sense of the limitations in the usual job interview. With so little information on which to base a decision, ‘most people hire people they like, rather than the most competent person,’ said Orv Owens, a psychologist in Snohomish, Washington, who sizes up executive candidates. Research has shown, he said, that ‘most decision makers make their hiring decisions in the first five minutes of an interview and spend the rest of the time rationalizing their choice.’ Besides, many people are learning to play the interview game.
Even companies that have not started extensive testing have toughened their hiring practices. Many now do background checks, for example, looking for signs of drug use, violence or sexual harassment. But the more comprehensive testing aims to measure skills in communications, analysis and organization, attention to detail and management style; personality traits* and motivations that behavioral scientists say predict performance.
cunning: the ability to deceive people
a brainteaser: a problem which is fun to solve
intangible: smth. that cannot be felt or described
a hire(US): a recruit (GB): someone who starts to work for a company
to slash: to cut
anecdotal: based on personal experience
to bring around: to persuade s.b. to agree with smth.
a trait: a quality in someone’s character.
Занятие 20
English Discoveries.
Basic 1, 2, 3. Ads., Jobs,Intervews.
Занятие 21
Корпоративная деловая культура. Ее особенности и правила ее соблюдения; столкновения деловых культур.
^ Text 2. When Egos Collide
Perhaps business schools should add anthropology* to the curriculum: the parallels between the behaviour of corporate executives and that of great apes are uncanny*. The spectacular collapse of the supposed alliance of drug giants GlaxoWellcome and SmithKline Beecham is a textbook example.
There was a clear business logic to the union of the two pharmaceuticals giants. The deal gave the companies a drugs research and development budget more than twice the size of their closest rivals, Novartis and Merck, and the combination of their complementary research technologies could have left them streets ahead of* the competition; cost-cutting alone could have saved $1 bn. But because these two great beasts of the jungle (the CEOs of the corporations) chose to throw sand in each other’s faces, the deal is off, at least for now.
Corporate egos cause problems but they seem to be inevitable in a business culture that prizes drive, determination and leadership above all. Having the strength of personality and the ability to outmanoeuvre* others is a fundamental prerequisite to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. So with a power-hungry alpha male at the top of each company, it is not surprising that every time a mega merger is announced, there’s a high probably of a boardroom bust-up. Nicholas Bates, head of Human Resources Management at the European Business School, says many senior businessmen actually go off the top of the scale on personality tests. ‘Some of them are almost psycho-pathological and would have no hesitation taking everyone down with them. Some are verging on* paranoid. Nevertheless these are precisely the sorts of personalities that companies want because they can transform a business; the problems only appear when they have to get together with peers in their views. Then clashes are inevitable.
Europe’s most spectacular and public bust-up was between automotive giants Volvo and Renault. In September 1993 Volvo and Renault announced they were to tie the knot, with Volvo holding a minority 35% stake. However, three months later Volvo shareholder and senior management rejected the marriage plans because of concerns that the deal undervalued Volvo, and was turning into Renault takeover, without Renault paying the acquisition premium. Simmering* resentment over charming Pehr Gyllenhammer’s dictatorial management style at Volvo added spice to the management revolt. The divorce is reputed to have cost Volvo several hundred million dollars and forced the resignation of Gyllenhammer after more than two decades in the driving seat.
Egos play such a large role when two giant corporations come together that it is hard to make them work unless one personality is prepared to make a back seat or step down. The $26 bn. marriage between Swiss giants Ciba and Sandoz to form Novartis in 1996 is often held up as a textbook example of how mega-mergers can work. It is successful, but much of that success is dependent on the fact that key personnel were ready for retirement, or were prepared to relinquish* old roles in favour of new opportunities in other scenarios. Compromise* is essential if mergers between two powerful corporations are to work to the advantage of both parties and their shareholders. Otherwise friendly discussions break down and can easily turn into all-out war. In the corporate jungle, the question is now whether the imperatives of shareholders can control the egos of managers, to force through deals that deliver them the financial return they expect. This is where independent directors ought to play a part, although they rarely do.
*an ego: a person’s opinion about him/herself
*alpha: the highest mark in an exam
*anthropology: the study of people
*uncanny: strange and difficult to explain
*streets ahead of: much better than
*to outmanoeuvre: to gain an advantage by having a better plan
*verging on: almost, nearly
*simmering: just hidden below the surface
*to relinquish: to let s.b. else take
*compromise: agreeing, while accepting some things you don’t like
^ Text 3. Learning To Cope With Corporate Culture Clashes
The dos and don’ts of travelling abroad are a potential minefield for the unprepared traveller. If you spit in some countries, you could end up in prison. In others, spitting is a competitive sport.
The Centre for International Briefing has spent 40 years preparing the wary traveller for such pitfalls. Though it may sound like a covert operation for aspiring secret agents, what the Centre does is prepare travellers for encounters with new social and business customs worldwide. To date, over 50 000 people have passed through its headquarters at Farnham Castle in Surrey. ‘There are two broad tracks to our training programme.’ explains Jeff Toms. Marketing Director. ‘One covers business needs, the other — social etiquette’. For example, business travellers need to know how decision-making works:
- In China, it may be necessary to have government involved in any decisions taken. And in India, people are sometimes late for a scheduled appointment.
- While we are familiar with the short firm handshake in this part of the world, in the Middle East the hand is held in a loose grip for a longer time. In Islamic cultures, showing the soles of your feet is a sign of disrespect and crossing your legs is seen as offensive.
- Jeff Toms tells the story of a British employee asked to post a letter by her Indonesian employer. ‘She knew the letter was too late for the six o’clock post, so she decided to hold it until the eight o’clock one. Her boss saw the letter on her desk and sacked her for not posting it immediately. In Western cultures, we believe in empowering people and rewarding them for using initiative, but other cultures operate on the basis of obeying direct orders.’
- ‘For them, the most senior person at the meeting will say very little, and the person doing most of the talking is not very important.’ Doherty has spent 12 of his 16 years with the IDA working abroad in the USA, Germany, South-East Asia and Japan.
- ‘With a population of 125 million condensed into a narrow strip of land, private space for the Japanese is virtually non-existent. You can’t worry about your personal space in a packed train when people are standing on your feet.’
Tiptoeing through the minefield
Do
- Show an interest in at least an elementary knowledge of the country you are visiting.
- Learn a few words of the language — it will be seen as a compliment.
- Be sensitive to countries who have bigger and better-known neighbours, and try not to confuse Canadians with Americans, New Zealanders with Australians, Belgians with French.
- Familiarise yourself with the basics of business and social etiquette. As a starting point, learning how to greet people is very important.
Don’t
- Assume you won’t meet any communication problems because you speak English. You may think you are paying somebody a compliment by telling them their business is going a bomb, Americans will infer you think it is failing.
- Appear too reserved as Americans are generally more exuberant than their European colleagues, they may equate reserve with lack of enthusiast.
Занятие 22
English Discoveries. The Executive. Management.
Занятие 23
Работа в офисе, атмосфера в офисе. График работы, гибкий график работы.
^ VIVENDI: 150 YEARS OF HISTORY
Vivendi, the French utilities and communications group, has a long history going back to 1853. In that year the Government (1) created (create) Compagnie Generale des Eaux. The founders (2) ................ (have) two objectives: to irrigate the countryside for farming and to supply water to towns and cities in France.
In 1880 a treaty (3) ................ (give) Generale des Faux the right to supply water to Venice, and then Constantinople and Oporto (4) ................ (come) soon after. By the time of the centenary celebrations in 1953 Generale des Faux (5) ................ (supply) water to eight million people in France.
In the 1960s and 1970s the company (6) ................ (begin) activities in the area of civil construction and (7) ................ (build) a large tower block in the La Defense business district of Paris.
During the 1980s Generale des Eaux (8) ................ (join) with the Havas media group to create Canal Plus, a pay TV channel. They also (9) .............. (take) a controlling stake in the civil engineering giant, SGE. In the 1990s they (10) ................ (win) major contracts in the Asia Pacific region and in Latin America.
Jean-Marie Messier (11) ................ (become) CEO in 1996 and (12) ................ (run) the company along American lines. He (13) .......................... (sell) $5 billion in assets and (14) ........................ (cut) the workforce by 10%. All this (15) ......................... (mean) that an annual loss of $600 million (16) ...................... (turn) into a profit of $320 million. In 1998 he (17) ...................... (change) the name of the group to Vivendi and soon after (18) ................. (make) a series of partnerships and acquisitions in the telecommunications industry.
Operations in North America (19) .................. (grow) very quickly after this and in 2000 Vivendi (20) .................... (buy) Seagram to become a truly international media and communications company.