【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[听力原文] 23-30
Reporter: You've said you had an unusual rise to the top at General Computers Corporation. How so?
Peter: I was not an engineer. I didn't have a technical background. I had a funny east accent. Also I didn't have an MBA, but I think what John Smith and Simon Adams did appreciate in me was my willingness to experiment, to try new ideas in the marketplace in the ways that they might not have.
Reporter: When you were named manager, there was some anxiety about the new boss. How did you bring around King Line and the employees?
Peter: King Line was easier than the employees because of my relationship with the financial community. Between 2005-2007, I had been doing most of the presentations to analysts, though John was certainly present. I had been meeting with key investors and visiting customers and employees. So when John and Simon officially retired, King Line knew that I was already running the company in many ways. But I knew some of the employees had some anxiety about it. The critics were concerned that I didn't have John and Simon's technical background. Who would drive the corporation's technical vision, considering that I wasn't a technologists and that GCC had built its foundation on technological differentiation? So at the first employee meeting I held as manager, I made it very clear to the employees that I couldn't fill John and Simon's shoes alone. I imagined a picture of myself in front of two very large shoes, and I told the employees that I would fill one shoe, but they had to fill the other one. I was counting on them.
Reporter: How are you doing things differently from John and Simon?
Peter: GCC is going through a transformation. We are no longer a little company. We' re a $ 2 billion company with a market cap of somewhere between $ 4 billion and $ 8 billion. And I think we can become a $ 6 billion corporation over the following several years. That requires a whole different way of doing business.
Reporter: Any notable missteps along the way? Any lessons from what has happened?
Peter: John told me, when he was handing over the titlc, that the manager's job is very lonely. While you have the board to speak to, the board is also your boss, and you really don't have any peers within the corporation. I think I was too slow to reach out and engage with other managers--to find a peer group to learn from. Over the past year and a half, I've joined a manager group. We meet quarterly under non-disclosure agreement. The other thing I would do differently is to confront the hard organizational and people issue quickly, especially around my executive staff. Because I was promoted from within, I was sometimes too "nice" at the beginning. I didn't want to disrupt the comfortable work environment. I allowed the present situation to persist longer than I should have. I knew that I needed to reorganize and eliminate those people who weren't right for the positions.
Reporter: What's your advice to persons who are to take over as manager?
Peter: Be honest, open, and direct, and recognize that for every employee who might like what you are doing, there could be another who doesn't and you are not going to make everyone happy. Most important, make sure, if your ex-manager is still going to be on the board, to have an agreement going in so that they are going to let you do the job.