Angelo Fortuna discusses good managers

Nation's Restaurant News, May 7, 2001 by Dina Berta

Angelo Fortuna is retiring again.

The World War II veteran retired from the Air Force in 1970. Then he retired from ARA Services Inc., now known as Armark, in 1991. Now the 75-year-old says he plans to step down quietly from his role as senior vice president of resources for Spartanburg, S.C.-based Volume Services America early next year.

He has been a personnel research psychologist in the military an Air Force Academy professor and a private consultant. He began his 20-year tenure at ARA Services as a director of management development, eventually becoming a senior vice president of human resources. Charged with the responsibility of overseeing organization and personnel development at Volume Services, he has focused on concepts that structure managerial behavior.

Before Fortuna returns to his home in San Antonio--for good this time, he claims--Nation 's Restaurant News talked with him about his career and his ideas on manager development.

What makes a good manager?

Effective managers need power. There are two kinds of power: the ability to influence and self-power, aggrandizement--"Move my office to where I want it." "Pick up my bags for me."

The guy you are looking for wants to influence people for the benefit of the organization. Mahatma Gandhi had power, power of influence for the benefit of his country. [Ayatollah] Khomeini had power, power to benefit himself.

Was Khomeini a good manager?

I don't know. Gandhi was an effective manager. He was able to get people to respond to meeting a set of objectives.

How do you find that kind of person?

By talking to somebody. Learn how to differentiate. People talk about attainments. Determine: To what degree do they want to gain for the self? Ask: What do people perceive of you? What activities do they do? How do they structure it? Is the power need for the self or for the organization?

How do you develop a good manager?

You can't develop a person. The person who wants to develop himself does. The person who wants to be developed rarely is. See the difference? If the person has the motivation for personal development, the introduction of that person to anything that gives him an opportunity to grow and learn is useful. For the person who just wants to sit there and be developed, it doesn't take.