Management Today articles from April 2005

Management Today archives from April 2005

Contributors.
April 7, 2005... JEREMY MYERSON Careers in journalism and academia have given Myerson access to enough offices to explain why he champions well-designed workplaces so strongly. Author of The 21st Century Office and MT's 'Strategic Moves', he is director of...

Sir Alex shows us the passion.(Alex Ferguson)(Interview)(Cover Story)
April 7, 2005... How has the job of managing come to be seen as a chore or an impossibility? One of the odd things I'm often asked after confessing to a stranger that my trade is journalism is, 'which celebrities have you interviewed?' I normally mumble...

In my opinion - Chartered Management Institute.(corpotate governance)
April 7, 2005... Chartered Management Institute Companion Kevin Beeston, executive chairman of Serco Group, argues for a positive kind of corporate governance. There is too much of the wrong sort of corporate governance. There's a real danger that...

The MT diary.(Management Today)
April 7, 2005... Party over for the DTI?; two hats still bad for Beeb; Exchange partners; Laporta's logic. Six months ago, I noted that Robin Young, permanent secretary at the DTI, had decided to take early retirement. I speculated that such a wily...

Brainfood: Ten ways to ... travel in style.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... 1. Set your watch to destination time at take-off 2. Don't forget the aspirin 3. Go easy on the alcohol at 40,000 feet 4. Avoid economy-class on a long-haul flight 5. Choose a higher hotel room for a quieter stay 6. Never trust the...

Brainfood: It'll never fly - Reality TV.(Big Brother, reality television program)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... The banality of everyday life shouldn't make for good television. Washing up, brushing teeth, eating and making tea are not entertaining plot lines - watching paint dry is surely more exciting. The rules state that good TV is about the...

Brainfood: How does she manage? - Bookmaker, Anita Graham Totesport, Southampton.(Brief Article)(Interview)
April 7, 2005... When did you become a manager? I started as a cashier 14 years ago. I've been a manager here for three years and I've just won betting shop manager of the year. What does management mean to you? It means having happy staff and...

Brainfood: Earning Curve - Emergency Services.(salaries of managers, emergency services)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
April 7, 2005... Sir Ian Blair, chief commissioner, Metropolitan Police pounds 215k Bruce Mann, head, Civil Contingencies Secretariat pounds 74k-pounds 155k Paramedic, London Ambulance Service pounds 23.4k 999 information officer, Metropolitan Police pounds...

Brainfood: Workplace Rights - Blog Standards.(Weblogs)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... Blogging is the latest craze sweeping our PC world. Millions of people now keep an online journal - known as a 'web log' or 'blog' - and millions more read them. It might seem harmless enough, but employers need to wise up. The diary-like...

Brainfood: History Lessons - Hire Brilliant People - John D Rockefeller.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... Rockefeller is the stuff of legend. The American oil baron started out as an office boy in 1855, earning just dollars 25 a month. By the age of 40, he controlled 90% of US oil refining through his company Standard Oil, and at the height of...

Brainfood: Your route to the top - Leaving on a high.(when you leave your current job...)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... Be gracious. Thank people and focus on the good memories rather than using your departure as an excuse to let off steam about everything that annoys you - however tempting that might be. Don't burn your bridges. Don't take it personally....

Brainfood: Speaking Out - Sir Christopher Meyer, chairman, The Press Complaints Commission.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... 'Who Rules Britain: the City, Fleet Street or Downing Street?' was the subject given to Meyer by the headhunters Odgers, but he talked about the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) with only a passing nod to the question. Yet he didn't...

Brainfood: Business manners - Closing a deal.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... Take the long-term view. Regard every deal as a foundation stone in a business partnership. Cultivate a relationship: be prepared to make small sacrifices for the bigger picture. Have you got the right person? You can close a deal only with...

Brainfood: Slogan Doctor - AXA: Be life confident.(tag lines)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... It's not exactly English, is it? 'Life confident' can only be a compound adjective, but compound adjectives - 'user-friendly', 'IBM-compatible', 'trigger-happy' - need a hyphen. So it should be 'life-confident'. But is there such a...

Brainfood: We'd love that job - Test driver. Dario Benuzzi chief test driver, Ferrari, Italy.(Brief Article)(Interview)
April 7, 2005... What do you do? I develop Ferrari road cars from the prototype stage until the final model goes into production, and then I follow their evolution. Usually, I spend an average of five to six hours in a car each day, both on the road and the...

Brainfood: Remember this.(quotes)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... 'Successful executives are great askers' WARREN BENNIS SAID IT 'The first step toward change is acceptance' STEPHEN COVEY SAID IT

Brainfood: Are you suffering from - Pseudo A.D.D.(pseudo attention deficit disorder)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... Do you have to check your e-mails every 10 seconds? Do you routinely look at your phone as you once did your watch? At the opera with clients, are you secretly reading your BlackBerry? If so, you may be suffering from what John Ratey, an...

Brainfood: Words-Worth - Package.(non-cash remuneration)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... Everyone knows that when you see a job offering '50k + attractive package', the package doesn't come wrapped in shiny paper with a bow. It's an enticing way of talking about non-cash remuneration, slightly more exciting than mentioning the...

Brainfood: Lord Kalms - If I had to start again ..
April 7, 2005... I certainly would have gone into politics earlier. I would have taken an active interest in my thirties, rather than getting involved when I was about 50. I quite like politics: it's a horrible, nasty business full of very strange...

Brainfood: How he made his pile - Sir Alan Sugar, chairman and CEO, Amstrad.(Brief Article)(Biography)
April 7, 2005... Who is he? The pugnacious Sugar founded electronics/computers firm Amstrad (Alan Michael Sugar Trading Company) in 1968. He ingloriously chaired Tottenham Hotspurs in the 1990s, famously firing CEO Terry Venables. His estimated fortune is...

Brainfood: Us and them - Paraguay.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... Squeezed between Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil, Paraguay is a marshy land and most of its 6.2 million population live in the south. Alfredo Stroessner's 35-year military dictatorship ended in 1989 and a tentative democracy has emerged, its...

Brainfood: Crash course in ... Creating a healthy workplace.
April 7, 2005... You're facing an obesity epidemic as people sit around the office without doing any exercise, snacking on junk food. Far from lean and mean, your team look lethargic and stressed, and it's hurting performance. Time for a health crusade. ...

Brainfood: MT Masterclass - Transparency.(Management Today)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2005... What is it? You've tried 'open door' management. Why not have a go at 'nothing up your sleeve' management, with a bit of 'open book' thrown in? Transparency's true believers say we should keep nothing hidden, and commit ourselves to complete...

Brainfood: Decisions - Gerald Ratner, Geraldonline, chief executive of the internet jewellery retailer.
April 7, 2005... MY BEST... Acquiring H Samuel when I was managing director of Ratners was one of my best decisions. It was 1986 and we had 135 Ratners shops. H Samuel had much better locations than we had, and better shops, nearly half of which were...

Brainfood: Behind the spin - Pearson.
April 7, 2005... THE DILEMMA Pearson's 2004 annual results met market expectations - a 3% rise in underlying sales to pounds 3.9 billion, and operating profit up 5% to pounds 455 million (adjusted for the weak dollar). But that doesn't necessarily mean all...

No fast cure for Boots.(Boots Healthcare International)
April 7, 2005... The pharma chain's CEO should be careful not to promise a new dawn soon. Richard Baker probably needed a double dose of some of the products made by Boots after confessing to the City that all was not going as well as hoped. Strepsils to...

The family comes first.(child care tax credits)
April 7, 2005... The Government is being generous to parents, but will it always benefit children? It is jolly decent of Gordon Brown to pay for my summer holiday in the South of France. And the cause of his St Tropez socialism? Childcare. The tax...

Techno Life.(electronic gadgets)
April 7, 2005... Mike Lynch, founder and chief executive of intelligent software company Autonomy, is a seasoned transatlantic flier who jets regularly between his twin headquarters in Cambridge and San Francisco. A ruthlessly light traveller, he shuns the...

Books: Outgrabing Lewis Carroll.(Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking )(Book Review)
April 7, 2005... This book promises to change 'the way you understand every decision you make'. Like all manuals spinning the self-evident, says Felix Dennis, it does no such thing. It takes about 280 pages of claptrap, psychobabble and snappy subheadings...

Books: Three of a kind - A question of personal priorities.(Work-Life Integration)(Balance Your Life and Work)(Work-Life Balance in the 21st Century)(Book Review)
April 7, 2005... Work-Life Integration; Suzan Lewis and Cary Cooper; Wiley pounds 24.95 The authors are academics who have spent time working with companies to implement more work/life friendly policies. Here, they present several case studies, with...

Books: Subconscious glow that makes us buy.(The Advertised Mind )(Book Review)
April 7, 2005... This book makes a coherent case for the importance of science in capturing and keeping our attention, says Cilla Snowball. The Advertised Mind Erik du Plessis Kogan Page pounds 25 MT price pounds 23 To order, visit...

Books: Speed may not necessarily be of the essence.(In Praise of Slow)(Book Review)
April 7, 2005... The world moves faster and faster for everyone, but this persuasive book urges us to ease off, reflect and put the balance back into our lives, reports Matthew Gwyther. Although In Praise of Slow sits in the self-help section of most...

United they stand?(Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson )(Interview)
April 7, 2005... The most financially successful football club in the world is facing huge challenges on and off the pitch. Can the men at the top keep it together until the final whistle? Matthew Gwyther and Andrew Saunders report. It's a gloomy early...

MT Workspace Satisfaction Review - Strategic moves.(Management Today)
April 7, 2005... A good office is about more than posh seating and fresh paint. As our three case studies show, workspace strategy promises higher productivity and fulfilled staff. Bad office buildings do not make for good managers. Two years after the...

Let's reclaim the 'M' word.(management)
April 7, 2005... Befuddled by crass theories on leadership, tarred with the brushes of Enronism and fat-cattery, managers are defensive. How to regain your pride? Stefan Stern reports. Hey, kids, complete the following well-known phrase or saying to win this...

The MT Interview: Mike Aaronson.(Management Today)(Interview)
April 7, 2005... The head of the Save The Children fund combines long experience of fieldwork - and a spell in the Foreign Office - with a natural grasp of strategy. He's calling on all his skills to make sure the charity is effective in a post-tsunami world...

Open secret.(operating systems, Windows, Linux)
April 7, 2005... Microsoft's Windows dominates IT, but the Linux operating system now looks like a real alternative: it's free, it's adaptable, it comes without strings and is supported by some of the biggest names in hardware. Mark Vernon reports. Do you...

MT business travel - Frequent Flyer Franco I-Pang Chung's guide to Taipei.
April 7, 2005... HOW TO GET THERE There are many flights from London, although none is direct. BA, Cathay Pacific and Virgin are good. I like to fly with EVA airline in Deluxe or Business class. Flights from London to Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport take...

MT business travel: Room Service - Where stays ..
April 7, 2005... FOR PLEASURE: About three times a year, my wife and I visit Ashdown Park hotel and country club in East Sussex for a long weekend. We go for a range of reasons: it's convenient because it's quite close to home - about one and a half hour's...

MT Business travel: On the road.(BMW 3 Series)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 7, 2005... BMW's new 3-series is pretty much best-in-class, a position the previous model had barely relinquished. Flame surfacing - not a description of a catastrophic oilfield blow-out but a term BMW used to describe the fresh direction its car...

What's your problem?(managing your boss)
April 7, 2005... Your manager may be valued, but his personal characteristics will be known and noted. Q: At just 29, I've been appointed regional manager of a supermarket chain. But my manager is making my life a misery. My background is this: I attended...

First-Class Coach.(managing your boss)
April 7, 2005... It isn't realistic to expect autonomy on everything immediately, as you are still new to the position. Q: I've recently taken over as managing director of a company division. The previous MD has moved on to the main board, and though the...

MT business lifeforms: The sales director.(Management Today, 2Ear plc)(Biography)
April 7, 2005... Flash, smart and candid, Mike Perry puts the buzz into mobile firm 2Ear plc. 'Nice one, mate. Sweet!' How often do you hear words like these at the boardroom table? If you're a director of mobile phone business 2Ear plc, pretty much...