Management Today articles from August 2003

Management Today archives from August 2003

EDITORIAL: Business sense meets artistic sensibility.
August 4, 2003... Art and money have been uneasy bedfellows over the millennia. You cannot have one without the other, but creative purists have traditionally argued that art is sullied and reduced in its worth by any contact with grubby Mammon. Having said...

IN MY OPINION.(management and goals of company Compass Group )
August 4, 2003... Chartered Management Institute companion Michael Bailey, CEO of food services provider Compass Group, on motivating and developing employees. I was intrigued by a recent radio interview with Laura Tyson of the London Business School....

CUTTING ROOM: Evan Davis at large.(capital gains tax on home sales)(Eden Project botanical gardens)(safety of sport-utility vehicles )
August 4, 2003... Why we'd all lose from capital gains on house sales; the first sign of an upturn?; my hell at the Eden Project; the fatal attraction of SUVs... A new think-tank report suggests that we charge capital gains tax on owner-occupied housing....

BRAIN FOOD: Ten ways to ... Effective networking.(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... 1. Proactively speak to people 2. Listen to what they have to say 3. Ask people if you can help them 4. Ask people if they can help you 5. Put people in touch with each other 6. Show appreciation for others' work 7. Learn names fast...

BRAIN FOOD: It just might work - The rolling fix.(cost reduction)(book Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation)(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... Margin squeezing is easy; real cost-reduction is hard. So argue Daniel Jones and James Womack, introducing a new edition of their seminal Lean Thinking. Lean thinkers pulverise costs by mapping value streams (which convey products from first...

BRAIN FOOD: Unlikely managers - Master distiller, Jameson Irish Whiskey, Cork.(Barry Crockett )(Interview)
August 4, 2003... Name Barry Crockett When did you become a manager? In 1981, when I joined the distillery. My father was the master distiller before me. I'm in charge of 25 people in brewing and distillation. What does management mean to you? It's...

BRAIN FOOD: Workplace rights - Snooping safely.(employee supervision )(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... Monitoring is central to the employment relationship. Checks on the quantity and quality of employees' work are normal. But it can also be more intrusive, such as filming staff on CCTV, eavesdropping on their e-mails and phone calls or logging...

BRAIN FOOD: Earning Curve - Telecommunications.(wages of executives, other workers )(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... DTI's earnings from 3G licence auction ('00) pounds 22.5bn Charles Dunstone, estimated personal fortune pounds 250m Chris Gent, outgoing CEO, Vodafone, pay ('02) pounds 2.9m Arun Sarin, incoming CEO, Vodafone, basic, p.a. pounds 1.1m...

BRAIN FOOD: Route to the top ... How to deal with an angry client.(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... Listen without interrupting. Show that you understand how they feel as well as what they are saying. Analyse the problem. Differentiate between facts (the report has three errors in it); assumptions (it was clearly done at the last...

BRAIN FOOD: Room service - Where Matthew Freud stays.(chairman of Freud Communications )(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... For business: Soho House in New York. I loathe New York because it's not home, but Soho House is. You don't hear an American accent when you're there and you don't meet anyone not from Notting Hill, which is where I live. The danger when you...

BRAIN FOOD: Speaking out - Sir Trevor McDonald, Broadcaster.(Interview)
August 4, 2003... Britain's favourite newsreader, now approaching the autumn of his career, rightly basks in the roseate glow that befits a man of humble origins who is becoming a national treasure. Forgive the florid prose, but, you see, I have just listened to...

BRAIN FOOD: If I had to start again ..(narrative )(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... I was a scholarship boy from County Durham. If I'd failed the exams, I would have gone down the pit - there wasn't anything else. When I was 16 I planned to be a great politician, but it didn't happen. My worst subject was chemistry - and I...

BRAIN FOOD: Are you suffering from ... Social phobia.(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... The silly season is a social phobic's nightmare. Cocktail parties fill them with anxiety because they hate small talk more than anything else. Some call it shyness, but sufferers say it's more serious. It's not just new people that fill them...

BRAIN FOOD: Words-worth - Micromanagement.(excessive attention to details in management )(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... Microelectronics is a great success. Nanotechnology is even sexier - and smaller. But don't bother with micromanagement. No one likes it. If you think that God is in the details and you can't help noticing the little things, like the poor...

THE HUMAN FACTOR.(businessman Rocco Forte)(Rocco Forte Hotels )(Interview)
August 4, 2003... For Rocco Forte, putting his name over the door of his new enterprise gave a clear indication that this was a matter of pride rather than just money. It was with the air of an exiled ruler reclaiming his territory that Sir Rocco Forte...

INSIDE OUT.(parliamentary activity after conclusion of Iraq War)(political standing of Prime Minister Tony Blair )
August 4, 2003... It is becoming settled opinion in Westminster that the wave of woes that has rocked the Government is more than just mid-term blues. In the dying days of Parliament's summer session, Tony Blair summoned some of Fleet Street's finest to 10...

REALITY BITES.(dishonesty in employee recruitment, employer-employee relations )
August 4, 2003... We have a Trades Descriptions Act protecting consumers from being mis-sold a product. How about an Act that does the same for jobs? Like all dysfunctional relationships, the one between British employers and employees is riddled with lies....

BOOKS: How to spread the weed.(Why Innovation Fails )(Book Review)
August 4, 2003... Why Innovation Fails; By Carl Franklin; Spiro Press pounds 16.99; MT price pounds 14.99. The point of this book is that it's not the brightest ideas that succeed but the ones that somehow take root. Christopher Evans savours the arguments....

BOOKS: On the bedside table of ... Martin Hayward.(David Boyle's The Tyranny of Numbers)(John O'Farrell's This Is Your Life )(Brief Article)
August 4, 2003... 'I'm reading The Tyranny of Numbers by David Boyle. It helps to explain the feeling of confusion between the reality of the steady decline in many public services despite the upbeat official statistics. Fun reading is John O'Farrell's This is...

BOOKS: The retrieval of reality.(Authenticity )(Book Review)
August 4, 2003... Authenticity; By David Boyle; Flamingo pounds 12.99; MT price pounds 11.99. Consumerism has undermined collective institutions that once gave us our bearings. Tom Bentley reads a book that offers new leads. Ever since Coca-Cola...

BOOKS: Three of a Kind ... There's always a first time.(You're in Charge Now!)(The First-Time Manager)(The One Minute Manager )(Book Review)
August 4, 2003... You're in Charge Now!; Julie-Ann Amos; How To Books; pounds 9.99 A simplistic introduction leads into a helpful book that covers all the basics of management. It wisely steers clear of explaining management theories, focusing instead on...

THE ANDREW DAVIDSON INTERVIEW: John Makinson.(chief executive officer of Penguin Group Inc. )(Interview)
August 4, 2003... The head of Penguin is not your conventional manager-on-the-make. A financial journalist by training, he has switched easily between advertising, consultancy and corporate management without formal qualifications, and some mark him out as next...

A FRUITFUL UNION.(bringing businesses and arts organizations together)
August 4, 2003... From Da Vinci to Tracey Emin, artists have always relied on commercial benefactors. But, like the protagonists in our reworking of Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding (opposite), modern firms are finding that there's more to marriage than money....

MY EURO TERMS.(debate on the euro)
August 4, 2003... Sceptics believe that Gordon Brown's five economic tests for taking Britain into the eurozone will be met - if at all - only when it is politically expedient for the Government. As a counterweight, MT asked 11 leaders of influence to propose...

SELLING POINT: The End of Cordiant.(Cordiant Communications Group PLC)
August 4, 2003... The spectacle of WPP's Martin Sorrell, Publicis' Maurice Levy and other more secretive prowlers picking over the bones of this once mighty group of agencies brings a melancholy end to a tumultuous adland story. What went wrong? John Tylee...

DOING GOOD BUSINESS.
August 4, 2003... Recent polls demonstrate that the apparent arrogance of some companies and the greed of directors alienate the public, especially the young. Des Wilson wants to see corporate peer groups calling their more selfish brethren to account. It's...

COMING UP FAST: How to make risk-prone products pay off.(licensed products)
August 4, 2003... Few firms can be more at the mercy of trends than Kinnerton, maker of 'character' sweets for kids. But by knowing how to assess and spread risk, it keeps its fortunes sweet. Rhymer Rigby reports. We are sitting at a glass table in a rather...

MOTOR MOUTH: Fast and Furious - BMW M3 CSL pounds 58,445.
August 4, 2003... I drove the new BMW M3 CSL around the Goodwood circuit in Sussex - about the only place it would be entirely sane and safe to do so. When Jim Clark won the 1965 German Grand Prix in his beautiful, nimble Lotus 33 he set a fastest lap of 8...

WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?
August 4, 2003... I RUN THE DIVISION BUT THEY MAKE THE DECISIONS Q: I run a semi-autonomous division of a large company. We are performing adequately in financial terms, although we could probably do better. We have recently come under scrutiny by some of...

FIRST CLASS COACH.(complaining and moaning in the workplace)
August 4, 2003... In my department, everyone moans all the time about almost everything. Their relentless pessimism is not only counter-productive, it's getting me down. What can I do about it? Constant complaining used to be viewed as something of a British...

WEAK AT THE TOP: John Weak's Diary.(satire )(Column)
August 4, 2003... MONDAY The working class are agitating for more money. Generally, I have very little sympathy for the working class. If they did any real work, they'd be the middle class. The way Smokehouse is set up is that we have a head office down...