Management Today articles from August 2006

Management Today archives from August 2006

Just like chalk and fromage.
August 1, 2006... What's up with the French? Aside from the disaster of their defeat in the World Cup final, they have been have undergoing paroxysms of self-doubt for years. A bestseller last year was entitled La France Qui Tombe ('France in Free-fall')....

Contributors.
August 1, 2006... COLIN TWEEDY - MT called on the Arts & Business CEO to review Chris Bilton's Management and Creativity, a book in search of a symbiosis. Tweedy has found it in his own career: he is also a director of the Oxford Stage Company and a trustee of...

Chartered Management Institute: In my opinion.(Column)
August 1, 2006... Chartered Management Institute Companion Ian Mullen argues that businesses must co-operate to lead the international regulatory agenda. The growth of financial services since 1992 has been more than double the rate of the UK economy as a...

The MT Diary.(economic conditions )
August 1, 2006... LSE's Istanbul connection; Cairo jitters; chav builders of Palm Island; saving for China. The World Cup was, of course, football for non-football fans, and they got what they deserved. I adopted a rigorous policy during the tournament of...

Brain Food: Ten ways to ... Attract an investor.(Table)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... 1. Understand your company 2. Know your goals and how to achieve them 3. Consider the options 4. Be ready to hand over the reins 5. Recognise your weaknesses 6. Keep a lid on budgets 7. Get advice 8. Check their record and...

Brain Food: It'll never fly - Replica Football Kit.(replica shirts market in United Kingdom)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Dressing up as a footballer isn't right for an out-of-shape 48-year-old. Team colours just don't suit being stretched over an expansive beer-belly while it sweats on a sun-bed in Playa de las Americas, Tenerife. The guilty parties have to...

Brain Food: How does she manage? - Paparazzi co-ordinator - Mel Lyons, sales director, Big Pictures.(Interview)
August 1, 2006... When did you become a manager? In 1993. I was working as a croupier and left to set up the picture agency with my then husband Darryn Lyons, who now presents our Paparazzi show on BBC 3. We had the office in our spare bedroom, and made it...

Brain Food: Earning Curve - Summer Refreshment.(bottled water industry, strawberry market and Coca-Cola Co. (Atlanta, Georgia) profits)(Table)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... UK bottled water market, worth pounds 1.5bn Coca-Cola, first-quarter profit ('06) pounds 614m UK strawberry market, worth pounds 96m Paul Walsh, CEO, Diageo, maker of Pimms, p.a. pounds 2.3m Parliament Hill lido, season ticket sales ('05)...

Brain Food: Workplace Rights - Office Politics.( Race Relations Act )(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... To what extent should employees be free to propagate in the workplace minority views that may be offensive to other staff or customers? The issue was highlighted in 2004 when Serco sacked a Bradford bus driver, whose passengers were mostly...

Brain Food: Your route to the top - Realise your dream.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Immerse yourself in the outcome. Dreams come at a price. So ponder the implications on your other aspirations and the consequence of following your dreams. Work out the journey. Think clearly through the steps you must take in order to...

Brain Food: History Lessons - The perils of bragging - Rasputin.(Grigori Rasputin)
August 1, 2006... The 'Mad Monk' has plenty to teach the aspirational. Grigori Rasputin sprang from Siberian peasant obscurity to the bosom of the Russian royal family, with little grounding in spiritual training, literacy or personal hygiene. How? By using...

Brain Food: Why business is like ... Mrs Beeton and the army.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... The British army is trained in the art of warfare; Mrs Beeton's recruits are trained in the art of household management, equipped to prepare 200 or more sauces and to pick the grit out of a child's eye. Yet they share a common leadership...

Brain Food: Mind your manners - Striking out on your own.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Leave on good terms. Impending freedom is no reason to give your office two fingers as you bound out the door on your last day. Most industries are close-knit; relationships matter. Do it on your own time. Using the office kit to run off...

Brain Food: Slogan Doctor - Philips: Sense and simplicity.(Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. contracts with DDB London)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... You have to admire Philips, one of the world's great technology companies. And you have to admire the Dutch, not least for their facility with English. But it's not their first language. Take 'Sense and Simplicity'. The component parts...

Brain Food: Are you suffering from Aggravated Competitive Holiday Envy Syndrome.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Nothing irks those of us sitting in front of a computer screen more than opening the newspapers to find that Jemima Goldsmith and Hugh Grant have managed to squeeze in another Mediterranean or Caribbean holiday while we have yet to go on one or...

Brain Food: Words-Worth - Gold.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... The marketeers like 'gold'. Perhaps the word has the Midas touch. Its meanings are legion. It's a precious metal, notable for the yellow colour that gave it its name ('gold' and 'yellow' were the same word in our Germanic past). The value...

Brain Food: We'd love that job - Trend-spotter - Warwick Cairns, Brandhouse WTS.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... What do you do? I spot trends. But rather than look at New York or the jet set, I'm fascinated by the commonplace, the things people look at every day and think 'what's that about?'. Weird questions, such as why people have shelves full of...

Brain Food: Remember This.(Spike Milligan, Frank Capra )(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... 'All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy' - Spike Milligan said it 'A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something' - Frank Capra said it.

Brain Food: How he made his pile - Simon Fuller, CEO, 19 Entertainment.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Who is he? The creator of the Spice Girls, S Club 7 and TV's Pop Idol. His oeuvre may induce shudders, but it has landed the 45-year-old pounds 300 million. How did he make his millions? Fuller's bands took manufactured pop to new...

Brain Food: Stat of the Month - What a waste - dollars 81bn, The annual Government spend on 'useless' projects.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... This figure comes from the Taxpayers' Alliance, so you might suspect exaggeration. The Treasury's own Gershon Review of 2004 put possible 'efficiency savings' at pounds 21 billion, but proposed ploughing another pounds 300 million into an...

Brain Food: Beverly Malone - If I had to start again ..(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... If I could really sing, I'd have loved to be a gospel singer. I grew up around people who had incredible voices, so that was something I always yearned to do. I was raised in Kentucky by my great-grandmother, who was a healer in the...

Brain Food: Crash Course in ... Managing Absence.
August 1, 2006... It's Monday morning and your department is half-empty. Has a virulent flu bug been flying around over the weekend or is your whole workforce throwing a sickie? Either way, you can't run your business with this level of absence. Take...

Brain Food: MT Masterclass - Scalability.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... What is it? OK, you've got a great idea, you know there's a market for it, the only question is: can you grow fast enough (and reliably enough) to meet all the demand you are about to tap into? Welcome to the great scalability challenge. As...

Brain Food: Decisions - Lynn Brewer, Enron Whistleblower, conscience of the disgraced American energy giant.
August 1, 2006... MY BEST... Taking the job at Enron. It was an amazing opportunity. Guys like Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay were the Beatles of the energy world and they recruited the best and the brightest. Working there was a chance to be challenged and...

Brain Food: Behind the Spin - Airbus.(crisis management)
August 1, 2006... THE DILEMMA Things couldn't be trickier for the pan-European airliner business, beset by delays to its new A380 superjumbo, falling demand for its other models and strife at the top. Both Airbus MD Gustav Humbert and Noel Forgeard, the...

Our imprint on the world.(job statisfaction )
August 1, 2006... We value work only if it has meaning and purpose - pay and perks come second. Being able to make a difference is the real reward for our endeavours. The lazy days of August are when we get the chance to read trashy novels, lie about on...

Books: Business and divine sparks.(Management and Creativity )(Book review)
August 1, 2006... It's no longer enough to let artists-in-residence wander aimlessly round the office. Colin Tweedy reviews a book that seeks to open up creativity to the whole team. Could the seemingly opposing worlds of creativity and management ever be...

Books: Surrender to your powers of intuition ..(How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas)(Book review)
August 1, 2006... You too can recast yourself as a cauldron of creative energy, like the author. But, asks Helen Kirwan-Taylor, why try so hard? Much has been written of late about 'flow' and creativity. The consensus seems to be that the less we focus on...

Books - Three of a kind - Readings on the moral compass.(Business Ethics and the 21st Century Organization)(The Heart of a Business Ethic)(Business Ethics)(Brief article)(Book review)
August 1, 2006... Business Ethics and the 21st Century Organization; Peter Whates; BSI pounds 40.00 The most practical of the three, Business Ethics is a round-up of thinking from across the world, drawing on real business experience as case studies, and...

France in a funk.
August 1, 2006... No Olympics, no Euro constitution and riots in the suburbs... But the French continue to produce world-class companies. So need they be so glum? Charles Bremner reports. With their wild flowers and rushing streams, the foothills of the...

The MT Interview: Franck Riboud.(DANONE Group's )(Interview)
August 1, 2006... A decade at the top of yoghurt firm Danone hasn't dented the boss's modesty. The scooter-driving ex-windsurfer has quietly steered the company to global eminence. While not welcoming his government's intervention in l'affaire Pepsi last year,...

You're never too old.
August 1, 2006... With pensions retreating over the horizon, a clampdown on ageism at work and a skills shortage, are seniors about to have their moment? Stefan Stern reports. In the summer of love, Dustin Hoffman was too busy in an upstairs bedroom to...

How to manage the moaners.
August 1, 2006... There they are, spreading doubt and sorrow throughout the office - and they need to be tackled before they drag us all down. Emma de Vita targets the whinger on your team. Think back over your day - have you had to listen to somebody moan?...

Table Talk: Where Tony Ash eats ..(Gordon Ramsay )(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's is just so damn special. Being based in London, I feel blessed - so many restaurants to choose from and an expense account that means I can use them. But this is so much more upmarket than anywhere else. You...

On the Road: The Audi RS4 is warpingly fast but - driven briskly rather than all-out - it's remarkably serene.(Product/service evaluation)
August 1, 2006... On the rare occasions that you can find a straight long enough to exercise every last one of this Audi's 414 horses, you'll hear the most compelling sound. It doesn't come until the engine is spinning hard, but then you hear an...

What's Your Problem?(human resource management)
August 1, 2006... In your unenviable task of making redundancies you are not conducting a popularity contest. Q: I'm the HR manager of a firm of around 120 people. We've merged with another company and now I'm in the unenviable position of having to make 40...

First-Class Coach.
August 1, 2006... Giving your boss data on his performance might help him realise that he's over-using his negativity. Q: My boss is very cynical and, I suspect, a misogynist. It's depressing working with him - he can always be relied on to put a downer on...

Business Lifeforms: The takeover merchant.
August 1, 2006... Private-equity hardman Murray Wright finds grim satisfaction in his wealth. In an anonymous suite of offices, in a nondescript building, up an obscure street on the City's tatty north-eastern fringes are the headquarters of Murray Wright's...